The remains of a 150,000-year-old settlement has been found in Arbil, north Iraq. It is, so far, the oldest uncovered settlement found in that part of Mesopotamia.

The archaeologists revealed a high number of items, mainly prehistoric stone tools, about nine metres under the ground in Arbil, capital of the Kurdish autonomous region, said archaeologist Novacek, from the University of West Bohemia in Plzen.

The eight-member expedition returned from Iraq at the end of last year. The team comprised experts from the University of West Bohemia, academic and university institutions in Prague and two companies.

Czech experts have succeeded in finding evidence of the oldest human settlement in the locality as all other finds of American expeditions working there 50 years ago are probably younger.

“We have been the first foreign expedition in this area since the second Gulf War in 2006,” Novacek added.

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A 5,000-year-old settlement has been found in Southern Sumatra.

Irfan Wintarto, an official at the Lahat Culture and Tourism Agency’s Historical and Archeological Preservation Department, said local residents had discovered around 36 types of rocks on a 150-by-300-meter plot in the middle of a 2-hectare coffee plantation. The site is currently being investigated by the Archeological Region Conservation and Heritage Center (BPPP).

“The findings are believed to date back to around 5,000 B.C.,” Irfan said.

“The types of rocks and megaliths found are quite diverse.”

Among the items are a mortar and a 1-by-1.3-meter relief showing a woman riding an elephant with two children, and people being attacked by crocodiles and large snakes, as well as several altars believed to have been used for offerings.

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An 11th-century viking settlement has been found in Dublin, Ireland.

Clear signs of a late-11th century – ie Viking – house have been found at a site in the Smithfield area owned by the Office of Public Works (OPW). Excavation works, commissioned and funded by the OPW, have been under way at Hammond Lane, off Church Street, since last year.

Some 17th- and 18th-century artefacts have been found since then, while evidence of a “substantial Viking house” was uncovered there last week, said excavation director Colm Moriarty.

National Museum director Pat Wallace said the great significance of the find lay in the location of the house north of the Liffey.

The find would be of even greater importance if it could be demonstrated the house was part of a neighbourhood and not just stand-alone. “If it can be established that there was a Hiberno-Norse suburb north of the Liffey, that would be hugely significant,” said Dr Wallace.

Eleven archaeologists working onsite have dug down to reveal “latrines and ditches” as well as the holes in the ground into which hazel or silver-birch posts would have been thrust to make the “walls” of the house.

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An 11,000-year-old settlement has been discovered in the north of Sweden.

The discovery, located near Pajala in Sweden’s far north, is the oldest settlement to be found in the county of Norrbotten, according to archaeologist Olof Ostlund. “Now the pages in the National Encyclopaedia regarding inland ice can be torn out and burned,” said Ostlund.

The find was made during a routine search for ancient remains by archaeologists in the area around Kaunisvaar where a new mine is scheduled to open, reports The Local. First located in early September, Ostlund’s team was able to date the settlement with the aid of radiocarbon dating.

“I had been expecting old dates. But when I saw that the first numbers were very high I felt immediately that this was bingo. When the second number was five figures – I felt faint,” Ostlund stated. The scientist compared the discovery to a similar settlement in nearby Kangofors which was discovered five years ago and dated back 10,000 years.

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The remnants of a stone wall built to defend Canada’s earliest English settlement has been uncovered in Newfoundland.

Buried under soil and rubble dumped by 19th-century residents of Cupids — the Conception Bay village set to celebrate its 400th anniversary next year — the wall was hidden until this summer within a thicket of aspen trees north of the enclosed townsite where experts have already unearthed building foundations and artifacts from the original 17th-century colony.

The newly discovered remains suggest the wall might have housed seaward-facing cannons to ward off attackers in the early 1600s, an era when rival fishermen from France, Spain and Portugal — as well as the notorious English pirate Peter Easton — sometimes menaced the fledgling coastal community.

“We found this feature in September and had it uncovered during the royal visit,” Bill Gilbert, the site’s chief archeologist, said. “I did mention it briefly to the prince but the tour was so short — only 20 minutes — that we didn’t get to go into anything in too much detail.”

If the 46-centimetre-thick wall proves to be what it looks like at first glance — a bulwark protecting Britain’s first foothold in the future Canada — the discovery will add another layer of significance to a site already rich with symbolism.

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