Yalda, an ancient Persian tradition, is the last night of the autumn and the longest of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. It falls on December 21 this year.

Iranians and other people in historically Persian-influenced regions, including Azerbaijan Republic, Afghanistan and Tajikistan, traditionally turn the “longest and darkest night” of the year into a jubilant occasion.

“Yalda Night,” Last year goes on the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Representative List of the Intangible.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—A DNA sample has been extracted from the pelt of a Pacific Northwest Coast Salish woolly dog named Mutton, who had been adopted, perhaps from a Coast Salish community near the town of Chilliwack, British Columbia, by a naturalist and ethnographer working for the U.S. government, according to a Washington Post report. When Mutton died in 1859, his pelt was preserved at the Smithsonian Institution. Although the breed as a whole also disappeared in the nineteenth century, traditional knowledge of Coast Salish people indicates that the fluffy white dogs were raised by women, who fed them a special diet of fish or elk, kept them apart from other dogs, and then used their wool to make blankets and other textiles. Analysis of Mutton’s DNA sample suggests that woolly dogs split from other North American dogs between 1,900 and 4,800 years ago. Only 16 percent of Mutton’s ancestry came from European dogs, while the rest of his ancestry came from precolonial Indigenous dogs, confirming that woolly dogs had been isolated from European dogs shortly before they disappeared. “They were told they couldn’t do their cultural things,” said Rena Point Bolton, an elder from the Stó:lō Nation. “There was the police, the Indian agent, and the priests. The dogs were not allowed,” she explained

NEW YORK, NEW YORK—The New York Times reports that the Metropolitan Museum of Art will repatriate 16 Khmer artifacts obtained through a now-deceased art collector indicted in 2019 for trafficking in looted antiquities. Fourteen of the objects, including a seventh-century sculpture head of Buddha, will be returned to Cambodia, and the other two will be handed over to Thailand. The Cambodian government has stated that dozens of artifacts in the museum’s collections were stolen during periods of civil war and turmoil beginning in the 1970s. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security Investigations have been investigating those claims. “The Met has been diligently working with Cambodia and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for years to resolve questions regarding these works of art, and new information that arose from this process made it clear that we should initiate the return of this group of sculptures,” said Max Hollein, director of the Met. Additional Khmer artifacts in the museum’s collections may be returned to Cambodia as the investigation continues

2023 Theme: the power of collective action: if everyone did

This year, we mark International Volunteer Day (IVD) by recognizing the power of collective action: if everyone did.

If everyone volunteered, the world would be a better place.  Imagine more than eight billion of us volunteering. Limitless possibilities for sustainable development – food and education for everyone, clean environment and good health, inclusive and peaceful societies, and more.

Volunteerism is an enormous renewable resource for social, economic and environmental problem-solving throughout the world. As the world faces mounting challenges, volunteers are often the first to help. Volunteers are at the fore in crises and emergencies, often in very testing and dire situations.

Join us in recognizing volunteers all over the world through our social media campaign, using the hashtags #IfEveryoneDid and #IVD2023. View the IVD 2023 Trello Board for resources.

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Mandated by the UN General Assembly, the International Volunteer Day  is held each year on 5 December. It is viewed as a unique chance for volunteers and organizations to celebrate their efforts, to share their values, and to promote their work among their communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), United Nations agencies, government authorities and the private sector.

Apart from mobilising thousands of volunteers every year, the United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme contributes to peace and development by advocating for the recognition of volunteers and working with partners to integrate volunteerism into development programming.

https://www.un.org/en/observances/volunteer-day

Archaeologists have discovered a 16,800-year-old Palaeolithic dwelling in the La Garma cave complex, located in the municipality of Ribamontán al Monte in Spain’s Cantabria province.

The La Garma cave complex is a parietal art-bearing paleoanthropological cave system on the southern side of the La Garma Hill.

The cave complex is noted for one of the best preserved floors from the Palaeolithic period, containing more than 4,000 fossils and more than 500 graphical units.

A project led by Pablo Arias and Roberto Ontañón from the University of Cantabria has recently announced the discovery of a Palaeolithic dwelling within the cave system, described as “one of the best preserved Palaeolithic dwellings in the world.”

https://www.heritagedaily.com/2023/12/16800-year-old-palaeolithic-dwelling-found-in-la-garma-cave/149781

BERLIN, GERMANY—According to a report in The Art Newspaper, 75 artifacts were repatriated to Mexico in a ceremony held at Mexico’s embassy in Berlin. All but one of the items had been collected by a German national who had been working near Mexico’s Gulf Coast some 120 years ago. The artifacts were then donated to the Museum Schloss Salder in 1963, where they were identified as Huastecan. The remaining artifact, a 4,000-year-old stone mortar tripod, was seized by customs officials in Leipzig. “Their restitution not only guarantees their preservation and study, but also returns a fundamental part of their historical memory to our Indigenous communities,” commented Francisco José Quiroga Fernández, Mexico’s ambassador to Germany.

For the first time, the Vatican is allowing the public to enter a necropolis. On November 17, it opened a gate along its walls to enter the Via Triumphalis Necropolis, an ancient Roman burial ground that lies beneath Vatican City. It is replete with marble sarcophagi, open burial graves, and Roman mosaics and frescoes.

CORUM, TURKEY—The Anadolu Agency reports that an excavation in northern Turkey at the site of Hattusha has uncovered a 2,800-year-old piece of carved ivory measuring about one foot long. Archaeologist Andreas Schachner of the German Archaeological Institute, who is leading the excavation, said that the ornament was discovered in the Great Fortress area of the Hittite capital. It is the first time that carved ivory has been recovered from the site, and it may have been imported, he added. The carvings depict a sphinx, a lion, and two trees of life. “Most likely, in its own period, it was added as a decoration to a wooden box or a piece of furniture made of wood,” Schachner said. “The work is broken on its right and left sides, but the upper and lower sides are intact. So, it can be inferred that it was actually longer,” he concluded. 

SELJE, NORWAY—A 4,000-year-old stone-lined tomb discovered near the coast of southwestern Norway may hold the remains of the region’s first farmers, according to a Live Science report. The cist, excavated by a team of researchers from the University Museum of Bergen ahead of a construction project, measures about 10 feet long and five feet wide, and has two chambers. The remains of an elderly man, a toddler, and a young woman have been identified. Additional bones in the tomb may represent the remains of another two individuals who had been buried at an earlier date. Traces of dwellings, trash heaps full of animal bones, shell beads, and a stone blade sickle that may have been used to harvest grain have also been uncovered at the site. Team member Yvonne Dahl said that DNA testing of the bones may reveal if the tomb’s occupants were related to one another, and if they were descended from farmers who migrated from the east, or were local people who adopted the practice