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ByKathyMatheson TheAssociatedPress PHILADELPHIA Anarchae- ology museum in Philadel- phia has made an extraordi- nary find — in its own stor- age rooms. The University of Penn- sylvania's Penn Museum an- nounced Tuesday that it had rediscovered a 6,500-year- old human skeleton origi- nally excavated from south- ern Iraq around 1930. The complete remains, which had been kept in a coffin-like box, were miss- ing documentation until researchers recently began digitizing the museum's col- lection from an expedition to Ur, an ancient city near modern-day Nasiriyah. Project manager Wil- liam Hafford was match- ing objects with inventory lists from the Sumerian trek when he came across a de- scription of a full skeleton that he couldn't find. He consulted Janet Monge, chief curator of physical anthropology, who happened to know of an un- labeled, mystery skeleton in the facility's basement stor- age area. "So we went, found the crate, opened it up and com- pared it to the field notes and the field photographs, and we had a match," Haf- ford said. The body is believed to be that of a well-muscled man at least 50 who stood 5 feet, 9 inches tall, according to Monge. She hopes a skeletal analysis, possibly including a CT scan, will reveal more about his diet, stresses, dis- eases and ancestral origins. Complete human skele- tons from that era — known as the Ubaid period, from 5500-4000 B.C. — are rare, partly because the region's burial practices and type of land didn't lead to good preservation, Monge said. The skeleton was cut into deep silt, indicating that the man had lived after an epic flood. That led Penn re- searchers to nickname their re-discovery "Noah." Archaeologists from the Ivy League university teamed up with research- ers from the British Mu- seum in 1922 for a dig led by Sir Leonard Woolley. Half of the objects found at Ur were sent to an Iraqi museum in Baghdad, while the other half was split between Lon- don and Philadelphia. Hafford and his coun- terparts in Britain are now working to digitize their share of the collection. They hope curators in Baghdad will eventually do the same, but coordination with of- ficials in the war-torn na- tion has been difficult, Haf- ford said. Coincidentally, in June, researchers at Bristol Uni- versity in Britain discovered a box of materials from the same Ur expedition on top of a cupboard. Research- ers determined the objects were 4,500 years old, in- cluding pottery, seeds, car- bonized apple rings and an- imal bones. No one knows how the box gottoBristol, which had no connection to the Wool- ley dig. Monge said it's not un- common for a research in- stitution like Penn — which is filled with hundreds of thousands of objects, from the smallest pottery shard to enormous totem poles — to have question marks surrounding the origins of some items. "I have quite a few spec- imens that are cold case, orphaned museum collec- tions," Monge said. "So that gives us the fun enterprise of going back and sleuth- ing through all of the ar- chival material and trying to identify them as best as we can." COFFIN-LIKE BOX Museumrediscovers ancient skeleton in storage MATTROURKE—THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Janet Monge, the curator-in-charge of the anthropology section at the The Penn Museum, part of the University of Pennsylvania, discusses recently rediscovered 6,500-year-old human remains during an interview Tuesday in Philadelphia. By Juliet Williams The Associated Press SACRAMENTO Senior state transportation offi- cials are acknowledging serious problems during construction of the $6.5 billion eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge but deny re- ports that employees were repeatedly reassigned af- ter raising red flags about faulty work. Caltrans Director Mal- colm Dougherty acknowl- edged "very visible break- downs" in quality assur- ance during a hearing Tuesday of the Senate Transportation Commit- tee. Lawmakers are review- ing a critical investigative report that found senior of- ficials repeatedly brushed off criticism about flawed welding, bolts and other engineering. Democratic state Sen. Mark DeSaulnier of Con- cord said Dougherty was in denial about a culture of punishing critics within Caltrans. Transportation Secre- tary Brian Kelly says that culture is "not OK" and promised to address it. He asked the California Highway Patrol to inves- tigate claims of retribu- tion and project misman- agement. CONSTRUCTION PROBLEMS Caltrans officials deny retribution on Bay Bridge The Associated Press LOS ANGELES Corrosion and structural problems caused a pipe to burst that flooded a landmark athletic arena at the Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles and submerged hundreds of cars, officials said Tuesday. The Los Angeles De- partment of Water and Power said outdated welding and engineering practices also appeared to have played a role in the rupture of the nearly century-old steel pipe last week. It burst at a Y- shaped juncture installed in 1958. The piping had not been scheduled for replacement and there were no signs of trouble before the break blasted a hole in Sunset Boulevard and sent a 30- foot geyser into the air that deluged the adjacent campus, agency