Archaeology News

13,000-Year-Old Red Ocher Quarry Found in Wyoming

May 19, 2022 by News Staff

Intact artifacts and features found at the Powars II site, a red ocher (also known as hematite) quarry located in the foothills of the southern Rocky Mountains in Wyoming, demonstrate unequivocal evidence for red ocher quarrying by Paleoindians beginning 12,840 to 12,505 years ago, thus establishing Powars II as the oldest red ocher quarry identified in the Americas. Pelton et al. present results from controlled excavations at the Powars II Paleoindian...

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The ancient temple at Esna, Egypt: the flying vultures on the central section of the ceiling, with the northern crossbeam (architrave) behind. Image credit: Ahmed Emam / MoTA.

Archaeologists Find Spectacular Frescoes in Ancient Egyptian Temple

May 18, 2022 by News Staff

Archaeologists have uncovered a series of vibrantly-colored frescoes in an ancient temple at Esna, Egypt, located about 60 km south of the ancient Egyptian...

A portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan based on a skeletal profile reconstructed from ancient DNA methylation maps. Image credit: Maayan Harel.

New Fossil Discovery Suggests Denisovans Lived in Laos 164,000-131,000 Years Ago

May 17, 2022 by News Staff

Paleoanthropologists have found a permanent lower molar of a young, likely female, hominin individual at the Tam Ngu Hao 2 limestone cave in the Annamite...

The smashed jars from the Giv’ati Parking Lot excavations on the southwestern slope of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Sasha Flit, Tel-Aviv University.

Judah Kingdom’s Elite Consumed Wine Enriched with Vanilla, Archaeologists Say

May 11, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University, the University of Haifa, the Weizmann Institute of Science and the Israel Antiquities Authority have analyzed...

Mound A made almost entirely of oyster at the Crystal River site, Florida Gulf Coast, which is estimated to contain 20-30 million oysters which accumulated between 1,330 and 800 years ago. It covered at least 9,000 m2, even after approximately 1/3 of the mound was destroyed during the historical period. At its highest point, the mound stood 9 m above the surrounding landscape. Image credit: Victor Thompson.

North American and Australian Indigenous Communities Farmed Oysters for 5,000-10,000 Years

May 3, 2022 by News Staff

Despite several important studies, Indigenous fisheries generally receive less attention from scholars and managers than the 17th-20th century capitalist...

Copper-alloy daggers from Pragatto, a Bronze Age domestic site in northern Italy: (A) site location; (B) aerial view of the site highlighting excavation areas A, B and C; (C) copper-alloy daggers analyzed by Caricola et al. Image credit: Caricola et al., doi: 10.1038/s41598-022-09983-3.

New Study Reveals Function of Bronze Age Daggers

Apr 29, 2022 by News Staff

According to an organic residue analysis performed on 10 copper-alloy daggers from Pragatto, a Bronze Age domestic site (1550-1250 BCE) in northern Italy,...

A fragment of the sphero-conical vessel that was identified as containing an explosive material from Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Robert Mason, Royal Ontario Museum.

Archaeologists Find Fragment of Medieval Hand Grenade

Apr 26, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have found sherds from four small sphero-conical vessels in a destruction layer, dating between the 11th and 12th century CE, in Jerusalem,...

Photographs and digital tracings of two plaquettes from the Montastruc site, France. Scale bars - 10 cm. Image credit: Needham et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0266146.

Magdalenian Hunter-Gatherers Created Art by Firelight, Archaeologists Say

Apr 21, 2022 by News Staff

Archaeologists have examined the engraved limestone plaquettes excavated from Montastruc, a rockshelter site in southern France. These plaquettes are likely...

Huayna Picchu is Original Name of Inca City Now Known as Machu Picchu

Apr 4, 2022 by News Staff

Machu Picchu, one of the most recognized archaeological sites in the world, is located high (2,430 m above sea level) above the Urubamba River on a narrow...

