Fifty Roman Parchment Fragments Rebuild a Lost Page of Tax Law
A collection of 50 battered parchment fragments has been joined into a page of Roman law that had been broken apart for centuries. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati matched…
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Ancient Civilizations
Discover the world’s most mysterious ancient civilizations, from lost cities and megalithic structures to forgotten knowledge and unsolved archaeological puzzles.
How Did Bronze Age Trade Connect Distant Cities?
How did Bronze Age trade connect distant cities? It worked through a chain of exchanges rather than one giant market controlled from a single capital. Copper and tin moved toward…
An Archaic Greek Statue Was Found Face-Down in a Roman Street at Sardis
At Sardis in western Türkiye, archaeologists have recovered a statue that spent part of its life as building material. The figure was made nearly 2,500 years ago, broken in two…
How Do Archaeologists Reconstruct an Ancient Diet?
How do archaeologists reconstruct an ancient diet? They rarely find a complete meal waiting in a bowl. Instead, they assemble small traces: charred seeds, animal bones, fish scales, grinding stones,…
Historic Sulfur Pollution May Have Damaged More Murujuga Rock Art Than Expected
Murujuga in Western Australia holds one of the world’s largest concentrations of rock art, with engravings made over roughly 50,000 years. New research suggests that historic sulfur pollution may have…
Ancient Egyptian Paint Contained More Than Animal Glue, Study Finds
Ancient Egyptian artists were working with a much wider range of materials than the usual picture of "paint and glue" suggests. A new analysis of 28 microscopic samples from 14…
Stone Tools in Saudi Arabia May Record a Neanderthal Presence
Stone tools from a Saudi Arabian desert site resemble Neanderthal technology, offering evidence of a possible Neanderthal presence 60,000–50,000 years ago.
How Did Ancient People Navigate Without Modern Maps?
How did ancient people navigate without modern maps? They did not rely on one magical instrument or a single star. Travellers learned the shape of a coastline, the direction of…
A Viking Woman’s Brooches Preserved Fragments of Her 1,300-Year-Old Clothing
Fragments of clothing have survived inside an eighth-century Viking woman’s grave in western Denmark, giving archaeologists a rare chance to study what she wore. The pieces were found attached to…
Neolithic People Marked Obsidian Arrowheads in Ways Archaeologists Still Cannot Explain
Eleven marked obsidian arrowheads from Tepecik-Çiftlik in Turkey reveal deliberate Neolithic incisions, but their purpose remains unresolved.
What Can Ancient DNA Tell Us About Lost Populations?
What can ancient DNA tell us about lost populations? In the right sample, it can reveal relationships that bones alone cannot show: who was related, which groups moved, where populations…
Cacao DNA in Etowah Pottery Shows How Far Ancient North American Trade Reached
Two fragments of pottery from Etowah, a major Mississippian centre in what is now Georgia, contain traces of cacao DNA. The discovery is the first direct evidence that people at…
How Does LiDAR Reveal Lost Cities Beneath Forests?
How does LiDAR reveal lost cities beneath forests? It sends pulses of laser light from an aircraft or drone toward the ground and measures how long they take to return.…
A Drilled Human Tooth from Serbia Turns Out to Be a 6,500-Year-Old Pendant
A drilled human canine from the Neolithic site of Jablanica in Serbia was mistaken for an animal tooth bead until a new analysis identified its human origin.
A 1,500-Year-Old Moche Burial Preserves Whistles, a Rattle, and a Child’s Story
A child about 18 months old was buried at Huacas de Moche with musical objects and a carefully made ceramic vessel. The find adds a personal detail to a major Moche settlement.
Painted Pottery from Arabia May Have Been the Bronze Age’s First Brand
Qurayyah Painted Ware carried repeatable designs across Bronze Age Arabia. New research suggests that its makers built recognition and demand around a distinctive style more than 3,000 years ago.
Bronze Age Greek Elites Wore Rings Made From Meteorite Iron, Study Finds
A chemical survey of 91 Bronze Age iron artefacts found that a small group of rings probably came from meteorites. Their tomb contexts suggest that “iron from the sky” carried status long before iron smelting became common.
An Ancient Iron Furnace in Uzbekistan Is Opening a Window on Central Asian Metalworking
An excavation in Uzbekistan is bringing archaeologists, materials scientists and environmental researchers together around a single ancient furnace. At Abu Muslim Qala, in the historic Khorezm region, a Purdue-led project…
An Etruscan Ritual Well at Kainua Holds Offerings and Human Remains
At the Etruscan city of Kainua in northern Italy, archaeologists have found a deep well containing intact bronze objects, a distinctive plate and human remains. The location and the objects…
How Do Archaeologists Date Pottery?
How do archaeologists date pottery? Usually, they do not look at a single shard and read a year from it. A ceramic fragment becomes useful when its shape, clay, decoration,…
A Roman Cave Sanctuary in Spain Holds 120 Inscriptions—and Five Name an Unknown Goddess
Deep inside a cave near Valencia, archaeologists have documented at least 120 Latin inscriptions from the Roman period. Five of them refer to a previously unknown goddess addressed as Domina—“the…
How Does Dendrochronology Date Ancient Buildings?
How does dendrochronology date ancient buildings? By reading the growth history recorded inside wood. In regions where trees respond to changing seasons, each year leaves a pattern of wide and…
More Than 200 Roman Coins Found Beside Plovdiv’s Ancient Eastern Gate
Rescue excavations beside the Eastern Gate of Philippopolis have uncovered a large coin cache, an ancient building and burials that add new detail to Roman Plovdiv.
Pollen in a Roman Shipwreck’s Tar Reveals How Its Hull Was Repaired Across the Adriatic
A 2,200-year-old wreck off Croatia preserved more than timber and amphorae. Its sticky hull coatings trapped pollen that now gives archaeologists a record of where the ship was built and repaired.