spokes- man Joseph Ramallo said. The break released about 20 million gallons of water and the flood damaged the UCLA bas- ketball team's famed home court, Pauley Pavil- ion, while trapping hun- dreds of cars parked in school garages. UCLA released at least 340 of those vehicles Tues- day, which could be picked up by their owners. The school arranged to have insurance adjusters on site to help with damage assessments. Many ap- peared to have significant damage from the flooding, including mired interiors. They were among nearly 1,000 cars parked in two structures inundated July 29 — the lower garage lev- els were submerged to the ceiling. Sunset Boulevard re- opened early Monday when crews finished re- paving the stretch adja- cent to the campus where the rupture occurred. STATE Corrosion led to pipe burst that swamped UCLA The Associated Press LOS ANGELES The median age of women living on Los Angeles' Skid Row has in- creased from 44 to 50, ac- cording to a new study. Women who've been homeless for five or more years contributed to the ag- ing of the female population in the 50-block downtown neighborhood, the Los An- geles Times reported Mon- day. The survey by the Down- town Women's Action Coali- tion found women who re- cently lost their housing because of the death of a spouse or estrangement from family were also driv- ing up the numbers. The survey of 324 peo- ple found the percentage of women on Skid Row ages 51 to 61 jumped from 23 per- cent in 2001 to 40 percent in 2013. Women 62 and older in- creased from 4 to 11 percent in the same period, while the median age jumped to 50 from 44. "The growing number of older women living in skid row emphasizes the need for aging-related ser- vices, as well as accessible facilities and agencies," the group's report said. Over the past year, 70 percent of Skid Row's women lived in the streets or in shelters, more than 30 percent were victims of do- mestic violence and a quar- ter either abused drugs or alcohol, or were in recov- ery from substance addic- tion, or both, the survey found. The others lived in renovated flophouses and hotels or apartments. DOWNTOWN NEIGHBORHOOD Median age of women living on Skid Row: 50 By Jeff Barnard The Associated Press GRANTS PASS, ORE. Irri- gation is being cut off to about a third of the farms on a federal irrigation proj- ect in the drought-parched upper Klamath Basin of Or- egon and California. A July 31 letter from the U.S. Bureau of Reclama- tion to irrigation districts says that the flows into the Klamath Reclamation Proj- ect's primary reservoir have been below pre-season fore- casts from the Natural Re- sources Conservation Ser- vice, forcing a reduction in releases to districts with ju- nior claims on water in or- der to meet minimum levels for endangered fish. The letter was signed by bureau Klamath Area Man- ager Sheryl L. Franklin. Greg Addington of the Klamath Water Users As- sociation said Tuesday the cutoff means no more wa- ter for 50,000 acres of the project. He says most of those farms produce hay, and losing irrigation will mean they lose up to half their crop for the year. He says he expects there will be enough water for the remaining farms on the project to finish the season. Rain and snowfall over the winter was the lowest in 20 years and the third lowest on record, said Addington. The drought is worse than in 2001, when irrigation was shut off to nearly all of the project to maintain water for endan- gered sucker fish in Upper Klamath Lake and threat- ened coho salmon in the Klamath River. The lake is the project's primary reservoir. The river is the lake's natural outflow. "It's a mess," said Add- ington. "Our guys have seen this train wreck com- ing for a while. We have worked hard with other stakeholders to try to ad- dress these issues. We are not there yet. We've got a bill in Congress. That doesn't help us on the ground today." The region's perennial water problems prompted development of plans to remove four dams from the Klamath River to help salmon and give farmers greater certainty on irriga- tion expectations, but they have stalled in Congress, where they have been op- posed by House Republi- cans. The Bureau of Reclama- tion did not immediately return telephone calls and an email seeking comment. The bureau has already turned down requests from tribes and others to increase flows down the Klamath River to prevent an outbreak of a parasite that attacks salmon in low water conditions. DROUGHT Ir ri ga ti on c ut o ff to s om e Klamath Project farms The Associated Press PETROLIA Sheriff's offi- cials say the man suspected of killing his wife and two young daughters at their Northern California home last year died of a single gunshot wound to his head that was likely self-inflicted. Humboldt County Sher- iff Mike Downey released 46-year-old Shane Mill- er's cause of death on Tues- day. Authorities determined over the weekend that skel- etal remains discovered on the banks of a river in Hum- boldt belonged to Miller. Miller was suspected of shooting his 34-year- old wife and the couple's 8 and 5-year-old daughters at their home on May 7, 2013. Miller's remains were found about 200 miles away from his home, near an area where he grew up. 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