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"O projeto de digitalização de jornais históricos do Google vai chegar ao fim, segundo o site Google Search Engine Land. O projeto, chamado de Google Archive Search, foi lançado em 2008 e já havia digitalizado mais de dois mil jornais. De acordo com o site, já estavam circulando alguns rumores sobre o fechamento do serviço, mas a declaração do porta-voz da empresa confirmou que o projeto será finalizado. "Usuários poderão continuar buscando por jornais digitalizados no site, mas não temos mais planos de introduzir novas ferramentas ou funcionalidades do Google News Archive e nem aceitaremos mais novas digitalizações", disse."

Welcome to European History Primary Sources (EHPS), an index of scholarly websites that offer online access to digitised primary sources on the history of Europe. The websites listed on EHPS are not only meta-sources but also include invented archives and born digital sources. Each website that is listed in EHPS has a short description and is categorised according to country, language, period, subject and type of source. The portal can be searched in a variety of ways. The listed websites can be accessed for free, though sometimes a registration is required. EHPS is a work in progress and new content is regularly added. In order to stay updated on new entries or specific categories in which you are interested it is possible to subscribe to RSS feeds or to follow EHPS on Twitter.

"With the help of enhanced imagery and an expert in Elizabethan script, archaeologists are beginning to unravel the meaning of mysterious text and images etched into a rare 400-year-old slate tablet discovered this past summer at Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America. Digitally enhanced images of the slate are helping to isolate inscriptions and illuminate fine details on the slate-the first with extensive inscriptions discovered at any early American colonial site, said William Kelso, director of research and interpretation at the 17th-century Historic Jamestowne site (Jamestown map). (Explore an interactive guide to colonial Jamestown.) The enhancements have helped researchers identify a 16th-century writing style used on the slate and discern new symbols, researchers announced last week. The characters may be from an obscure Algonquian Indian alphabet created by an English scientist to help explorers pronounce the language spoken by the Virginia Indians. "Just like finding the Rosetta Stone led to a better understanding of the Egyptians, this tablet is beginning to add significantly to our understanding of the earliest years at Jamestown," Kelso said. It conveys messages about literacy, art, symbols and signs personally communicated by the colonists who used it, he explained. "What other single artifact has been found that has so much to tell?" Both sides of the scratched and worn 5-by-8 inch (13-by-20 centimeter) tablet are covered with words, symbols, numbers, and drawings of people, plants, and birds that its owner or other users likely encountered in the New World. There are differences in the style of handwriting, which may mean that more than one person used the tablet as a sketch pad and possibly for writing rough drafts of documents, Kelso noted. Enhanced Images To help researchers decipher the inscriptions, curators at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum Conservation Institute recently produced enhanced images

"Archaeologists excavate the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in Israel in an undated photo. Photograph courtesy Gonen Sharon, Hebrew University of Jerusalem Mati Milstein in Tel Aviv, Israel for National Geographic News January 12, 2009 It's long been thought that so-called modern human behavior first arose during the middle Stone Age, in "modern" humans-Homo sapiens. But a new study suggests modern living may have originated roughly 500,000 years earlier-courtesy of one of our hairy, heavy-browed ancestor species. At the prehistoric Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site in northern Israel, researchers have found the earliest known evidence of social organization, communication, and divided living and working spaces-all considered hallmarks of modern human behavior. The former hunter-gatherer encampment dates back as far as 750,000 years ago, and must have been built by Homo erectus or another ancestral human species, archaeologists say. Homo sapiens-our own species-emerged only about a couple hundred thousand years ago, fossil record suggest. At the site, researchers found artifacts including hand axes, chopping tools, scrapers, hammers and awls, animal bones, and botanical remains buried in distinct areas. "Different tasks"-from nut processing to seafood preparation-"were taking place in different locations in the site," said archaeologist Naama Goren-Inbar, who led the excavation. "The modification of basalt tools was done in proximity to the fireplace but, on the other hand, flint [sharpening] was done on the other end of the site in association with where we found a lot of fish teeth," said Goren-Inbar, of Hebrew University's Institute of Archaeology in Mount Scopus, Israel. Traditionally, the search for the earliest signs of modern human behavior has focused on Homo sapiens sites from the middle Stone Age (roughly 300,000 to 50,000 years ago), due to the preponderance of evidence found at them in the past. (Related: "Prehistoric Bones Point to F