More than 3,000 years after the first nuraghi rose across Sardinia, some of these massive stone towers still shaped community life in ways archaeologists are only beginning to understand. New research at Nuraghe Barru, a site in south central Sardinia, suggests one of these ancient structures did not fade into irrelevance at the start of … Read more
For decades, archaeologists argued that cities grew alongside inequality. As settlements expanded, wealth often moved toward rulers, priests, and elite families. A new study on Mohenjo-daro presents a different story. View of the Mohenjo-daro archaeological site. Credit: Saqib Qayyum, CC BY-SA 3.0 Researchers from the University of York examined housing patterns in Mohenjo-daro, one of … Read more
Peruvian hairless dogs lived beside people at a major Wari Empire settlement on Peru’s northern coast more than 1,200 years ago, according to a study published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. The research gives the first physical evidence of these dogs at Castillo de Huarmey, a large ceremonial and funerary center built between 600 … Read more
Researchers studying Ethiopia’s Afar Rift have reported what could be the oldest known evidence of human cremation. The finding comes from sediments about 100,000 years old in the Middle Awash region, an area with one of Africa’s richest records of early Homo sapiens life. Surveying, sieving, and fossil recovery at the research site. Credit: Ferhat … Read more
More than 5,000 years ago, communities in Central Europe built massive stone tombs that still dominate parts of the landscape. These megalithic monuments from the Late Neolithic period have long been linked with ancestry, family identity, and tightly connected kin groups. A new genetic study suggests a more complicated picture. People buried together in these … Read more
Climate change is rapidly erasing evidence from one of the Arctic’s largest early modern whaling cemeteries, where archaeologists have uncovered signs of harsh labor, poor nutrition, and declining health among the men who worked Europe’s northern whale fisheries. The graves of three whalers buried on Svalbard in the 17th century. Credit: Loktu, L., & Brødholt, … Read more
A debate over the dating of prehistoric cave art has resurfaced after a French researcher challenged several widely publicized age estimates linked to some of the world’s oldest known paintings and hand stencils. The criticism focuses on uranium-thorium dating, often called U-Th dating, a method used to estimate the age of calcite layers formed over … Read more
Archaeologists working inside Crno Jezero Cave on Croatia’s Pelješac Peninsula have uncovered an intact terracotta head shaped as a Greek theatrical mask, a rare find linked to ritual activity in the ancient Adriatic world. The object dates to the 4th to 3rd centuries BCE and offers new clues about religious life among local Illyrian communities … Read more
Credit: Xue Ling et al., Antiquity (2026) A microscopic study of residue left on surgical tools from a Ming Dynasty tomb in eastern China has provided the first direct chemical evidence of anesthetic use on ancient surgical instruments. The findings suggest Chinese physicians in the 14th century had developed careful methods for using toxic plant … Read more
A man buried near Lake Kitka in northern Finland around 400 years ago appears to have lived a far more mobile life than researchers once thought. A new study based on ancient DNA and isotope analysis found close genetic ties between the man and Sámi populations. The findings also point to years spent outside Finland, … Read more