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Archaeology news
Analysis of medieval books reveals many were bound with sealskin
An international team of archaeologists, bioinformatic specialists, and historians has discovered that many medieval books were bound using seal skin. In their paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the ...
Earliest evidence of ivory tool production discovered in Ukraine, dating back 400,000 years
Bone tools have been created by hominins for millions of years, with the earliest evidence for the manufacture of deliberately shaped bone tools dating to approximately 1.4 to 0.7 million years ago in Ethiopia. In Europe, ...
Ancient tools from a South African cave reveal connections between prehistoric people
In a cave overlooking the ocean on the southern coast of South Africa, archaeologists discovered thousands of stone tools, created by ancient humans roughly 20,000 years ago. By examining tiny details in the chipped edges ...
Archaeology
Apr 9, 2025
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Race to save Sweden's 17th century warship in preservation project
A Swedish museum has launched a massive four-year project to preserve the sagging hull of the Vasa, a majestic warship that sank nearly 400 years ago and is now one of Sweden's most popular tourist attractions.
Archaeology
Apr 9, 2025
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Comparing economic inequality between the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty
A trio of researchers from Bocconi University, in Italy, the University of Cambridge, in the U.K., and Stanford University, in the U.S., has found that there was more economic inequality under the Han Dynasty than during ...
Hunter-gatherers' daring sea journey to Malta predates early farmers by 1,000 years, study finds
Seafaring hunter-gatherers were accessing remote, small islands such as Malta thousands of years before the arrival of the first farmers, a new international study has found.
Archaeology
Apr 9, 2025
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Peru's ancient irrigation systems turned deserts into farms because of the culture. Without it, the systems failed
Seeing the north coast of Peru for the first time, you would be hard-pressed to believe it's one of the driest deserts in the world.
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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Tutankhamun: Plain-looking mud trays in pharaoh's tomb may have been key part of complex afterlife rituals
More than 100 years after the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun in the Valley of the Kings, new interpretations of the burial are still emerging. A recent article published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology proposes ...
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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What Syriac scribes chose to keep: A digital dive into 1,000 manuscripts
A new study uses digital tools to analyze nearly 1,000 Syriac manuscripts from the British Library, focusing on how scribes and editors selected and rearranged parts of texts—a practice known as excerpting. Researcher Noam ...
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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Ancient artifacts made of volcanic glass keep turning up in Canada, but how?
Volcanic glass has been discovered at more than 500 archaeological sites in western Canada. Geologically speaking, it shouldn't be there.
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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In Guatemala, painted altar found at Tikal adds new context to mysterious Maya history
Just steps from the center of Tikal, a 2,400-year-old Maya city in the heart of modern-day Guatemala, a global team of researchers including scholars from Brown University have unearthed a buried altar that could unlock the ...
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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Altar found in Guatemalan jungle evidence of mingling of Mayan and Teotihuacan cultures, experts say
An altar from the Teotihuacan culture, at the pre-Hispanic heart of what became Mexico, was discovered in Tikal National Park in Guatemala, the center of Mayan culture, demonstrating the interaction between the two societies, ...
Archaeology
Apr 8, 2025
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Revealing the rhythms of ancient Arabia: Music connected cultures in the prehistoric Arabian Gulf
Archaeologists have analyzed a pair of copper cymbals from Bronze Age Oman, suggesting a shared musical tradition connected cultures and helped facilitate trade around the Arabian Gulf.
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2025
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Prehistoric skis: Melting glaciers reveal clues to climate adaptation in Norway's mountains
Glacial archaeologists have recently discovered the second prehistoric ski of a pair of skis at Digervarden, a mountain in central Norway. Found just five meters from where the first one was uncovered seven years earlier, ...
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2025
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A large, sustainable and egalitarian community at the height of the Copper Age
The Chalcolithic site of Valencina de la Concepción in Seville was permanently occupied for a thousand years, between 3300 and 2150 BCE, by a community of several thousand inhabitants who organized themselves in an egalitarian ...
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2025
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Life-size sculptures uncovered in Pompeii show that ancient women didn't just have to be wives to make a difference
Visitors to the site of Pompeii, the ancient Roman town buried (and so preserved for thousands of years) by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79AD, don't often think to look beyond the city walls. And it's easy to understand ...
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2025
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Ireland's neolithic passage tombs were not just the burial place of the elite
In County Meath in eastern Ireland sits the world heritage site of Brú na Bóinne. The late 4th millennium BC megalithic tombs have been labeled "passage tombs" by archaeologists because they typically feature a narrow passage ...
Archaeology
Apr 7, 2025
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Codex of Türi: Study traces origins of Estonia's oldest dated manuscript covers
A recent study by Dr. Alar Läänelaid and his colleagues has provided new insights into the creation of the oldest dated manuscript in Estonia. The study published in the Journal of Cultural Heritage set out to determine ...
Climate change and prehistoric human populations: Study finds eastward shift of settlement areas at end of last Ice Age
A new study sheds light on how prehistoric hunter-gatherer populations in Europe coped with climate changes over 12,000 years ago. Led by scientists from the University of Cologne, a team of 25 prehistoric archaeologists ...
Archaeology
Apr 3, 2025
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A mass grave for fighters in a Roman Empire-era battle is revealed in Vienna
As construction crews churned up dirt to renovate a Vienna soccer field last October, they happened upon an unprecedented find: A heap of intertwined skeletal remains in a mass grave dating to the 1st-century Roman Empire, ...
Archaeology
Apr 3, 2025
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More news
Even the common people drank wine in Troy
The hidden hand of medieval female scribes
How ancient stone kitchens preserve food secrets
Decoding a medieval mystery manuscript
Other news
New experiment halves weight limit of elusive neutrinos
A new approach to probe hadronization via quantum entanglement
Q&A: How to (theoretically) spot an alien
First new plant tissue discovered in 160 years boosts crop yields
New AI tool set to speed quest for advanced superconductors
Einstein's dream of a unified field theory accomplished?
A new tool for parsing the 'metabolic dialogue' between microorganisms
Researchers discover large dormant virus can be reactivated in model green alga
AI-designed antimicrobial peptides show promise for treating citrus greening disease
Simulating quantum magnetism with a digital quantum computer
Guiding fruit flies like micro-robots using pinwheels and light
Mapping beetles' wiggle could help battle global food security
Two new tapeworm species discovered in wild oval squid
