Archaeology (Page 7)

The latest digs, ideas, and discoveries about our past, from ancient cities to our prehistoric ancestors.

Latest in Archaeology

a 3D rendering of three early humans butchering a giant armadillo

Early humans butchered enormous armadillos

By Laura Baisas

several stone circles marking gravesites in a field in norway

Stone circles unearthed in Norway mark ancient children’s graves

By Laura Baisas

Located in the foothills of a rock emerging from a green field

Iron Age plant remains tell new agricultural story in east Africa

By Laura Baisas

cone shaped skull

These viking ladies tried to start a trend for pointy heads, but it didn’t take off

By Popular Science Team

Breakdown of Antikythera mechanism

The world’s oldest mechanical computer used a lunar calendar to study the stars

Ritual sticks uncovered in Cloggs Cave date back 10,000 to 12,000 years.

Evidence of 12,000-year-old cultural ritual unearthed in Australia

By Laura Baisas

five statues depicting the high dignitary Nefer and his wife (Abusir, Egypt).

Ancient Egyptian scribes suffered bone damage from working long hours in hunched positions

By Laura Baisas

the wreckage of an ancient greek shipwreck underwater, with two divers exploring it

Nuts, bones, and wood help date a 2,000-year-old Greek shipwreck

By Laura Baisas

eight catapult stones on grass

Archeologists uncover 800-year-old stone catapult shots used in English Civil War

By Laura Baisas

The ancient oak circle which emerged from the shifting sands at Holme next the Sea in Norfolk. The ring of oak tree trunks with a large upturned tree at its centre is believed to be 4,000 years old & is said to be of great archaeological importance.

What is ‘Seahenge’? Bronze Age worshipers may have used the structure to try to extend the summer

By Laura Baisas

The world’s oldest wine contains a cremated Roman aristocrat

Bronze Age ruins on the Greek island Aegina, surrounded by sparkling blue waters and mountains

Ancient, surprisingly well-preserved purple dye uncovered in Greece

By Laura Baisas

Detail from the reconstructed stone tzompantli, or skull rack, at Chichén Itzá.

Ancient Mayan human sacrifices involved twins

Five mysterious ancient artifacts that still puzzle archaeologists

Five mysterious ancient artifacts that still puzzle archaeologists

By Natasha Harlow / The Conversation

yaks and sheep grazing on grassland with mountains in the distance

Bronze Age nomads used cauldrons for blood sausage and yak milk

By Laura Baisas

Visualisation of the central grave/main burial of the Grafenbühl mound

DNA suggests ancient Celtic royalty was matrilineal

steam rising over blue water in a pool built by ancient romans

What Britain’s famed Roman Baths could teach us about microbes

By Laura Baisas

a human skull on a dark background with E270 printed on it

4,000 year-old Egyptian skulls show attempts at brain surgery to treat cancer

By Laura Baisas

The Red Pyramid at the Dahshur necropolis, constructed during the Fourth Dynasty.

Long-lost Nile branch may explain landlocked pyramids

Assyrian mural image of lion

Ancient mystery code was probably Sargon II’s name

a hollow 12-sided object with knobs on each face on display at a musuem.

Ancient, mysterious 12-sided object still baffles archeologists

By Laura Baisas

a ring affixed to a wall in the ancient Mayan city of Chichen Itza

Plants detected in ancient Mayan ‘ballcourts’ point to a sacred spot

By Laura Baisas

Statue of Plato in Greece

A ‘bionic eye’ scan of an ancient, scorched scroll points to Plato’s long-lost gravesite

a handwritten letter to ruth mallory from george mallory before he died on mount everest

Read the last letters by George Mallory, who died exploring Mt. Everest in 1924

By Laura Baisas

Anterior trunk vertebrae of Vasuki indicus.

Enormous snake in ancient India was longer than a school bus

By Lauren Leffer

several grey and brown coins dating back from 650 to 670 CE

Lasers provide clues to an early medieval money mystery

By Laura Baisas

three baby chickens standing in a nest with open and unopened eggshells

Why chickens probably crossed the Silk Road

By Laura Baisas

Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship the Nimrod, among the ice in McMurdo's Sound, Antarctica.

Cracking open a 117-year-old Antarctic milk time capsule

By Laura Baisas

the facial reconstruction of Emperor Wu, an ancient Chinese ruler of the Northern Zhou dynasty. he has dark hair, tan skin.

Scientists recreate the face of an ancient Chinese emperor

By Laura Baisas

a prehistoric tooth in a lab

Rare traces of tooth decay and gum disease found in Bronze Age teeth

By Laura Baisas

An illustration of the Bronze Age stilt settlement uncovered at Must Farm in eastern England. Five circular dwellings stand above a boggy wetland.

Bronze Age village was ‘pretty cozy’—until Britain’s Pompeii

By Laura Baisas

human remains uncovered in Sweden.

Kissing and eating during the Stone Age ‘could be lethal’

By Laura Baisas

Ancient Greece’s biggest port is older than we thought

Ancient Greece’s biggest port is older than we thought

By J. Besl/Hakai Magazine

Sun rises over tall sand dunes. The Erg Chebbi region of the Sahara desert in Morocco. The region is home to the 984 foot tall Lala Lallia star dune.

The mysterious ‘star dune’ in the Sahara is on the move

By Laura Baisas

Shelled and unshelled hazlenuts on a wooden table.

Humans have been eating hazelnuts for at least 6,000 years

By Laura Baisas

The stone tool was glued into a handle with an adhesive that is made of liquid bitumen, with the addition of 55 percent ochre. It is no longer sticky and can be handled easily.

