Archaeology News

November 28, 2025

Top Headlines

A 400-million-year-old Plant Creates Water so Weird It Looks Alien

Nov. 13, 2025 Researchers discovered that living horsetails act like natural distillation towers, producing bizarre oxygen isotope signatures more extreme than anything previously recorded on Earth—sometimes resembling meteorite water. By tracing these isotopic ...

Dinosaurs Were Thriving When the Asteroid Struck

Oct. 26, 2025 Dinosaurs weren’t dying out before the asteroid hit—they were thriving in vibrant, diverse habitats across North America. Fossil evidence from New Mexico shows that distinct “bioprovinces” of dinosaurs existed until the very end. Their ...

Hippos Once Roamed Frozen Germany with Mammoths

Oct. 26, 2025 New research shows that hippos lived in central Europe tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought. Ancient DNA and radiocarbon dating confirm they survived in Germany’s Upper Rhine Graben during a milder Ice Age phase. Closely ...

From Poison to Power: How Lead Exposure Helped Shape Human Intelligence

Oct. 16, 2025 Long before humans built cities or wrote words, our ancestors may have faced a hidden threat that shaped who we became. Scientists studying ancient teeth found that early humans, great apes, and even Neanderthals were exposed to lead millions of ...

The Hidden Denisovan Gene That Helped Humans Conquer a New World

Oct. 7, 2025 Ancient humans crossing the Bering Strait into the Americas carried more than tools and determination—they also carried a genetic legacy from Denisovans, an extinct human relative. A new study reveals that a mysterious gene called MUC19, inherited ...

Forgotten Royal Warship Sunk 500 Years Ago Reveals Surprising Secrets

Sep. 19, 2025 From the wreck of the royal Danish-Norwegian flagship Gribshunden, archaeologists have uncovered a rare glimpse into the naval power of the late Middle Ages. This warship, lost in 1495, carried an arsenal of small guns designed for close-range ...

Ancient DNA Finally Solves the Mystery of the World’s First Pandemic

Aug. 30, 2025 Scientists have finally uncovered direct genetic evidence of Yersinia pestis — the bacterium behind the Plague of Justinian — in a mass grave in Jerash, Jordan. This long-sought discovery resolves a centuries-old debate, confirming that the ...

Mexican Cave Stalagmites Reveal the Deadly Droughts Behind the Maya Collapse

Aug. 16, 2025 Chemical evidence from a stalagmite in Mexico has revealed that the Classic Maya civilization’s decline coincided with repeated severe wet-season droughts, including one that lasted 13 years. These ...

Scientists Just Uncovered Three Ancient Worlds Frozen Beneath Illinois for 300 Million Years

Aug. 9, 2025 Over 300 million years ago, Illinois teemed with life in tropical swamps and seas, now preserved at the famous Mazon Creek fossil site. Researchers from the University of Missouri and geologist ...

The First Pandemic? Scientists Find 214 Ancient Pathogens in Prehistoric DNA

July 11, 2025 Scientists have uncovered DNA from 214 ancient pathogens in prehistoric humans, including the oldest known evidence of plague. The findings show zoonotic diseases began spreading around 6,500 years ...

New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo

May 30, 2025 A new species of velvet worm, Peripatopsis barnardi, represents the first ever species from the arid Karoo, which indicates that the area was likely historically more forested than at present. In the Cape Fold Mountains, we now know that every ...

New Method Provides the Key to Accessing Proteins in Ancient Human Remains

May 30, 2025 A new method could soon unlock the vast repository of biological information held in the proteins of ancient soft tissues. The findings could open up a new era for palaeobiological ...

Latest Headlines

updated 1:51pm EST

A Strange Ancient Foot Reveals a Hidden Human Cousin

Nov. 28, 2025 Researchers have finally assigned a strange 3.4-million-year-old foot to Australopithecus deyiremeda, confirming that Lucy’s species wasn’t alone in ancient Ethiopia. This hominin had an ...

