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Archaeology news
How can we ethically display the dead in museums? What about resin casts of those who died violently in Pompeii?
We are used to seeing dead bodies in movies and TV shows, but how should we feel when presented with a dead person from the ancient past in a museum?
Archaeology
42 minutes ago
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Study suggests ancient hominins used unmodified volcanic rock spheres as tools
A new study by Dr. Margherita Mussi, published in Quaternary International, highlights how naturally occurring basalt spheres may have been used by hominin species as a type of tool for more than 1 million years.
Rarely seen cave art holds prehistoric secrets in France
Deep inside a labyrinthine cave in southwestern France, ancient humans who lived around 30,000 years ago carved horses, mammoths and rhinoceros into the walls, a fabulous prehistoric menagerie that has rarely been seen—until ...
Archaeology
21 hours ago
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Why I'm training Colombian Amazonians to become archaeology tourist guides
Diana Vera, a passionate local guide from Serranía de la Lindosa, Colombia, leads a group of sweaty and panting European tourists through the hot, lush Amazonian rainforest. Together, they climb the flattop hill (known as ...
Archaeology
Mar 19, 2025
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Art historian solves riddle behind theft of famous portrait
The 70-year mystery surrounding the theft of an original oil sketch by renowned Flemish painter Anthony van Dyck from a stately home in Northamptonshire has been solved thanks to the research of an art historian.
Archaeology
Mar 18, 2025
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Investigating the psychedelic blue lotus of Egypt, where ancient magic meets modern science
Few plants are more celebrated in Egyptian mythology than the blue lotus, a stunning water lily that stars in some of archaeology's most significant discoveries. Researchers found its petals covering the body of King Tut ...
Archaeology
Mar 18, 2025
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Epi and Tongoa: How two cultures diverged after an island-splitting volcanic eruption
A recent study published in Archaeology in Oceania explores the oral, linguistic, genetic and archaeological evidence surrounding the Tombuk volcanic eruption.
Ivory Coast's epochal prehistoric finds pass unseen
In the streets of Anyama, children play and braziers smoke on corners. There is little to show that the ground of this everyday Ivory Coast neighborhood conceals seminal prehistoric treasures.
Archaeology
Mar 18, 2025
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Researchers propose new hypothesis for the origin of stone tools
Sharp stone technology chipped over three million years allowed early humans to exploit animal and plant food resources, which in turn played a large role in increasing human brain size and kick-starting a technological trajectory ...
Archaeology
Mar 17, 2025
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Iron shackles found at Ghozza suggest at least some gold miners during Egypt's Ptolemaic period were slaves
A historian with Laboratoire HiSoMA, Maison de l'Orient et de la Méditerranée Jean Pouilloux, in France, has theorized that iron shackles found at a dig site in Ghozza, Egypt, suggest that at least some of the workers at ...
Bronze Age pottery reveals El Argar's economic and political boundaries
Researchers from the UAB and the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology have identified the economic and political borders separating El Argar, considered to be the first state-society in the Iberian Peninsula, from ...
Archaeology
Mar 17, 2025
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Cinnabar-stained teeth—a mystery from an ancient Turpan burial
Research led by Jilin University and Texas A&M University has documented the first known case of cinnabar-stained teeth in antiquity. Analysis of a burial from approximately 2,200 years ago in the Shengjindian Cemetery, Turpan, ...
Smell like a god: Ancient sculptures were scented, Danish study shows
Science has already proven that sculptures from ancient Greece and Rome were often painted in warm colors, and now a Danish study has revealed that some were also perfumed.
Archaeology
Mar 14, 2025
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Putting ethics at the forefront in the use of human skeletal remains
Department of Anatomy researcher Professor Siân Halcrow is collaborating with two biological anthropology colleagues from the United States to review the use of human skeletal remains for teaching and research.
Archaeology
Mar 14, 2025
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Teeth from a 2100-year-old burial pit in Mongolia tell a tale of soldiers far from home
Research led by Jilin University, China, is providing bioarchaeological evidence on a mass grave at the Bayanbulag site in Mongolia containing the remains of soldiers from the Han-Xiongnu War. Genetic, isotopic, and tooth ...
Ancient DNA reveals Maghreb communities preserved their culture and genes, even in a time of human migration
The Neolithic period began in southwest Asia around 12,000 years ago. It marked a major shift in human history as societies transitioned from hunting and gathering to farming. This sparked migrations across Europe and dramatically ...
Archaeology
Mar 12, 2025
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Explorers discover wreckage of cargo ship that sank in Lake Superior storm more than 130 years ago
Twenty years before the Titanic changed maritime history, another ship touted as the next great technological feat set sail on the Great Lakes.
Archaeology
Mar 11, 2025
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First burials: Compelling evidence that Neanderthal and Homo sapiens engaged in cultural exchange
The first-ever published research on Tinshemet Cave reveals that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens in the mid-Middle Paleolithic Levant not only coexisted but actively interacted, sharing technology, lifestyles, and burial customs. ...
Archaeology
Mar 11, 2025
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'You don't just throw them in a box.' Archaeologists and Indigenous scholars call for better care of animal remains
Two years ago, Chance Ward began opening boxes of horse remains that had been shipped to the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History from other institutions around the country. What he saw made his heart sink.
Archaeology
Mar 10, 2025
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New study reveals an enigmatic pre-Columbian burial in Ecuador
A recent study, conducted by Dr. Sara Juengst and her colleagues and published in Latin American Antiquity, sheds light on a unique Manteño (AD 650–1532) burial, possibly linked to human sacrifice.
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