Archaeology News

April 30, 2025

Top Headlines

Skeletal Evidence of Roman Gladiator Bitten by Lion in Combat

Apr. 23, 2025 — Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a ...

Phoenician Culture Spread Mainly Through Cultural Exchange

Apr. 23, 2025 — Ancient DNA analysis challenges our understanding of the ancient Phoenician-Punic civilization. An international team of researchers analyzing genome-wide data from 210 ancient individuals has found that Levantine Phoenician towns contributed little ...

How Activity in Earth's Mantle Led the Ancient Ancestors of Elephants, Giraffes, and Humans Into Asia and Africa

Apr. 21, 2025 — What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In ...

Extreme Drought Contributed to Barbarian Invasion of Late Roman Britain, Tree-Ring Study Reveals

Apr. 17, 2025 — Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and Saxons ...

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Wealth Inequality's Deep Roots in Human Prehistory

Apr. 14, 2025 — Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That's according to a new study that challenges ...

New Computer Model Reveals How Bronze Age Scandinavians Could Have Crossed the Sea

Apr. 2, 2025 — People living in Bronze Age-era Denmark may have been able to travel to Norway directly over the open sea, according to a new study. To complete this ...

Ancient Tools from a South African Cave Reveal Connections Between Prehistoric People

Apr. 9, 2025 — In a cave overlooking the ocean on the southern coast of South Africa, archaeologists discovered thousands of stone tools, created by ancient humans ...

First Ancient Genomes from the Green Sahara Deciphered

Apr. 2, 2025 — An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...

Cuneiforms: New Digital Tool for Translating Ancient Texts

Mar. 26, 2025 — Major milestone reached in digital Cuneiform studies: Researchers present an innovative tool that offers many new ...

The 'Frontiers' of Southeast Iberian Bronze Age Communities Identified

Mar. 17, 2025 — Researchers have identified the economic and political borders separating El Argar, considered to be the first state-society in the Iberian Peninsula, from its La Mancha and Valencia Bronze Age ...

A 62-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Sheds Light on an Enigmatic Mammal

Mar. 11, 2025 — For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery. What little was known about them had been mostly ...

Prehistoric Bone Tool 'Factory' Hints at Early Development of Abstract Reasoning in Human Ancestors

Mar. 5, 2025 — The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one ...

Giant Ice Bulldozers: How Ancient Glaciers Helped Life Evolve

Feb. 25, 2025 — New research has revealed how massive ancient glaciers acted like giant bulldozers, reshaping Earth's surface and paving the way for complex life to flourish. By chemically analyzing crystals in ...

Humans Inherited Their Flexible Joints from the Earliest Jawed Fish

Feb. 25, 2025 — The efficient architecture of our joints, which allows our skeletons to be flexible and sturdy, originated among our most ancient jawed fish ancestors, according to a new ...

Viking Skulls Reveal Severe Morbidity

Feb. 21, 2025 — Sweden's Viking Age population appears to have suffered from severe oral and maxillofacial disease, sinus and ear infections, osteoarthritis, and much more. This is shown in a study in which ...

Near-Complete Skull Discovery Reveals 'Top Apex', Leopard-Sized 'Fearsome' Carnivore

Feb. 17, 2025 — A rare discovery of a nearly complete skull in the Egyptian desert has led scientists to the 'dream' revelation of a new 30-million-year-old species of the ancient apex predatory carnivore, ...

Underwater Fossil Bed Discovered by Collectors Preserves Rare Slice of Florida's Past

Feb. 12, 2025 — Fossil collectors in Florida have discovered an ancient sinkhole, now at the bottom of a river, which holds the remains of animals rarely seen in the state, including a type of giant armadillo, giant ...

Evidence of Cannibalism 18,000 Years Ago

Feb. 11, 2025 — An international research team has gained new insights into the burial rituals of Late Ice Age societies in Central Europe. Signs of human remains from the Maszycka Cave in southern Poland being ...

New Study Unravels the History of the Largest Pastoral Population in Africa

Feb. 11, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered the origins and genetic diversity of the Fulani, one of Africa's largest pastoral populations. The study reveals a complex genetic ancestry with influences from both ...

Missing Link in Indo-European Languages' History Found

Feb. 5, 2025 — Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Researchers contribute a new piece to this puzzle. They analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia ...

'Altar Tent' Discovery Puts Islamic Art at the Heart of Medieval Christianity

Jan. 31, 2025 — A 13th-century fresco rediscovered in Ferrara, Italy, provides unique evidence of medieval churches using Islamic tents to conceal their high altars. The 700-year-old fresco is thought to be the only ...

Ancient DNA Analyses Bring to Life the 11,000-Year Intertwined Genomic History of Sheep and Humans

Jan. 30, 2025 — The rise of pastoralist peoples in the Eurasian steppes and their westward spread some 5,000 years ago may have been fueled by sheep herding and people exploiting their milk. As early as 8,000 years ...

Lead Contamination in Ancient Greece Points to Societal Change

Jan. 30, 2025 — Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. Geoscientists conducted ...

Archaeologists Find 'Lost' Site Depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

Jan. 27, 2025 — Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that a house in England is the site of a lost residence of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, and shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. By reinterpreting ...

Ancient Genomes Reveal an Iron Age Society Centred on Women

Jan. 15, 2025 — A groundbreaking study finds evidence that land was inherited through the female line in Iron Age Britain, with husbands moving to live with their wife's community. This is believed to be the ...

Ancient Artifacts Unearthed in Iraq Shed Light on Hidden History of Mesopotamia

Jan. 14, 2025 — Researchers made the new discoveries during field work at the Bronze Age site of Kurd Qaburstan. The research provides insights into regional heritage and fills gaps in knowledge about how ancient ...

World's Oldest 3D Map Discovered

Jan. 13, 2025 — Researchers have discovered what may be the world's oldest three-dimensional map, located within a quartzitic sandstone megaclast in the Paris ...

Cleopatra's Sister Remains Missing

Jan. 10, 2025 — anthropologists have analyzed a skull that was found in the ruins of Ephesos (Turkey) in 1929. It was long speculated that it could be the remains of Arsino IV, the sister of the famous Cleopatra. ...

DNA Adds New Chapter to Indonesia's Layered Human History

Jan. 7, 2025 — A new study has outlined the first genomic evidence of early migration from New Guinea into the Wallacea, an archipelago containing Timor-Leste and hundreds of inhabited eastern Indonesian ...

Lead Pollution Likely Caused Widespread IQ Declines in Ancient Rome, New Study Finds

Jan. 6, 2025 — Lead exposure is responsible for a range of human health impacts, with even relatively low levels impacting the cognitive development of children. Scientists have previously used atmospheric ...

Ancient DNA Unlocks New Understanding of Migrations in the First Millennium AD

Jan. 1, 2025 — Waves of human migration across Europe during the first millennium AD have been revealed using a more precise method of analysing ancestry with ancient DNA, in research led by the Francis Crick ...

Butchered Bones Suggest Violent 'Othering' of Enemies in Bronze Age Britain

Dec. 16, 2024 — Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft. It is the ...

A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans

Dec. 12, 2024 — Neanderthal genes make up 1-2% of the genomes of non-Africans. Scientists analyzed the lengths of regions of Neanderthal DNA in 58 ancient Eurasian genomes of early modern humans and determined that ...

Unique Insights Into Lives of People Who Lived Over 5,600 Years Ago Near Kosenivka, Ukraine

Dec. 11, 2024 — A new study sheds light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area ...