Archaeology

Apr 15th, 2024 - Human burials are some of the most poignant and famous archaeological remains that survive from the ancient world. People were buried in a variety of ways, from being entombed within massive pyramids to simply getting dumped in a bog. In some cases, people feared that the dead would come back to life and cause harm — leading to their bodies being decapitated or driven through with a stake.  In this countdown Live Science takes a look at 32 astonishing burials. 'Vampire' decapitations ... [Read More]

Apr 15th, 2024 - Metal detectorists have discovered a "unique" artifact that archaeologists say features a depiction of Alexander the Great, and is mystifying the experts surprised at the location of the find. Finn Ibsen and Lars Danielsen came across the object in question, a small bronze fitting measuring around an inch across, near Ringsted—a city located centrally on the island of Zealand, Denmark. "[A] mysterious and absolutely incredible find in the field," Museum West Zealand said in a Facebook ... [Read More]

Apr 14th, 2024 - An analysis of over 4,000 stone artifacts discovered on an island off northwestern Australia provides a snapshot of Aboriginal life tens of thousands of years ago. The discovery underscores the "long-term connections" that Indigenous peoples have to modern-day Australia, said David Zeanah , an anthropologist at California State University, Sacramento and lead author of a new study describing the analysis. The diverse artifacts found on the island also reveal intriguing insights about the ... [Read More]

Apr 14th, 2024 - Pottery was largely unknown in Australia before the recent past, despite well-known pottery traditions in nearby Papua New Guinea and the islands of the western Pacific. The absence of ancient Indigenous pottery in Australia has long puzzled researchers. Over the past 400 years, pottery from southeast Asia appeared across northern Australia , associated with the activities of Makassan people from Sulawesi (this activity was mainly trepanging, or collecting sea cucumbers). Older pottery in ... [Read More]

Apr 13th, 2024 - Archaeologists in France have uncovered a preserved settlement while investigating an area ahead of it being turned into a gravel pit. A horseshoe-shaped enclosure serves as the center of a number of settlements, burial grounds, and other structures stretching across 15 acres in Marliens. The interlocking structures appear to make up a monument. ( INRAP ) reported (via Ancient Origins ) that a layer of gravel found indicates that there was once a stake fence on the property. The outlet noted ... [Read More]

Apr 13th, 2024 - Hunter-gatherers lived across Europe for thousands of years and were the dominant human presence in the region for most of this time. So what happened to them all? Researchers don't yet know the exact set of circumstances that drove Europe's hunter-gatherers to disappear, but their decline broadly coincided with the spread of farming in the region. Neolithic farmers arrived in Europe around 8,000 years ago and ultimately replaced hunter-gatherers after a period of sharing the continent with ... [Read More]

Apr 12th, 2024 - Archaeologists have uncovered intriguing similarities between the behavior of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, one of our closest extinct relatives. In a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory , a team of researchers led by Amélie Vallerand of the University of Montreal's Department of Anthropology, found striking parallels between how Neanderthals and modern humans made use of space in their dwellings. Neanderthals ( Homo neanderthalensis ) were a human species ... [Read More]

Apr 12th, 2024 - You are not logged into your account. You have a registered email address and password on pressherald.com, but we are unable to locate a paid subscription attached to these credentials. Please Thank you for your support of local journalism! The hall, which features a mosaic floor, was uncovered as part of a project to shore up the areas dividing the excavated and unexcavated parts of the ancient city. ROME — Archaeologists excavating new sites in Pompeii have uncovered a sumptuous banquet ... [Read More]

Apr 11th, 2024 - 'Black room' with frescoes inspired by Trojan war described as one of most striking discoveries ever made at site in southern Italy A banquet room replete with well preserved frescoes depicting characters inspired by the Trojan war has been unearthed among the ruins of Pompeii in what has been described as one of the most striking discoveries ever made at the southern Italy archaeological site. The 15-metre-long, six-metre-wide room was found in a former private residence in Via di Nola, which ... [Read More]

Apr 11th, 2024 - When archaeologists were called to survey a site ahead of housing development, they got more than they bargained for. A team of archaeologists has found the remains of a 1,800-year-old Roman villa complex in Grove, a village located about 112 km (70 miles) west of London in Oxfordshire. Inside it, researchers found scores of artifacts — including something very spicy: lead scrolls suspected to contain curses. Britain was under Roman rule for more than 350 years between 43 AD and the ... [Read More]

Apr 10th, 2024 - The murder of sacrificial victims by "incaprettamento" — tying their neck to their legs bent behind their back, so that they effectively strangled themselves — seems to have been a tradition across much of Neolithic Europe, with a new study identifying more than a dozen such murders over more than 2,000 years. The study comes after a reassessment of an ancient tomb that was discovered more than 20 years ago at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux near Avignon, in southern France. The ... [Read More]

Apr 8th, 2024 - Archaeologists digging through a field in Lincolnshire, England, may have found a 1,300-year-old hermitage on the site of a much more ancient henge. The archaeological team found evidence for a monumental henge that dates to the Neolithic or Early Bronze Age; after the site was abandoned, its interior was reoccupied around the 7th century. By the 12th century, the abbots of Crowland build a large hall and chapel complex on the site, which still stand today. A henge is an oval or circular ... [Read More]

Mar 25th, 2024 - Colorful paintings of daily life in ancient Egypt have been discovered in a tomb dating back more than 4,300 years. The tomb, known as a mastaba, was found in the pyramid necropolis of Dahshur, about 25 miles south of Cairo, during a recent Egyptian-German archaeological mission. Dahshur is the southernmost of the great pyramid necropolises of the Old Kingdom in the vicinity of the ancient capital of Memphis. The main attractions there are two large pyramids of King Sneferu: the so-called Bent ... [Read More]

Mar 15th, 2024 - Researchers have discovered 10 shipwrecks , including one estimated to be more than 5,000 years old, off the coast of Greece, along with scattered ancient artifacts from around the globe. Using Homer's "Iliad" as a guide, an underwater archaeological team made the discoveries during a four-year survey off the coast of Kasos, a small island in the Aegean Sea, the Greek Ministry of Culture announced  Wednesday. During the underwater missions, teams found the remains of 10 doomed ships, ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2024 - Archaeologists have uncovered the missing upper part of a "huge" statue depicting an ancient Egyptian pharaoh. A joint Egyptian-American archaeological mission discovered the statue part during excavations conducted in the vicinity of el-Ashmunein, a town in the Minya governorate, the country's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MTA) said in a statement. Just outside the modern town in Upper Egypt lies the archaeological site of the ancient city of Khmun, or Hermopolis Magna, which had been a ... [Read More]

Mar 13th, 2024 - Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter.  . Excavations of an archaeological site in Panama have revealed the grave of a religious leader buried over 1,200 years ago alongside a cache of gold objects — and numerous other human remains. Researchers found the ancient tomb in El Caño Archaeological Park, a site in Coclé province known as a hotbed for pre-Columbian discoveries, particularly lavish burial chambers. The newfound enclosure, built around 700, is the ... [Read More]