Kuitems et al. provide evidence that the Norse were active on the North American continent in the year 1021 CE. Image credit: Oscar C.R.

Increasingly Dry Conditions Contributed to Norse Abandonment of Southern Greenland, Study Shows

Mar 23, 2022 by News Staff

Declining temperature has been thought to explain the abandonment of Norse settlements in southern Greenland in the early 15th century CE, although limited...

Wattle and other acacias were found at the oldest archaeological site on the land of the Martu in the Australian Western Desert. Image credit: University of Western Australia.

New Study Offers Insight into Earliest Uses of Firewood in Australia

Mar 18, 2022 by News Staff

A team of scientists from the University of Western Australia and Curtin University has examined charcoal from ancient rock shelters to learn about the...

Saffron, the world’s most expensive spice, is extracted from the flowers of the saffron crocus (Crocus sativus). Image credit: Johan Puisais.

Saffron Crocus was First Domesticated in Ancient Greece

Mar 10, 2022 by News Staff

In a review paper published in the journal Frontiers in Plant Science, researchers followed ancient arts and recent genetics to trace the evolutionary...

Stonehenge. Image credit: Sally Wilson.

Stonehenge was Designed as Solar Calendar, Archaeologist Says

Mar 7, 2022 by News Staff

Scholars have long seen in the monumental composition of Stonehenge evidence for prehistoric time-reckoning — a Neolithic calendar. Exactly how such...

View of Grotte Mandrin, France. Image credit: Ludovic Slimak.

54,000-Year-Old Molar is Earliest Known Evidence of Anatomically Modern Humans in Western Europe

Feb 11, 2022 by News Staff

In a new paper published this week in the journal Science Advances, paleoanthropologists report hominin fossils from Grotte Mandrin in France that reveal...

The temple of Athribis, Egypt. Image credit: Marcus Müller / Athribis-Project Tübingen.

Inscribed Pottery Fragments Document Daily Life in Ancient Egypt

Feb 3, 2022 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists from the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities...

The Paleolithic settlement at Abu Hureyra in what is now Syria may have been destroyed 12,800 years ago because of a comet. Image credit: Jennifer Rice, Comet Research Group.

Near-Earth Comet Exploded over North America about 1,500 Years Ago

Feb 2, 2022 by News Staff

Archaeologists have found meteorites, microspherules, iridium and platinum anomalies, and burned charcoal-rich habitation surfaces at 11 archaeological...

Dr. Chris Balzotti climbs an ancient staircase discovered in a sinkhole near Coba, Mexico. Image credit: Richard Terry.

Ancient Maya Tended Sacred Groves of Cacao Trees in Humid Microclimates of Karst Sinkholes

Feb 1, 2022 by News Staff

An international team of archaeologists from the United States and Mexico has found several biomarkers of cacao in soil from karst sinkholes that dot the...

Panicum miliaceum (left) and Echinochloa crus-galli. Image credit: Otto Wilhelm / Biolib.de.

Archaeologists Unearth Earliest Evidence of Multi-Cropping

Jan 13, 2022 by News Staff

Archaeologists have unearthed the earliest micro-botanical evidence of the summer grain broomcorn millet (Panicum miliaceum) in Mesopotamia, identified...

A medieval knight on a warhorse.

Study: Medieval Warhorses Were No More Than Pony-Sized by Modern Standards

Jan 11, 2022 by News Staff

Popular culture presents a deep-rooted perception of medieval warhorses as massive and powerful mounts, but medieval textual and iconographic evidence...

The wooden artifact with text in both Norse and Latin found at the Medieval Park in Oslo, Norway. Image credit: Tone Bergland, Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research.

Two Medieval Artifacts with Runic Inscriptions Found in Norway

Jan 10, 2022 by News Staff

Archaeologists excavating the Medieval Park in Oslo, Norway, have unearthed two objects — pieces of bone and wood — inscribed with runes. The...

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