ARCHAEOLOGY January - February 2015

A Way to Remember “Dawn of a Thousand Suns” (November/December 2014) brought back memories of a visit to the Nevada Test Site that I made some years ago. In 1988 I was a petroleum geologist working in Nevada. I attended the Geological Society of America convention in Las Vegas that year and took their “Geology of the Nevada Test Site” field trip. After I read your article I dug out all my material from that trip. I still have all the handouts and maps we were given in our one-day tour. We visited Yucca Mountain, the Sedan crater, and Frenchman Flat, and went underground in the G Tunnel. We were not allowed to bring cameras, but I recognize the train trestle and the bank vault in your piece. We had…

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It is again our pleasure to ring in the new year by announcing our roster of “Top 10 Discoveries” (page 24). In 2014, from evidence in the Yucatán of the earliest-known inhabitants of the Americas, to excavations in a Nepalese temple that may help determine when Buddha actually lived, to Amphipolis in Greece, where a monumental fourth-century B.C. tomb has been uncovered, and more, archaeology continued to advance our knowledge of the human past in exciting ways Not all great discoveries, however, are recognized the moment they’re made. Senior editor Daniel Weiss spoke with archaeologist Susanne Bickel, who is excavating a tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, a burial likely ignored by earlier archaeologists because of its state of disarray. “Beyond the Pharaohs” (page 38) explores what Bickel believes may…

In 2014, the AIA organized its first crowdfunding campaign. Trough the website Indiegogo, the AIA raised nearly $6,000 for its Society Outreach Grant Program. Te program provides small grants to AIA Local Societies to support community activities designed to raise interest in archaeology and to familiarize people with the AIA and its activities. Events supported range from lectures to large archaeology fairs. Below are the programs that received grants in 2014: • Silencing Homer: Te Iliad and the Odyssey in Early Cinema—AIA Charleston Society in conjunction with the Archaeology and Classics Clubs at the College of Charleston • International Archaeology Day Fair in Virginia—AIA Charlottesville Society with the University of Virginia’s McIntire Department of Art, Department of Anthropology, Interdisciplinary Archaeology Program, Fralin Museum of Art, and Institute for Advanced Technology…