CWA 24 was published in July 2007 and contained articles on the Palaeoindian site of Folsom -North America’s most famous site, the ancient, pre-Islamic, history of Northern Arabia, the discovery of Europe's oldest modern humans in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains and finally, a profile of the forthcoming British Museum Chinese Terracotta Army exhibition.
America
Folsom is arguably North America's most famous archaeological site. In 1927, the site, replete with the bones of extinct species and in situ stone tools, resolved one of the most bitter and enduring archaeological controversies over the antiquity of humans in America. For it finally demonstrated that people did indeed live in North America during the Ice Age – or Pleistocene – an era that ended some 10,000 years ago. The site was largely ignored for seven decades until the arrival of David J. Meltzer, the Henderson-Morrison Professor of Prehistory at Dallas' Southern Methodist University, who excavated there from 1997 to 1999. To much acclaim, he has just published a major book on the subject: Folsom: New Archaeological Excavations of a Classic Paleoindian Bison Kill.
Arabia
Saudi Arabia has a long and varied occupation history. In the mid-1960s an archaeological survey was launched, which led to the discovery of tens of thousands of known archaeological sites. Michael Rice and his colleagues were brought on board to create a raft of new Saudi museums to showcase the country's heritage.
The Nabatean site of Mada'in Saleh that lies northwest of Saudi Arabia
Romania
A jaw and a skull belonging to the earliest known modern humans to arrive in Europe have recently been found deep within a cave in the Romanian Carpathian Mountains. These remains show certain traits that suggest modern humans mixed with the local Neanderthals. It seems we are all slightly more Neanderthalthan previously believed.
Team excavating at the findspot of the Oase 2 skull
The nearly complete modern human cranium (the lower jaw was not found)
China
The First Emperor: China’s Terracotta Army has the prime venue: it will be housed at the very heart of the British Museum – in the grand Reading Room, which has been temporarily converted for this purpose. As for what will be on show, it will feature the largest group of important objects relating to the First Emperor ever to be loaned abroad by the
Museum of the Terracotta Army and the Cultural Relics Bureau of Shaanxi Province in Xi’an, China. The majority of the 120 objects to be shown at the exhibition come from the tomb of Qin Shihuangdi,the First Emperor of the Qin Dynasty.
A kneeling archer. The terracotta figures were once fully painted – as is still somewhat evident from his green face
A view of a troop of life-sized terracotta infantrym from Pit 1, in Xi'an, China. The British Museum will be displaying 12 warriors
