Archaeology News

Mississippian People May Have Consumed Cacao as Early as 11th Century

An artist’s conception of Etowah, a Mississippian culture site located on the banks of the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia. Image credit: Herb Roe / Sci.News.
Aug 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Long before Europeans arrived, cacao (Theobroma cacao) may have traveled far beyond its Central and South American homeland to reach Etowah, a major Mississippian-period city in what is now Georgia. An artist’s conception of Etowah, a Mississippian culture site located on the banks of the Etowah River in Bartow County, Georgia. Image credit: Herb Roe / Sci.News. “For decades archaeologists, historians, and epigraphers have known that there is...

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Two bird figurines found at Hohle Fels Cave in Germany. Image credit: Ralf Ehmann / University of Tübingen / Museum of Prehistory and Ice Age Art.

40,000-Year-Old Bird Figurines Found in German Cave

Jul 29, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists in southwestern Germany have unearthed two miniature bird figurines carved from mammoth ivory, among the smallest and most delicate examples...

A look at Ararat-1 Cave from the bottom of the Ararat Depression. Image credit: Ariel Malinsky Buller.

Stone Tools from Armenian Cave Reveal Split Strategy for Survival 50,000 Years Ago

Jul 22, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Ararat-1, a modest limestone cave that lies at an elevation of 1,034 m on the eastern flanks of the Ararat Depression in central Armenia, has yielded a...

Paliki peninsula on the island of Kefalonia, Ionian Islands, Greece. Image credit: Christos Vittoratos / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Was Odysseus’ Ithaca Never an Island? Scholars Challenge Centuries-Old Assumption

Jul 13, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

For as long as readers have pored over Homer’s Odyssey they have pictured Ithaca, the homeland Odysseus fights for ten years to reach, as an island unto...

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Ancient Turkish Cave Reveals Neanderthals and Homo sapiens Shared Same Way of Life

Jul 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Üçağızlı II Cave on Türkiye’s Mediterranean coast has yielded a rare and detailed record of two Homo species living the same way of life, one after...

Paleo-Indians hunting a glyptodont, a relative of the armadillo that lived during the Pleistocene epoch. By Heinrich Harder, 1920.

Ancient Americans Were Megafauna Hunters, Not Generalists, Study Shows

Jul 6, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research suggests that the first widespread human cultures in the Americas were not opportunistic foragers who ate whatever they could find, but specialized...

An artist’s reconstruction of Clovis life 13,000 years ago shows the Anzick-1 infant with his mother consuming mammoth meat near a hearth. Another individual crafts tools, including dart projectile points and atlatls. A mammoth butchery area is visible nearby. Image credit: Eric Carlson / Ben Potter / Jim Chatters.

Did Clovis People Hunt Mammoths or Simply Scavenge Their Carcasses?

Jul 6, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For decades, the discovery of stone spear points lying next to proboscidean (mammoth, mastodon, and gomphothere) bones has been treated as archaeology’s...

Reconstruction of Homo floresiensis. Image credit: Kinez Riza / Atelier Elisabeth Daynes, Sangiran Museum.

Homo floresiensis Probably Didn’t Hunt Stegodons or Use Fire

Jul 5, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

When paleoanthropologists announced the discovery of Homo floresiensis on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2003, the tiny, small-brained species quickly...

Representative rock art figures from each of the 11 archaeological sites analyzed by Bossoms Mesa et al. Image credit: Bossoms Mesa et al., 10.1038/s41467-026-74234-2.

Scientists Recover Ancient Human DNA from Cave Walls

Jul 2, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For the first time, researchers have extracted ancient human DNA directly from the walls of a cave. Although their results do not conclusively link ancient...

Shaar et al. unveil the oldest evidence of human activity in Wonderwerk Cave, South Africa. Image credit: Michael Chazan.

Evidence of Fire Use by Early Humans May Date Back Nearly 1.8 Million Years

Jun 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Scientists have uncovered compelling new evidence that early human ancestors, likely Homo erectus, were deliberately bringing fire into Wonderwerk Cave...

