65,000 colonial-era artifacts have been unearthed during construction of a subway station in New York City.

The goat bones and oyster shells tell us what our colonial forefathers ate. Stone jugs from Germany show where they traded, and stylish brass buckles and pointy leather shoes are a reminder that New Yorkers have always been fashion savvy.

These are among 65,000 historic artifacts that have turned up during construction at the South Ferry subway station, and offer a rare glimpse into colonial New York. Next month, a new exhibit will provide the public with a window into this vanished way of life.

“This is probably the only time in our lifetime that this area will be dug up and studied,” said Carissa Amash, curator at the New York Transit Museum, which will showcase the artifacts discovered at South Ferry.

“We have history books. But the artifacts provide information about what was actually going on,” Diane Dallal, archaeology director for AKRF, a firm that analyzed the remnants.

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Remember the hubub last year regarding a large 1,000-year-old mound that was going to be be bull-dozed to help construct a Sam’s Club? The archaeologist to signed the archaeological report is now backtracking and claims the mound was made by natural causes.

The Anniston Star reports that Robert Clouse told the Oxford city council Tuesday that erosion and other natural forces likely created the mound. Clouse heads the Office of Archaeological Research at the University of Alabama and the University of Alabama Museums.

Clouse was answering questions about the mound behind the Oxford Exchange and the apparent removal of another mound at the historic Davis Farm site.

Clouse last year signed a report on the potential archaeological significance of the mound. Protests erupted last year when the city tried to remove the hill under the mound to use as fill dirt to build a Sam’s Club store nearby.

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Workers doing construction at the Yorkshire Museum in England uncovered a buried skeleton.

The skeleton was found in a shallow grave as work was carried out on the museum’s drains.

The remains have been removed by archaeologists. They will be examined by experts to try to work out how long the skeleton had been there for.

The museum was built on the site of the medieval St Mary’s Abbey. A 4m (13ft) deep well was also discovered.

Its curator of archaeology, Andrew Morrison, said: “At this stage it is very hard to work out much about him or her, but they were buried east to west which suggests a Christian burial.

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Tombs discovered near the great pyramids in Egypt suggest that they were built by free men, not slaves.

The location of the tombs, where workers who built the pyramids of Khufu (Cheops) and Khafre (Chephren) are buried, suggests they were not slaves.

The tombs, made from bricks of dried mud, date back 4,500 years.

They are the first to be discovered since the first such workers’ tombs were found in 1990.

“These tombs were built beside the king’s pyramid, which indicates these people were not by any means slaves,” Zahi Hawass, the chief archaeologist heading the Egyptian excavation team, said in a statement.

“If they were slaves, they would not have been able to build their tombs beside their king’s.”

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Check out this awesome collection of blueprints and photographs showing the construction of the Eiffel Tower.

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