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Archaeology News

December 22, 2025

Top Headlines

 

Around 1,000 years ago, a major climate shift reshaped rainfall across the South Pacific, making western islands like Samoa and Tonga drier while eastern islands such as Tahiti became increasingly ...
Fossils from Qatar have revealed a small, newly identified sea cow species that lived in the Arabian Gulf more than 20 million years ago. The site contains the densest known collection of fossil sea cow bones, showing that these animals once thrived ...
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 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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...
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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 12:48pm EST

Earlier Headlines

 

Five hundred years ago, a Bible accidentally printed with a backwards map of the Holy Land sparked a revolution in how people imagined geography, borders, and even nationhood. Despite the blunder, ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Researchers exploring Bolivia’s Great Tectonic Lakes discovered a landscape transformed over centuries by sophisticated engineering and diverse agricultural traditions. Excavations show how ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

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 ...

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 ...

Scientists have reconstructed the most complete and lifelike profile of Edmontosaurus annectens thanks to an extraordinary preservation process called clay templating, in which a thin clay film ...

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 ...

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, ...

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. ...

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 ...

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. ...

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 ...

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