Sala Keimada, a chamber of Cueva Palomera in Burgos, Spain. Image credit: Ortega-Martínez et al., doi: 10.1016/j.jasrep.2026.105818.

Spanish Cave Sanctuary Reveals More Than 11,500 Years of Activity

Jun 9, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New radiocarbon dates from Sala Keimada, a hard-to-reach chamber of Cueva Palomera in the province of Burgos, northern Spain, suggest that generations...

A reconstruction of Homo longi in his habitat. Image credit: Chuang Zhao.

Acheulean Toolmakers Chose Their Stone with Surprising Precision

Jun 8, 2026 by News Staff

Geochemical analysis of 780,000-year-old stone tools from Israel suggests Acheulean (or Acheulian) hominins repeatedly sought specific basalt sources,...

Stonehenge. Image credit: Sally Wilson.

Neolithic People May Have Hauled Stonehenge’s Giant Altar Stone across Britain

Jun 4, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Neolithic people, not glaciers, moved the Altar Stone — the six-ton central sandstone megalith at Stonehenge — from northeast Scotland to Salisbury...

The Khufu Pyramid. Image credit: Douwe C. van der Zee / CC BY-SA 4.0.

Great Pyramid of Giza’s Design Naturally Shields It from Earthquakes, Archaeologists Say

May 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

For more than four and a half millennia, the Khufu Pyramid has stood on the Giza plateau, enduring dozens of earthquakes without serious structural damage....

Ancient inhabitants of the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site in Israel likely used some kind of earth oven that maintained a temperature below 500 degrees Celsius to cook their fish. Image credit: Ella Maru / Tel Aviv University.

780,000-Year-Old Charcoal Reveals How Early Humans Mastered Fire

Apr 16, 2026 by News Staff

Hominins at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel relied on driftwood gathered along a lakeshore to fuel their hearths, according to new...

The European pond turtle (Emys orbicularis) next to the foot of the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus). Image credit: Nicole Viehofer / MONREPOS - LEIZA.

Neanderthals Hunted Pond Turtles, But Not for Dinner

Apr 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New evidence from Germany suggests Neanderthals captured European pond turtles (Emys orbicularis) around 125,000 years ago, likely valuing their shells...

Diagnostic and probable prehistoric Native American dice: (a, d) Signal Butte, Nebraska (Middle Holocene); (b) Agate Basin, Wyoming (Early Holocene); (c, f) Agate Basin, Wyoming (Late Pleistocene); (e, g) Lindenmeier, Colorado (Late Pleistocene); (h) Irvine, Wyoming (Late Holocene). Image credit: Division of Anthropology, Smithsonian Institution, American Museum of Natural History / Department of Anthropology, University of Wyoming.

Before Casinos, Before Ancient Rome: Ice Age Americans Were Rolling the Dice

Apr 7, 2026 by News Staff

Colorado State University archaeologist says Native Americans were crafting dice and playing games of chance as far back as 12,000 years ago, long before...

A pile of tuyères at the site of Didé West 1 in Senegal. Image credit: Anne Mayor.

2,400-Year-Old Iron-Smelting Workshop Unearthed in Senegal

Mar 31, 2026 by News Staff

Excavations at the archaeological site of Didé West 1 in eastern Senegal have uncovered an exceptionally well-preserved iron-smelting workshop dated between...

Large naturalistic style thylacine with sharp teeth from Injalak Hill, Northern Territory, Australia. Image credit: Craig Banggar.

Researchers Discover Tasmanian Tiger and Tasmanian Devil Paintings in Northern Australia

Mar 30, 2026 by News Staff

Both the Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) and the Tasmanian devil (Sarcophilus harrisii) are believed to have become extinct on the Australian...

Canadian Eskimo dogs. Illustration by John James Audubon and John Bachman (1845-1848).

Ancient DNA Study Rewrites Origins of Europe’s First Dogs

Mar 26, 2026 by News Staff

Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from 216 canid remains, including 181 from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. The oldest data that they recovered...

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