Archeologists

Video recorder in hand, Wang Hong sat inside a small stone-and-brick house with one of China's aging musical masters -- a Mongolian vocalist named Hajab who once sang his region's ancestral melodies for Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Wang had ventured from his home in San Francisco to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia on a quest to mine the ancient harmonies of the Middle Kingdom. He had lobbied state authorities and waited months for permission to visit Hajab. He brought beer to their first meeting.

In late fall, 200 years ago, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had at long last reached the Pacific Coast, but found themselves in a cold, rain-soaked forest facing the onset of an even wetter and colder winter. To protect themselves from the elements, Lewis and Clark and the men of the Corps of Discovery built a log fort -- the site of which would go on to become a national memorial and a central part of the region's identity. When a replica of Ft.

Up a steep, narrow road in a remote part of this small town is an old icehouse with only the four stone walls still standing. A tunnel runs from the icehouse more than 20 feet and stops, but the mystery surrounding it has lingered for generations. Legend has it that the property was a stop on the Underground Railroad, and a team of archeological experts from Central Connecticut State University spent several days in August digging at the site for clues.

An international team of archeologists attempting to retrace a Bronze Age trade route by sailing from Oman to India in a reed boat had to be rescued this week by the Omani navy. The 40-foot craft was made of reeds, date palm fibers and tar. It had a wool sail and two teak oars. The team made it seven miles from the port of Sur in Oman before the boat sank.

The oldest confirmed salt production facility in China has been identified in an area of the Three Gorges scheduled to be flooded by a new hydroelectric dam, a team of Chinese and American archeologists announced this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The 4,000-year-old facility at Zhongba on the Ganjing River in central China was a major source of wealth and power for the emerging civilizations of the second millennium BC.

When it comes to discount retailing in Los Angeles, there are two main players: the 99 Cents Only Stores chain and rival Big Lots. At Big Lots, with its higher price points, there's more variety. You're offered $10 dish sets, a plethora of small appliances, and lawn furniture so reasonably priced you don't feel so bad when you forget it at the beach. Among the four-quarter bargains at 99 Cents Only Stores, though, you can find something far more valuable: the truth.

Mexico and Egypt share a rare historical distinction: a superabundance of monumental pyramids and other relics of ancient civilizations. But although foreign experts have helped lead the exploration of Egypt's rich archeology for more than a century, specialists from Mexico have never been invited. Until now. For the first time, a Mexican archeological team has been selected by Egypt's top antiquities authorities to work in the famous Upper Nile Valley.

A sewer might be no place for an emperor, but it is precisely from an ancient drainage system that archeologists have dug up a large marble sculpture of Constantine, one of Rome's greatest leaders. Archeologists found the 24-inch-tall head last week while clearing a sewer in the Roman Forum, the center of public life in the ancient city, said Eugenio La Rocca, superintendent for Rome's monuments.

Archeologists working at the site of a proposed development in Mesa, Ariz., say they have unearthed one of the largest integrated canal systems built by the Hohokam Indians in the Phoenix area. Twenty Hohokam canals, uncovered during an archeological survey of the 240-acre site, have been found since October. The largest measures 45 feet wide and 16 feet deep.

There are 788 U.N. World Heritage sites: The Galapagos Islands of Ecuador and England's Stonehenge pop to mind immediately. Of America's 20 venues, most -- like Yellowstone and the Statue of Liberty -- are easily accessible destinations with well-understood histories. By contrast, Chaco Culture National Historical Park in northwestern New Mexico is hard to reach and enigmatic.