Archaeology

More Stories in Archaeology

  1. portrait of brown chicken with lots of head feathers
    Anthropology

    A new origin story for domesticated chickens starts in rice fields 3,500 years ago

    Chickens, popular on today’s menus, got their start in Southeast Asia surprisingly recently, probably as exotic or revered animals, researchers say.

    By Bruce Bower
  2. lidar image of Cotoca site
    Archaeology

    Lasers reveal ancient urban sprawl hidden in the Amazon

    South America’s Casarabe culture built a network of large and small settlements in what’s now Bolivia centuries before the Spanish arrived.

    By Bruce Bower
  3. photo of the remains of an Inca child bundled in a textile and wearing a ceremonial headdress
    Archaeology

    A special brew may have calmed Inca children headed for sacrifice

    The mummified remains contained a substance that may reduce anxiety and is found in ayahuasca, a psychedelic ceremonial liquid still drunk today.

    By Bruce Bower
  4. image of a campfire
    Humans

    Prehistoric people may have used light from fires to create dynamic art

    When brought near flickering flames, prehistoric stone engravings of animals seem to move, experiments with replicas and virtual reality show.

    By Allison Gasparini
  5. carved relief of an ancient Egyptian queen smelling a lotus flower
    Archaeology

    Ancient ‘smellscapes’ are wafting out of artifacts and old texts

    In studying and reviving long-ago scents, archaeologists aim to understand how people experienced, and interpreted, their worlds through smell.

    By Bruce Bower
  6. illustration of muon particles raining down on the Great Pyramid of Giza
    Particle Physics

    Muons spill secrets about Earth’s hidden structures

    Tracking travel patterns of subatomic particles called muons helps reveal the inner worlds of pyramids, volcanoes and more.

    By Emily Conover
  7. two fragment so of a Maya mural showing a drawing of the 7 Deer hieroglyph
    Archaeology

    This hieroglyph is the oldest known record of the Maya calendar

    Plaster fragments with the markings date to at least 200 B.C. and indicate that the calendar system, still used today, might be centuries older.

    By Anna Gibbs
  8. illustration of an ancient trepanation surgery
    Anthropology

    North America’s oldest skull surgery dates to at least 3,000 years ago

    Bone regrowth suggests the man, who lived in what’s now Alabama, survived a procedure to treat brain swelling by scraping a hole out of his forehead.

    By Bruce Bower
  9. photo of the Phoenician pool with a white statue of Ba’al in the center and the ocean in the distance
    Archaeology

    Ancient seafarers built the Mediterranean’s largest known sacred pool

    The Olympic-sized pool, once thought to be an artificial inner harbor, helped Phoenicians track the stars and their gods, excavations reveal.

    By Bruce Bower