https://phys.org/science-news/archaeology-fossils/ en-us The latest news on archaeology, archaeological research and archaeological advancements. Melons produce many seeds, making the melon shape a traditional symbol of fertility and prosperity in Chinese culture. But the historical debate about how melons made their way to modern tables is as long and twisted as the vines they grow on. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-waterlogged-seeds-reveal-melons-ancient.html Archaeology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:30:01 EDT news708106681 High in the central tower of Angkor Wat, an ancient Cambodian temple, paintings depict horseback riders and a traditional musical ensemble. Thousands of visitors pass these images daily without noticing them because they are faded to the point of invisibility. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nasa-technique-satellite-photos-reveals.html Archaeology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 17:20:10 EDT news708097473 Bear baiting in England became more popular after the Norman Conquest in 1066, new research shows. The study by Cardiff University and the University of Nottingham brings together archaeological analysis of bear bones and archival records to show the prevalence of the animals in England and northern France during medieval times. The study is published in the journal Society & Animals. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-baiting-england-common-norman-invasion.html Archaeology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 13:40:01 EDT news708086761 Trade routes and ports have shaped the history of human civilization, with the Mediterranean network among the most prominent and influential. Yet our understanding of its past is shaped largely by what remains visible on land rather than by the sea itself. Stone-built structures such as docks, quays and breakwaters give us important clues, but they do not always reveal the full picture. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-sea-walls-underwater-archaeology-reveals.html Archaeology Tue, 08 Sep 2026 12:40:06 EDT news708076101 The report, "Digital heritage preservation for vulnerable collections: Reflections on the Sudan Memory project history and inventory," was authored by Dr. Laura Gibson, senior lecturer in digital content management education at King's, alongside Sara El-Nager, independent researcher and editor, and Dr. Hannah Ishmael, lecturer in digital culture & race. It draws on 14 interviews conducted by El-Nager with contributors to the Sudan Memory project, the first mass digitization project ever undertaken in Sudan. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lessons-cultural-heritage-crisis-zones.html Archaeology Mon, 07 Sep 2026 14:00:03 EDT news708000241 The 2026 field season at Prado Vargas Cave, located in the village of Cornejo in the northern province of Burgos, Spain, within the Ojo Guareña karst complex, has expanded the excavation of Neanderthal sublevel 4D by 32 square meters (344 square feet), bringing the total excavated area to 140 square meters (1,507 square feet). More than 1,500 animal remains and stone tools were recovered, strengthening the interpretation of this roughly 46,000-year-old layer as a large Neanderthal camp. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-excavations-prado-vargas-span-square.html Archaeology Mon, 07 Sep 2026 13:00:03 EDT news707998060 A study on Roman law by the Carlos III University of Madrid analyzes the regulations and complex imperial logistics governing the capture, transport and safety of animals used in spectacles in the Roman Empire—which were far more popular than gladiatorial combat. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-late-roman-decrees-uncover-military.html Archaeology Sat, 05 Sep 2026 07:20:01 EDT news707750426 The Etruscan painted tombs in Tarquinia, Italy, date to the first millennium BCE and are known for their vivid scenes of music, feasting, processions and the afterlife. While these tombs have been extensively studied, archaeologists have typically looked at the paintings as images to decode rather than as parts of an experience that people moved through. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-reveal-immersive-sensory-ancient.html Archaeology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 16:20:06 EDT news707744545 Around 700 years ago, people living on hilltop settlements on the edge of the Kalahari wore beads, bangles and clips made from metal traded across the southern half of the African continent. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-iron-age-botswana-site-sourced.html Archaeology Fri, 04 Sep 2026 08:00:04 EDT news707649195 For centuries, the study of ancient history relied primarily on interpreting classical texts and examining inscriptions and archaeological remains at their sites of origin or in museums. In recent years, however, a little-known transformation has profoundly changed this landscape. The digitization of extensive archaeological collections, coupled with the development of quantitative methods that can integrate millions of scattered records, is ushering in a new era of historical research. Like other scientific disciplines that have benefited from processing colossal amounts of information, archaeology and history have entered the era of data science. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-million-coins-reveal-rome-economic.html Archaeology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 17:10:01 EDT news707671501 A multidisciplinary study has answered key questions about how agricultural practices diffused into ancient Gansu from Eurasia, as well as described population movements and burial practices in the Gansu region thousands of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ancient-dna-western-farming-gansu.html Archaeology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 11:00:03 EDT news707491202 The Romans were master engineers, building sprawling road networks, towering aqueducts and arenas across their empire. They were also good at recycling. New research has revealed that they turned the remains of a 4,000-year-old Bronze Age burial mound in Suffolk, England, into the center of a religious complex. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-grand-temples-recycled-bronze-age.html Archaeology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 10:50:01 EDT news707649185 Every other Wednesday, like clockwork, my salary arrives in my bank account. By Thursday, most of it is gone. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pay-salary-roman-soldiers-paid.html Archaeology Thu, 03 Sep 2026 08:20:04 EDT news707633041 Some of Europe's most well-known historic manuscripts, including the York Gospels, have proven to be biological time capsules for uncovering the 3,500-year history of the sheeppox virus (SPPV). https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hidden-dna-medieval-gospels-reveals.html Archaeology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 17:20:02 EDT news707581442 It's a small, simple ring made of copper alloy and engraved with a handful of Greek letters and the image of a pottery vessel. But its unremarkable appearance belies a remarkable history: The signet was likely connected in some way to the New Testament figure Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea during the life of Jesus. