The two institutes have developed compact and portable x-ray devices capable of analysing the structure and chemical composition of ancient bones, buildings, and art objects in a non-destructive fashion.

UNESCO: Basic Sciences

The National Library of China (NLC) contributed manuscripts, maps, books, and rubbings of steles and oracle bones that span the range of Chinese history from ancient to modern times.

UNESCO: Communication and Information

Since young bones are fragile, such a complete specimen of an ancient infant is a startling find.

ECONOMIST: An ancient child has been discovered

In the mid-1980s, he bought a ranch near Santa Fe that includes the 57-acre ancient pueblo of San Lazaro, where he has spent years digging up bones, pottery and other artifacts that he keeps in a room off his garage.

NPR: 'I Love Mysteries,' Says Man Claiming Hidden Gold

To understand how the pygmy whale fit into the lineage of whales, Marx and his colleagues carefully analyzed the skull bones and other fossil fragments from pygmy right whales and several other ancient cetaceans.

MSN: Found: Whale thought extinct for 2 million years

Due to their size and the nearby bones, some archaeologists think the urns were prehistoric burial sites for an ancient civilisation that travelled along a forgotten overland trade route between the Mekong River and the Gulf of Tonkin.

BBC: Laos�� strange plain of jars

Korea's, meanwhile, dates back 8-9, 000 years - the oldest documented anywhere on the planet - with ancient rock art showing the unmistakeable coming together of harpoon and whale, and piles of bones testifying to their consumption.

BBC: South Korea's whaling: Faux and cons

Long barrows are ancient Neolithic burial sites from about 6, 000 years ago, but radio carbon dating has shown the bones date to between 1523 and 1799.

BBC: Incomplete human skeleton