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A skull found by a dog walker in Somerset dates back to the Iron Age, scientists have revealed.

Roger Evans of Newtown found the skull on the banks of the River Sowy in March last year.

Scientists say the head belonged to a woman aged 45 or older in the late Iron Age - 380-190 BC, centuries before the first Roman invasion of Britain.

Further investigations nearby revealed timber posts, which are being tested to see if they are from the same date.

Following the discovery, the Environment Agency (EA) reduced water levels in the area to allow South West Heritage Trust (SWHT) and its own archaeologists to search for more clues. 

A team of scientists will train dogs to see if the animals can sniff out looted artifacts from the Middle East that are being smuggled into the United States.

Dogs have a greater sense of smell than humans and are already being used to sniff out bombs, drugs and ivory. Now, scientists are hoping the canines can also be trained to sniff out artifacts from Syria and Iraq, war-torn countries that have experienced widespread looting of archaeological sites.

Archaeologists working in Siberia have discovered an undisturbed ancient kurgan—a tomb of a Scythian prince. The tomb appears to be both the oldest and largest of its kind ever recorded in southern Siberia, according to a press release from the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Gino Caspari, an Swiss archaeologist with Bern University, first identified an intriguing circular structure while studying high-resolution satellite imagery of Siberia’s Uyuk River Valley and suspected it could be a kurgan, according to the press release. A collaboration between Caspari and researchers from the Russian Academy of Sciences as well as the State Hermitage Museum carried out a preliminary dig in over the summer of 2017; they found that Caspari had been right. A paper describing the research was published in the scientific journal Archaeological Research in Asia.