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-unusual-greek-mystery-pontius-pilate.html Archaeology Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:20:10 EDT news707584017 An archaeological excavation is a little like eating a layered cake: Once you have removed a layer, you cannot put it back. The problem becomes even trickier if two layers look almost exactly the same. Researchers from Aarhus University and Moesgaard Museum in Denmark have now developed a relatively inexpensive multispectral imaging system that gives archaeologists more ways of looking at the soil before they dig into it. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-archaeologists.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 18:40:07 EDT news707501701 While sorting through animal bones in a rock shelter in Queensland, Australia, archaeologists came across a tooth where something was "not quite right." Stuck to the tip of its root was a blackish-brown ball of glue-like resin. Eleven more teeth with the same sticky substance were found, making them the only known instance of this type of tooth ornament found outside burials in northeastern Australia and the first in the Cape York Peninsula (CYP), the new study published in Australian Archaeology reports. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-resin-mounted-wallaby-teeth-reveal.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:20:10 EDT news707473162 Rainforests in Central America that have remained largely untouched by modern human activities could bear the invisible imprint of ancient Maya civilizations. New research has found that forest structure in Belize, such as canopy height and leaf density, may be influenced by how the Maya transformed and used the land thousands of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-growth-tropical-forests-legacy-ancient.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:00:06 EDT news707472301 Museums around the world now have a new tool to distinguish real ancient clay artifacts from fakes. The research team at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, led by postdoctoral scholar Yoav Vaknin, found a way to distinguish the magnetism that clay materials acquire over time from the magnetism they acquired the day they were made. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-112c-year-pottery-forgeries.html Archaeology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 15:00:03 EDT news707387941 The ancient Romans were a deeply religious and superstitious people, worshiping dozens of cults—some official and others secretive. One of these was dedicated to Sabazios, a deity from Thrace and Phrygia (regions spanning parts of the modern-day Balkans and Turkey). https://phys.org/news/2026-08-snake-vessel-hints-mysterious-roman.html Archaeology Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:20:04 EDT news707392733 Slithering across the ceiling of an Australian rock shelter is a giant snake with a crocodile-like head, razor-sharp teeth and a long tongue. It's more than 6 meters (20 feet) long, making it one of the largest Rainbow Serpent paintings ever recorded in Arnhem Land and adding to the curious repertoire of similarly giant paintings across the region. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-aboriginal-artists-giant-ancestral-colonization.html Archaeology Sun, 30 Aug 2026 10:00:01 EDT news707042977 Children in the postmedieval Dutch workforce worked so hard that their spines became worn and deformed, with some children affected before they even had a chance to lose their baby teeth, a new study published in the International Journal of Paleopathology finds. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-centuries-child-labor-left-spinal.html Archaeology Sat, 29 Aug 2026 10:10:01 EDT news706868481 Ancient Egypt has left us a wealth of artistic treasures, including wall paintings, wooden coffins and limestone reliefs. Many retain their vibrant colors despite the passage of time, a testament to the ingredients used to make the paint mixtures. A new study published in the journal Science Advances has taken a closer look at some of the organic materials used in these painted artworks, including paint binders and adhesives. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ingredients-ancient-egyptian-complex-previously.html Archaeology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:30:01 EDT news707051771 One of the world's favorite sweet treats, chocolate, may have been enjoyed in eastern North America much earlier than previously thought, about 1,000 years ago. New research published in the journal PLOS One suggests that people in the Mississippian city of Etowah were consuming cacao, the plant used to make chocolate, in the 11th and 12th centuries. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ancient-dna-reveals-cacao-consumed.html Archaeology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:00:08 EDT news707041258 Murujuga is a sacred cultural landscape of land and sea Country across the Burrup Peninsula and Dampier Archipelago in Western Australia's Pilbara region. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-historic-sulfur-emissions-murujuga-art.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Aug 2026 09:20:02 EDT news706945922 Seventeen medieval manuscript fragments have been identified in Guernsey with support from Kent manuscript expert Dr. David Rundle, offering an unprecedented insight into the island's literary and intellectual life during a period from which almost no such evidence has survived. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rare-medieval-manuscript-fragments-reveal.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:00:07 EDT news706871101 A Roman law expert at the University of Cincinnati edited and translated a Latin legal text he pieced together from fragments that surprisingly survived in the Egyptian sands for more than 1,600 years. What's less surprising? It's about taxes. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-expert-pieces-puzzle-fragments-year.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Aug 2026 12:00:06 EDT news706869129 In 2022, excavations at a cemetery in Pień, Poland, led by researchers from the Institute of Archaeology at Nicolaus Copernicus University, led to a mysterious discovery. In what they call Grave 75, they uncovered the 400-year-old remains of a young adult woman buried in a very unusual and unsettling way. A curved iron sickle was placed directly over her neck, with its blade pointing toward her throat, while a triangular iron padlock was attached to the big toe of her left foot. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-archaeologists-young-woman-17th-century.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:43:35 EDT news706866199 What did ordinary people really eat in premodern Japan, beyond the dishes described in cookbooks and the bones discarded at urban waste pits? Reconstructing past diets at the level of individual food items is remarkably difficult. Traditional archaeological approaches and stable isotope analysis of human skeletons reveal broad dietary categories—such as reliance on marine fish and C3 plants. But they cannot show which specific taxa or tissues each person consumed, nor how access differed among social groups in a stratified society like premodern Japan. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ancient-dental-calculus-reveals-diverse.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Aug 2026 08:00:03 EDT news706859821 Researchers with the long-running Harvard–Cornell Archaeological Exploration of Sardis have unearthed a larger-than-life statue estimated to be nearly 2,500 years old. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mystery-statue-unearthed-sardis-archaeological.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Aug 2026 19:40:01 EDT news706803721