New Evidence Shows the Maya Collapse Was More Than Just Drought

Nov. 26, 2025 Researchers studying Classic Maya cities discovered that urban growth was driven by a blend of climate downturns, conflict, and powerful economies of scale in agriculture. These forces made crowded, ...

Why Did Ancient People Build Massive, Mysterious Mounds in Louisiana?

Nov. 24, 2025 Hunter-gatherers at Poverty Point may have built its massive earthworks not under the command of chiefs, but as part of a vast, temporary gathering of egalitarian communities seeking spiritual ...

A Mysterious Metal Find in Sweden Is Rewriting Iron Age History

Nov. 23, 2025 A Swedish plano-convex ingot once thought to be from the Bronze Age was revealed through chemical and isotopic testing to belong to the Iron Age. Its composition closely matches Iron Age finds from ...

Scholars Say Most of What We Believe About Vikings Is Wrong

Nov. 23, 2025 Ideas about Vikings and Norse mythology come mostly from much later medieval sources, leaving plenty of room for reinterpretation. Over centuries, writers, politicians, and artists reshaped these ...

Fossils Reveal a Massive Shark That Ruled Australia in Dinosaur Times

Nov. 22, 2025 Around 115 million years ago, northern Australia’s seas hosted a colossal shark that rewrites what we thought we knew about early ocean predators. New fossil discoveries show that modern-type ...

Scientists Recover 40,000-Year-Old Mammoth RNA Still Packed With Clues

Nov. 15, 2025 Researchers have sequenced the oldest RNA ever recovered, taken from a woolly mammoth frozen for nearly 40,000 years. The RNA reveals which genes were active in its tissues, offering a rare glimpse ...

55-Million-Year-Old Fossils Reveal Bizarre Crocs That Dropped from Trees

Nov. 15, 2025 Scientists uncovered Australia’s oldest known crocodile eggshells, revealing the secret lives of ancient mekosuchine crocodiles that once dominated inland ecosystems. These crocs filled surprising ...

Science Finally Solves a 700-Year-Old Royal Murder

Nov. 14, 2025 Genetic, isotopic, and forensic evidence has conclusively identified the remains of Duke Béla of Macsó and uncovered remarkable details about his life, ancestry, and violent death. The study ...

A Fierce Crocodile Ancestor That Hunted Before Dinosaurs Has Been Found

Nov. 12, 2025 Scientists have identified a new crocodile precursor that looked deceptively dinosaur-like and hunted with speed and precision. Named Tainrakuasuchus bellator, the armored “warrior” lived 240 ...

Archaeologists May Have Finally Solved Peru’s Strange “Band of Holes” Mystery

Nov. 10, 2025 In Peru’s mysterious Pisco Valley, thousands of perfectly aligned holes known as Monte Sierpe have long puzzled scientists. New drone mapping and microbotanical analysis reveal that these holes may ...

2.7-Million-Year-Old Tools Reveal Humanity’s First Great Innovation

Nov. 4, 2025 Researchers uncovered a 2.75–2.44 million-year-old site in Kenya showing that early humans maintained stone tool traditions for nearly 300,000 years despite extreme climate swings. The tools, ...

A Prehistoric Battle Just Rewrote T. Rex’s Story

Nov. 2, 2025 The debate over Nanotyrannus’ identity is finally over. A remarkably preserved fossil proves it was a mature species, not a teenage T. rex. This discovery rewrites how scientists understand ...

5,500-Year-Old Site in Jordan Reveals a Lost Civilization’s Secrets

Nov. 4, 2025 After the collapse of the Chalcolithic culture around 3500 BCE, people in Jordan’s Murayghat transformed their way of life, shifting from domestic settlements to ritual landscapes filled with ...

A 540-Million-Year-Old Fossil Is Rewriting Evolution

Nov. 12, 2025 Over 500 million years ago, the Cambrian Period sparked an explosion of skeletal creativity. Salterella, a peculiar fossil, defied conventions by combining two different mineral-building methods. ...

Ancient Humans in Italy Butchered Elephants and Made Tools from Their Bones

Oct. 12, 2025 Researchers in Italy discovered 400,000-year-old evidence that ancient humans butchered elephants for food and tools. At the Casal Lumbroso site near Rome, they found hundreds of bones and stone ...

