Searching for Amelia Earhart V: Return to Nikumaroro

One of the enduring mysteries of recent history is the disappearance of pioneer aviator Amelia Earhart, who dropped out of sight while circumnavigating the globe in July of 1937. For the past several years, archaeologists associated with The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) have concentrated on the tiny Pacific Ocean island of Nikumaroro as the possible crash site, conducting documentary research and oral history, as well as a series of excavations on the island itself. This past summer, archaeologists returned for the fifth season to Nikumaroro to continue the search for evidence that Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan crash-landed there when they disappeared in 1937. Work in Summer 2007 involved investigations in the nearby town (1938-1963), and the "Seven Site", where a partial human skeleton was found in 1940, along with a sextant box, a Benedictine bottle and a woman’s shoe.

Additional materials that may be from Earhart's flight were discovered this summer, including a zipper fragment, some bronze fittings, a piece of beveled glass and more fragments from a Benedictine bottle. A report and some new photographs are detailed in a blog entry at the Rowan & Littlefield publisher's blog site.

• In Amelia Earhart’s Shoes: Return to Nikumaroro, the blog entry on Rowan & Littlefield's website
• Amelia Earhart and Archaeology, a report on earlier investigations, from investigator Tom King.
• Amelia Earhart's Shoes, a review of the 2004 edition of the book on the archaeological investigations, authored by several members of the investigation
• Biography of Amelia Earhart, from Jone Johnson Lewis, About.com's guide to Women's History
• TIGHAR