Neanderthals likely used glue to make tools

By Laura Baisas

The skeletal remains of a frog and a human were uncovered at Seminario Vescovile in Verona, Italy.

Iron Age humans found mysteriously buried with dogs and horses

By Laura Baisas

A 3D model of a section of the Blinkerwall next to a large boulder at the western end of the wall.

Europe’s oldest human-made megastructure may be at the bottom of the Baltic Sea

By Laura Baisas

The wheel of the Arlington, about 600 feet underwater.

Shipwreck hunters find WWII-era ship in Lake Superior

By Laura Baisas

2,000 new characters from burnt-up ancient Greek scroll deciphered with AI

2,000 new characters from burnt-up ancient Greek scroll deciphered with AI

Two long stone tools from the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ) culture uncovered at Ranis. Item 1 is a partial bifacial blade point characteristic of the LRJ. Item 2 also contains finely made bifacial leaf points.

Neanderthals and modern humans intermingled in Europe 45,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

A visual collage of skin fossils described in the new study. The mummified skin specimen is shown sliced into two pieces in the center-left of the image. The surrounding specimen scans are of fossilized skin impressions.

Oldest known fossilized reptile skin was dug up in an Oklahoma quarry

By Lauren Leffer

The skull of a Swedish Viking dating back to the 10th through 12th Century CE undergoes a dental examination.

Vikings filed their teeth to cope with pain

By Laura Baisas

A sample of baboon skulls dating back 2,500 to 2,800 years in southern Egypt.

Ancient Egyptians likely kept baboons in captivity—and mummified them

By Laura Baisas

The bones of sacrificed horses found in the courtyard of Casas del Turuñuelo site in Badajoz, Spain.

Over 6,000 sacrificed animal bones tell a story of Iron Age Spain

By Laura Baisas

A louse on human hair under a microscope. Humans and lice have coevolved for thousands of years. The oldest human louse known to scientists is a 10,000 year-old specimen from Brazil.

What head lice can tell us about human migration

By Laura Baisas

Close-up of Roman follis coins found off Italian coast

Divers recovered a treasure trove of more than 30,000 ancient, bronze coins off the Italian coast

Ancient rock carvings that reappeared in the region of the Lajes Archaeological Site due to the severe drought affecting the region's rivers on the banks of the Negro River in Manaus, Brazil, on October 21, 2023. The carvings feature depictions of human faces.

Drought reveals ancient rock carvings of human faces in Brazil

By Laura Baisas

An ancient brown skull with a metal arrowhead protruding from its side.

Why societies experience cycles of violence and peace

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

Coral Beach on Scotland’s Isle of Skye, dotted with various types of seaweed.

Europeans ate a lot more seaweed 8,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas

Charred scroll from Herculaneum undergoing laser scan

AI revealed the colorful first word of an ancient scroll torched by Mount Vesuvius

The cave lion remains from Siegsdorf, Germany are displayed alongside a reproduction of a wooden spear similar to those used by Neanderthals.

Neanderthals may have hunted mighty cave lions

By Laura Baisas

Sweet potato, brown eggs, and corn in a husk on a stove. Traces of sweet potato, peanut, chili peppers, papaya, and more were found in coprolite samples from Puerto Rico.

Mummified poop reveals a diverse ancient Caribbean diet

By Laura Baisas

Human hand bones during an archaeological dig.

Sensitive to pain? It could be your Neanderthal gene variants.

By Laura Baisas

White Sands NPS staff excavating fossilized human footprints from lakebed

Do the ancient human footprints at White Sands date back to the last ice age?

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A map of Britain in the late 13th century.

Grisly medieval murders detailed in new interactive maps

By Laura Baisas

Otzi the Iceman remains laid out on a stretcher

‘Dark’ archaeologists scour melting ice for ancient artifacts

By Jocelyn Solis-Moreira

A hyenea shows its jaws. Giant hyenas went extinct about 500,000 years ago, but were roughly 240 pounds and skilled scavengers like their modern counterparts.

How many ancient humans does it take to fight off a giant hyena?

By Laura Baisas

Yellow pollen spring out from a coniferous tree. The pollen that makes us sneeze every spring, may have helped lay the groundwork for the migration of our very distant ancestors into Eurasia.

Pollen could hold clues to mysteries of early human migration

By Laura Baisas

A view of the Cueva de los Marmoles entrance from the inside. Skeletal remains from at least 12 prehistoric individuals have been found inside.

Early humans carved old skeletal remains from burial caves into tools

By Laura Baisas

An archeologist wearing gloves holes a wedge shaped piece of wood dating back to the Early Stone Age.

World’s oldest known wooden structure pre-dates our species

By Laura Baisas

Stone Age animal engravings in Namibian caves guided Indigenous trackers over time

Stone Age animal engravings in Namibian caves guided Indigenous trackers over time

By Laura Baisas

A worker uncovers a mummy belonging to the pre-Inca Ychsma culture buried in a shallow funeral chamber on an ancient sanctuary during an excavation in the Huaca Pucllana, in the heart of a residential area in the district of Miraflores in Lima, on September 5, 2023.

1,000-year-old mummy with full head of hair and intact jaw found in Peru

By Laura Baisas

Four skulls of human ancestors A. africanus, A. afarensis, H. erectus, H. neanderthalensis, and one modern human skull.

An ‘ancestral bottleneck’ took out nearly 99 percent of the human population 800,000 years ago

By Laura Baisas