3,000 Years of Secrets Hidden Beneath Egypt’s Greatest Temple

Oct. 6, 2025 A sweeping new geoarchaeological study has revealed how Egypt’s famed Karnak Temple complex rose from an island amid Nile floods to become one of the ancient world’s most enduring sacred centers. ...

Hidden for 70 Million Years, a Tiny Fossil Fish Is Rewriting Freshwater Evolution

Oct. 4, 2025 Researchers in Alberta uncovered a fossil fish that rewrites the evolutionary history of otophysans, which today dominate freshwater ecosystems. The new species, Acronichthys maccognoi, shows early ...

12,000-Year-Old Rock Art Found in Arabia Reveals a Lost Civilization

Oct. 10, 2025 Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia discovered over 170 ancient rock engravings that may be among the earliest monumental artworks in the region. Created between 12,800 and 11,400 years ago, the massive ...

The Accidental Discovery That Forged the Iron Age

Sep. 28, 2025 Ancient copper smelters may have accidentally set the stage for the Iron Age. At a 3,000-year-old workshop in Georgia, researchers discovered that metalworkers were using iron oxide not to smelt iron ...

Student’s Pinkie-Sized Fossil Reveals a New Croc Species

Sep. 23, 2025 A 95-million-year-old crocodyliform fossil, affectionately nicknamed Elton, was discovered in Montana by student Harrison Allen. Unlike most crocs, it lived on land and ate a varied diet. The find ...

Archaeologists Uncover Lost Land Bridge That May Rewrite Human History

Oct. 12, 2025 New research along Turkey’s Ayvalık coast reveals a once-submerged land bridge that may have helped early humans cross from Anatolia into Europe. Archaeologists uncovered 138 Paleolithic tools ...

Stunning Fossil from the Gobi Desert Rewrites Dinosaur History

Sep. 20, 2025 A newly discovered fossil in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has revealed the oldest and most complete pachycephalosaur ever found, offering a rare glimpse into the early evolution of these dome-headed ...

Secrets Unearthed: Women and Children Buried With Stone Tools

Sep. 11, 2025 Archaeologists studying the vast Zvejnieki cemetery in Latvia have uncovered surprising truths about Stone Age life. Stone tools, long thought to symbolize male hunters, were actually buried just as ...

Baby Pterosaurs Died in Ancient Storms—and Their Fossils Reveal the Truth

Sep. 5, 2025 Two tiny pterosaurs, preserved for 150 million years, have revealed a surprising cause of death: violent storms. Researchers at the University of Leicester discovered both hatchlings, nicknamed Lucky ...

Dinosaur Teeth Reveal Secrets of Jurassic Life 150 Million Years Ago

Sep. 7, 2025 Sauropod tooth scratches reveal that some dinosaurs migrated seasonally, others ate a wide variety of plants, and climate strongly shaped their diets. Tanzania’s sand-blasted vegetation left ...

Woolly Mammoth Teeth Reveal the World’s Oldest Microbial DNA

Sep. 5, 2025 Scientists have uncovered microbial DNA preserved in mammoth remains dating back more than one million years, revealing the oldest host-associated microbial DNA ever recovered. By sequencing nearly ...

This Forgotten King United England Long Before 1066

Sep. 24, 2025 Æthelstan, crowned in 925, was the first true king of England but remains overshadowed by Alfred the Great and later rulers. A new biography highlights his military triumphs, legal innovations, and ...

Extinct Human Relatives Left a Genetic Gift That Helped People Thrive in the Americas

Aug. 24, 2025 Scientists have discovered that a gene called MUC19, inherited from Denisovans through ancient interbreeding, may have played a vital role in helping Indigenous ancestors adapt as they migrated into ...

Ancient Tides May Have Sparked Humanity’s First Urban Civilization

Oct. 27, 2025 New research shows that the rise of Sumer was deeply tied to the tidal and sedimentary dynamics of ancient Mesopotamia. Early communities harnessed predictable tides for irrigation, but when deltas ...