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Archaeology news
Not an artifact, but an ancestor: Why a German university is returning a Māori taonga
Restitution debates—the questions of whether a cultural object should be returned from a museum or other collection to a person or community—often begin with a deceptively simple question: Who owns an object?
Archaeology
2 hours ago
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CT scans unwrap secrets of ancient Egyptian life
Keck Medicine of USC radiologists use computed tomography (CT) scanners to diagnose and treat patients' diseases and injuries. Recently, however, this advanced technology was put to a far more novel use: examining the bodies ...
Archaeology
6 hours ago
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Ancient Alaskan site may help explain how the first people arrived in North America
New evidence has emerged that sheds light on the possible first people to populate the Americas. Dating of stone and ivory tools found at an archaeological site in Alaska suggests that these early pioneers traveled through ...
Two rare 5th millennium BC fetal burials in Iran reveal variable prehistoric practices
In a study conducted by Dr. Mahdi Alirezazadeh and Dr. Hanan Bahranipoor, published in Archaeological Research in Asia, two exceptionally well-preserved fetal burials from Chaparabad, Iran, dating to the mid-5th millennium ...
Earliest hand-held wooden tools found in Greece date back 430,000 years
An international team has discovered the earliest known hand-held wooden tools used by humans. A study jointly led by Professor Katerina Harvati from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the ...
Archaeology
Feb 1, 2026
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Aerial lidar mapping can reveal archaeological sites while overlooking Indigenous peoples and their knowledge
Picture an aircraft streaking across the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, unleashing millions of laser pulses into a dense tropical forest. The objective: map thousands of square miles, including the ground beneath the ...
Archaeology
Jan 29, 2026
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Rethinking Troy: How years of careful peace, not epic war, shaped this bronze age city
Imagine a city that thrived for thousands of years, its streets alive with workshops, markets and the laughter of children, yet that is remembered for a single night of fire. That city is Troy.
Archaeology
Jan 29, 2026
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Ancient DNA reveals 12,000-year-old case of rare genetic disease
Researchers led by the University of Vienna and Liège University Hospital Center have identified genetic variants associated with a rare inherited growth disorder in two prehistoric individuals who lived more than 12,000 ...
Archaeology
Jan 29, 2026
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Ochre used in ancient graves in Finland reflects identity of deceased
Roughly 5,500–6,000 years ago, the area including present-day Finland was inhabited by hunter-fisher-gatherers living in small village-like clusters. Traveling via waterways, these people established permanent fishing systems, ...
Archaeology
Jan 27, 2026
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In ancient Mesopotamia, what was a ziggurat?
A ziggurat (also spelled ziqqurat) was a raised platform with four sloping sides that looked like a tiered pyramid.
Archaeology
Jan 27, 2026
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Hafted stone tools in China suggest early hominins were more inventive than thought
A newly excavated archaeological site in central China is reshaping long-held assumptions about early hominin behavior in Eastern Asia. Led by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, an international team of researchers conducted ...
Archaeology
Jan 27, 2026
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The Great Mongolian Road: Japanese Imperial Army maps reveal first detailed documentation
In a study published in the Journal of Historical Geography, researchers Dr. Chris McCarthy and his colleagues have documented, for the first time, the Great Mongolian Road, a major yet understudied east-west caravan route ...
Scientists recover the oldest wooden tools from a site in Greece
Two artifacts found at a lake shore in Greece are the oldest wooden tools to be uncovered so far and date back 430,000 years.
Archaeology
Jan 26, 2026
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The masters behind Bronze Age rock art
For more than 200 years, Nordic Bronze Age rock art has sparked the interest of academics. Yet we still know surprisingly little about the individuals who carved these figures into the rock. A new doctoral dissertation at ...
Archaeology
Jan 26, 2026
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South African San rock art reveals trance dances and initiation ceremonies
In a study published in Telestes, Dr. Joshua Kumbani and Dr. Margarita Díaz-Andreu categorized the various dance scenes depicted in South African rock art, drawing on ethnographic sources, published studies, and the comprehensive ...
Humanity's oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi
When we think of the world's oldest art, Europe usually comes to mind, with famous cave paintings in France and Spain often seen as evidence this was the birthplace of symbolic human culture. But new evidence from Indonesia ...
Archaeology
Jan 24, 2026
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Refined radiocarbon dating provides clearer timeline of human activity along Cantabrian coast 18,000 years ago
A new study refines radiocarbon dating of marine remains and significantly improves the precision with which the human past of the Magdalenian period in the Cantabrian region of Spain can be reconstructed, a key phase of ...
Archaeology
Jan 23, 2026
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Social networks spanned thousands of square kilometers during the Upper Paleolithic period, study finds
Researchers from several European institutions, led by scientists from the University of Barcelona and the University of Alcalá, have demonstrated that the hunter-gatherers who inhabited the interior of the Iberian Peninsula ...
Archaeology
Jan 22, 2026
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5,500-year-old skeleton yields oldest evidence yet of syphilis-related bacteria
Scientists have recovered a genome of Treponema pallidum—the bacterium whose subspecies today are responsible for four treponemal diseases, including syphilis—from 5,500-year-old human remains in Sabana de Bogotá, Colombia. ...
Archaeology
Jan 22, 2026
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Prehistoric tool made from elephant bone is the oldest discovered in Europe
A remarkable prehistoric hammer made from elephant bone, dating back nearly half a million years ago, has been uncovered in southern England and analyzed by archaeologists from UCL and the Natural History Museum, London.
Archaeology
Jan 21, 2026
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