Lost Treasures News

April 18, 2024

Top Headlines

First Evidence of Human Occupation in Lava Tube Cave in Saudi Arabia

Apr. 17, 2024 — New research has highlighted an area in Arabia that once acted as a key point for cultural exchanges and trades amongst ancient people -- and it all took place in vast caves and lava tubes that have remained largely untapped reservoirs of ...

Pacific Cities Much Older Than Previously Thought

Apr. 10, 2024 — New evidence of one of the first cities in the Pacific shows they were established much earlier than previously thought, according to new research. The study used aerial laser scanning to map archaeological sites on the island of Tongatapu in Tonga, ...

Early Medieval Money Mystery Solved

Apr. 8, 2024 — Byzantine bullion fueled Europe's revolutionary adoption of silver coins in the mid-7th century, only to be overtaken by silver from a mine in Charlemagne's Francia a century later, new tests reveal. The findings could transform our understanding of ...

When Did the Chicken Cross the Road? New Evidence from Central Asia

Apr. 2, 2024 — An international team of scholars present the earliest clear archaeological and biomolecular evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, based on material from 12 archaeological sites spanning one and a half millennia. The research ...

Latest Headlines

updated 10:54pm EDT

Ancient DNA Reveals the Appearance of a 6th Century Chinese Emperor

Mar. 28, 2024 — What did an ancient Chinese emperor from 1,500 years ago look like? A team of researchers reconstructed the face of Chinese Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou using DNA extracted from his remains. The study ...

New Archive of Ancient Human Brains Challenges Misconceptions of Soft Tissue Preservation

Mar. 20, 2024 — A new study has challenged previously held views that brain preservation in the archaeological record is extremely rare. The team compiled a new ...

Persian Plateau Unveiled as Crucial Hub for Early Human Migration out of Africa

Mar. 25, 2024 — A new study combining genetic, palaeoecological, and archaeological evidence has unveiled the Persian Plateau as a pivotal geographic location ...

Tudor Era Horse Cemetery in Westminster Revealed as Likely Resting Place for Elite Imported Animals

Mar. 22, 2024 — Archaeological analysis of a near unique animal cemetery discovered in London nearly 30 years ago has revealed there was an international horse ...

Scientists Uncover Evidence That Microplastics Are Contaminating Archaeological Remains

Mar. 22, 2024 — A team of archaeologists discovered tiny microplastic particles in deposits located more than seven meters deep, in samples dating back to the first ...

Lost Tombs and Quarries Rediscovered on British Military Base in Cyprus

Mar. 7, 2024 — Archaeologists rediscovers 46 sites at the Eastern Sovereign Base Area at Dhekelia, Cyprus. Archaeologists located sites from archive records, a number of which were thought to have been 'lost.' They ...

Climate Change Threatens Thousands of Archaeological Sites in Coastal Georgia

Feb. 28, 2024 — Thousands of historic and archaeological sites in Georgia are at risk from tropical storm surges, and that number will increase with climate change, ...

Neolithic Groups from the South of the Iberian Peninsula First Settled Permanently in San Fernando (Cadiz) 6,200 Years Ago

Feb. 15, 2024 — A new study reveals that the first farmers and herdsmen settled in Andalusia collected and consumed shellfish throughout the year, especially in ...

Anthropologists' Research Unveils Early Stone Plaza in the Andes

Feb. 14, 2024 — Located at the Callacpuma archaeological site in the Cajamarca Basin of northern Peru, the plaza is built with large, vertically placed megalithic stones -- a construction method previously unseen in ...

Archaeologists Discover Oldest Known Bead in the Americas

Feb. 12, 2024 — The bead found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming's Converse County is about 12,940 years old and made of bone from a ...

Scientists ID Burned Bodies Using Technique Used for Extracting DNA from Woolly Mammoths, Neanderthals

Feb. 29, 2024 — A technique originally devised to extract DNA from woolly mammoths and other ancient archaeological specimens can be used to potentially identify badly burned human remains, according to ...

Experiment Captures Why Pottery Forms Are Culturally Distinct

Feb. 28, 2024 — Potters of different cultural backgrounds learn new types differently, producing cultural differences even in the absence of differential cultural evolution. The research has implications for how we ...

Thailand's Iron Age Log Coffin Culture

Feb. 6, 2024 — A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden ...

