At http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0448-7000-year-old-sibe… … a burial mound going back to the 5th or 6th millennium BC, in western Siberia, has taken archaeologists by surprise. However, kurgans or mounds were pretty sophisticated by the late 4th millennium if we take as an example the Royal Tombs of Ur – thought to represent the burial of a steppe warrior (otherwise a foreign barbarian). Not sure why the surprise as it must have taken a period of development to reach a standard of sophistication as displayed in the Kuban kurgan burials.
Over at www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/biblical-city-of-sodom-foun… … it seems the media are catching up on the excavations at Tall el-Hammam, thought to be biblical Sodom. They took the story out of Popular Archaeology (see earlier post) and even Sky News have picked up on the story. The link comes with a video.
Steve Collins supplies a set of dates for activity at the site, 3500-1540BC (but this may not take into account the Chalcolithic era). When is the end of Middle Bronze Age as Collins dates the destruction of Hammam before that time? It was also abandoned for 700 years we are told – which brings us down to 850BC. Is this right? He is saying there are not LB age remains.