Archaeology

More Stories in Archaeology

  1. Coxcatlan Cave entrance
    Archaeology

    New clues suggest people reached the Americas around 30,000 years ago

    Ancient rabbit bones from a Mexican rock-shelter point to humans arriving on the continent as much as 10,000 years earlier than often assumed.

    By Bruce Bower
  2. photo of two skeletons on their sides in the fetal position, half immersed in the soil
    Anthropology

    Hunter-gatherers first launched violent raids at least 13,400 years ago

    Skeletons from an ancient African cemetery bear the oldest known signs of small-scale warfare.

    By Bruce Bower
  3. black and white image of dusty ruins in Greenwood after the massacre
    Archaeology

    To find answers about the 1921 race massacre, Tulsa digs up its painful past

    A century ago, hundreds of people died in a horrific eruption of racial violence in Tulsa. A team of researchers may have found a mass grave from the event.

    By Helen Thompson
  4. sharpened turkey leg bones used for tattoos
    Archaeology

    The oldest known tattoo tools were found at an ancient Tennessee site

    Sharpened turkey leg bones may have served as tattoo needles between 5,520 and 3,620 years ago, at least a millennium earlier than previously thought.

    By Bruce Bower
  5. virtual reconstruction of child's bones
    Anthropology

    A child’s 78,000-year-old grave marks Africa’s oldest known human burial

    Cave excavation of a youngster’s grave pushes back the date of the first human burial identified in the continent by at least a few thousand years.

    By Bruce Bower
  6. scientists excavating a rock shelter in the Kalahari Desert
    Archaeology

    Stone Age culture bloomed inland, not just along Africa’s coasts

    Homo sapiens living more than 600 kilometers from the coast around 105,000 years ago collected crystals that may have had ritual meaning.

    By Bruce Bower
  7. archaeological structures from ancient city of Çatalhöyük
    Archaeology

    A tour of ‘Four Lost Cities’ reveals modern ties to ancient people

    In the book 'Four Lost Cities,' author Annalee Newitz uses cities of the past to show what might happen to cities in the future.

    By Bethany Brookshire
  8. bones of a man and woman with artifacts in a bronze age grave
    Anthropology

    Riches in a Bronze Age grave suggest it holds a queen

    Researchers have long assumed mostly men ran ancient Bronze Age societies, but the find points to a female ruler in Spain 3,700 years ago.

    By Bruce Bower
  9. scientist holding small piece of ancient dog bone
    Archaeology

    An ancient dog fossil helps trace humans’ path into the Americas

    Found in Alaska, the roughly 10,000-year-old bone bolsters the idea that early human settlers took a coastal rather than inland route.

    By Anushree Dave