Prehistoric Mobility Among Tibetan Farmers, Herders Shaped Highland Settlement Patterns, Cultural Interaction, Study Finds

Feb. 2, 2024 — Using advanced geospatial modeling to compare environmental and archaeological evidence, researchers found evidence that connects ancient mobility and subsistence strategies to cultural connections ...

Archaeological Evidence of Seasonal Vitamin D Deficiency Discovered

Jan. 31, 2024 — Rickets ran rife in children following the Industrial Revolution, but new research has found factory work and polluted cities aren't entirely to blame for the period's vitamin D ...

New Research Challenges Hunter-Gatherer Narrative

Jan. 24, 2024 — Analysis of the remains of 24 individuals from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa burial sites in Peru shows that early human diets in the Andes Mountains were composed of 80 percent ...

DNA from Preserved Feces Reveals Ancient Japanese Gut Environment

Jan. 24, 2024 — DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new ...

Woolly Mammoth Movements Tied to Earliest Alaska Hunting Camps

Jan. 17, 2024 — Researchers have linked the travels of a 14,000-year-old woolly mammoth with the oldest known human settlements in Alaska, providing clues about the relationship between the iconic species and some ...

Discovery of Immense Fortifications Dating Back 4,000 Years in North-Western Arabia

Jan. 10, 2024 — The North Arabian Desert oases were inhabited by sedentary populations in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. A fortification enclosing the Khaybar Oasis -- one of the longest known going back to this ...

Rise of Archery in Andes Mountains Dated to 5,000 Years Ago -- Earlier Than Previous Research

Dec. 21, 2023 — Focusing on the Lake Titicaca Basin in the Andes mountains, anthropologists found through analysis of 1,179 projectile points that the rise of archery technology dates to around 5,000 years ago. ...

Mesopotamian Bricks Unveil the Strength of Earth's Ancient Magnetic Field

Dec. 18, 2023 — Ancient bricks inscribed with the names of Mesopotamian kings have yielded important insights into a mysterious anomaly in Earth's magnetic field 3,000 years ago, according to a new ...

'A Ticking Clock': First Ground-Based Survey of Damage to Ukrainian Cultural Sites Reveals Severity, Need for Urgency

Dec. 13, 2023 — And after nearly two years of fighting, war is destroying Ukraine’s cultural heritage on a scale not seen since World War II, according to new ...

Archaeologists Unearth One of Earliest Known Frame Saddles

Dec. 12, 2023 — Recovered from looters, a new archaeological discovery from a cave in western Mongolia could change the story of the evolving relationship between humans and horses around the ...

Dishing the Dirt on Human Evolution: Why Scientific Techniques Matter in Archaeology

Nov. 30, 2023 — Scientists should seek answers hidden in the dirt using proven and state-of-the-art archaeological science techniques to support new discoveries about human evolution following recent controversies ...

How Shipwrecks Are Providing a Refuge for Marine Life

Nov. 23, 2023 — New research has highlighted how the estimated 50,000 wrecks around the UK coastline are protecting the seabed, and the species inhabiting it, in areas still open to bottom-towed ...

Casas Del Turuñuelo, a Site of Repeated Animal Sacrifice in Iron Age Spain

Nov. 22, 2023 — The Iron Age site of Casas del Turuñuelo was used repeatedly for ritualized animal sacrifice, according to a multidisciplinary ...

Neanderthals Were the World's First Artists, Research Reveals

Nov. 21, 2023 — Recent research has shown that engravings in a cave in La Roche-Cotard (France), which has been sealed for thousands of years, were actually made by Neanderthals. The findings reveal that the ...

Radiocarbon Dating Meets Egyptology and Biblical Accounts in the City of Gezer

Nov. 16, 2023 — New dates provide detailed insights into the timing of events in the ancient city of Gezer, according to a new ...

Long-Distance Weaponry Identified at the 31,000-Year-Old Archaeological Site of Maisières-Canal

Nov. 6, 2023 — The hunter-gatherers who settled on the banks of the Haine, a river in southern Belgium, 31,000 years ago were already using spearthrowers to hunt their game. The material found at the archaeological ...

In Prehispanic Cancun, Immigrants Were Treated Just Like Maya Locals

Oct. 25, 2023 — Ancient people immigrated to Cancun Island and were treated just like locals, according to a new ...