Destroyed by Attila about 1500 years ago, Altinum was said to have been a gorgeous coastal city that bloomed with commerce and culture for centuries. Relics found in the area date the city's rise to roughly the 5th century BC. Inhabitants fled after its destruction, and the city has the odd honor of being the only ancient Roman city in Italy that was not buried by medieval or modern cities.

For that reason, the city was a perfect spot to conduct an experiment in discerning the outlines of ancient structures using ordinary and near-infrared aerial photography. The results, revealing the city's topography for the first time in over a millennium, are published today in Science.

According to Science:

The photos were taken during a severe drought in 2007, which made it possible to pick up the presence of stones, bricks or compacted solids beneath the surface. The results show that the city was surrounded by rivers and canals, including a large canal that cut through the city center, connecting it to the lagoon. Two gates or bridges were built into the walls encircling the city, providing further evidence of how the city's residents adapted to their amphibious surroundings.

In these images, you can see how the photographs of the farmlands show distinct outlines of roads and walls. Two other images show what those faint lines really were, according to the researchers; and where Altinum is relative to modern Venice.

via Science

Between 1630 and 1631, the plague killed one third of Venice's population, wiping out 50,000 people out of a population of 150,000 in just one year. The panicked population, trying to stop the disease from spreading, often blamed female "vampires" for infecting the living. It was believed that people who chewed or bit their shrouds might be vampires (a dead body might appear to be chewing its shroud if it had post-mortem motor movements, which is fairly common; or bloody fluid released from the mouth after death might make it seem as if the shroud had been soiled by vampire nastiness).

To stop these "vampires," grave diggers would sort through bodies in mass graves and try to find ones who had bitten their shrouds and then shove a brick in their mouths to stop the threat. Yesterday researchers on an island near Venice announced they'd excavated a mass grave and found possibly the earliest example on record of a "vampire" who'd been buried with a brick in her mouth.

via The Hindu

Photo via Matteo Borrini and National Geographic

A paper published this week in Britain’s Journal of Experimental Botany reports the find in China’s Xinjiang region, where many modern strains of cannabis are thought to have originated. In addition to 789 grams of marijuana, the tomb contained bridles, archery equipment, and a harp, apparent provisions for the afterlife. Unlike other early examples of cannabis use, the research team believes that the marijuana was included for its psychoactive properties. Said the lead researcher, neurologist Ethan Russo:

"It was common practice in burials to provide materials needed for the afterlife. No hemp or seeds were provided for fabric or food. Rather, cannabis as medicine or for visionary purposes was supplied."

Russo studies the effects of cannabis on the brain, including its use in pain management for multiple sclerosis and cancer patients. He and other researchers have been conducting a battery of tests on the ancient weed, such as attempting to measure the levels of THC and germinate the seeds found in the cache, in an attempt to better understand ancient uses of the plant.

[The Star]

A new study by North Carolina State archaeologist Scott Fitzpatrick revealed that the South Americans who colonized the island of Carriacou arrived with sniffing bowls that had been made sometime between 400 and 100 BC. Because the island was colonized in 400 AD, that would mean these drug bowls had been in the colonists' families for possibly 800 years before they sailed for the West Indies.

According to a forthcoming paper co-authored by Fitzpatrick in the Journal of Archaeological Science:

The research team used a dating technique called luminescence to determine the age of several artifacts found on the Caribbean island of Carriacou . . . Luminescence testing involves heating a substance and measuring the amount of light it gives off to determine how long ago it was last heated.

Though scholars have long thought that colonists of the West Indies brought heirlooms with them, this is the first physical proof.

Evidence for Inter-Island Transport of Heirlooms [via Journal of Archaeological Science]

Mostly, the dig will allow researchers to get more rock fragments that they hope to carbon date. According to the Independent:

The two-week project will try to establish the precise dating of the "Double Bluestone Circle", the first stone structure to have been erected at the site thousands of years ago . . . "The bluestones hold the key to understanding the purpose and meaning of Stonehenge," said Dr Simon Thurley, the chief executive of English Heritage. "Their arrival marked a turningpoint in the history of Stonehenge, changing the site from being a fairly standard formative henge with timber structures and occasional use for burial, to the complex stone structure whose remains dominate the site today."

The bluestones are natural columns of white-spotted dolerite, found only in the Carn Menyn region of the Preseli Hills, in north Pembrokeshire, and it was from there, about 4,500 years ago, that Stonehenge's neolithic builders brought 80 of the stones the 160-mile journey from south-west Wales to Salisbury Plain. The reasons why they did so, archaeologists argue, hold the key to Stonehenge's existence.

Researchers now also believe that Stonehenge may have been a popular destination among Romans as well as local tribes. Again from the Independent:

A classical legend associated with the Greek Oracle of Delphi may also be relevant to Stonehenge's past. The legend states that the oracle at Delphi functioned for only part of the year because, for three months around the winter solstice, the site's oracular deity (the sun god Apollo) went to the "land of the hyperboreans" (literally "the land of the people beyond the north wind!"), which is generally believed to be Britain. Significantly, Stonehenge is aligned with the winter as well as the summer solstice.

The Secret of Stonehenge [Independent]