A shipwreck dating to the 5th and 4th centuries BCE has drawn archaeologists’ attention off the coast of Monasterace in southern Italy. Hidden beneath the waters of the Ionian Sea, the wreck holds a cargo of more than 300 amphorae, many of them still grouped on the seabed after over two thousand years underwater. Detail … Read more
People living along Peru’s Pacific coast traveled long distances and formed connections between distant communities at least 800 years ago, according to a new study published in Nature Communications. The research pushes back the timeline for major coastal migration in the Andes to the thirteenth century, long before the Inca Empire spread across the region. … Read more
Archaeologists working in Saudi Arabia’s Al–Qassim Region have uncovered a large group of Abbasid-era gold jewelry at the Dariyah archaeological site. The find dates back more than 1,100 years and points to the wealth and trade activity linked to the settlement during the early Islamic period. Credit: Saudi Arabia Ministry of Culture The Saudi Heritage … Read more
Archaeologists working in the Bavarian city of Aschaffenburg have uncovered a rare Iron Age structure buried deep along the banks of the Main River. The find emerged during construction work for a stormwater overflow basin north of the Willigis Bridge, where crews unexpectedly encountered large wooden remains nearly eight meters below the surface. Cross-section of … Read more
Researchers have developed a way to study DNA preserved inside ancient parchment manuscripts without damaging the documents. The work focused on animal skins used to produce manuscripts dating from the eighth century through the early 1900s. By analyzing genetic material from those skins, the team gathered new information about livestock farming, parchment production, and trade … Read more
Archaeologists working at the site of Sheffield Castle have completed a detailed survey of a medieval well hidden beneath the former fortress. The structure once supplied fresh water to people living inside the castle walls and played an important role during periods of conflict, including the English Civil War. Credit: Wessex Archaeology The work was … Read more
A small bone dental bridge found in a 19th century burial in Porto is giving researchers a rare look at early dental care in Portugal. The object, described in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, marks the first documented fixed bone dental bridge recovered from a Portuguese archaeological site. Macro stereomicroscopic images of the dental bridge. … Read more
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