Archaeology

Archaeologists have discovered an elaborate, perfectly preserved shrine in the wall of a house in Pompeii, the ancient Roman city on Italy’s western coast that was destroyed nearly 2,000 years ago by the deadly eruption of Mount Vesuvius. As many as 30,000 people are believed to ...read more

Sure, the story of King Arthur drawing Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake is pretty cool. But have you heard about the eight-year-old girl who pulled a sword that’s at least 1,000 years old out of a Swedish lake?The Swedish news site The Local reports that Saga Vanecek was ...read more

Every fall, grocery stores line their shelves with pumpkin spice-flavored products that range from traditional pumpkin pies to the more questionable pumpkin spice candy corn. The flavor is a mixture of nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger and cloves—all spices that humans have enjoyed in ...read more

For many people, nothing tastes better than a glass of cold beer, whether enjoyed at the end of a long day of work or while relaxing on a summer afternoon. But brewing beer—not baking bread—could be the reason our ancestors began cultivating grains in the first place. Inside a ...read more

After 75 years, wrecked remains of a U.S. Navy destroyer, cleaved in two during World War II by an underwater explosion, has been located in frigid waters off the Aleutian island of Kiska. A NOAA-funded team of scientists discovered the stern of the USS Abner Read on the ...read more

Archaeologists have identified Germany’s oldest public library, which may also be the oldest library in the Roman Empire’s northwest provinces. Niches in the walls appear to have stored up to 20,000 scrolls.The library’s remains were unearthed in the middle of Cologne. The Romans ...read more

A 7.1-magnitude earthquake that shook central Mexico in September 2017 caused extensive damage and killed 369 people. This week, archaeologists announced that the earthquake has also led to the discovery of an ancient, hidden temple.The temple sits inside a double pyramid at the ...read more

To the untrained eye, the palm-sized quartz stones appear unremarkable. But archeologists believe that 96 roughly sharpened rocks dug from a cliffside deposit in China represent the oldest known evidence of ancient human tools outside of Africa.How and when our human ancestors ...read more

When the headless skeleton of a Pompeii man was discovered in May, archeologists believed he was decapitated by a large block of stone that landed on top of him and severed his head while he was fleeing the eruption of Mount Vesuvius some 2,000 years ago.But his skull, discovered ...read more

The shattered bones of women, teens and young children recently discovered at an ancient archaeological site known as the “German Stonehenge” may offer evidence of ritual human sacrifice in Bronze Age Europe.The victims’ last moments appear to have been violent ones, as evidenced ...read more

Archaeologists who discovered the imprint of a horse killed in the Pompeii disaster have now cast a full-size plaster replica of the horse’s body print, the first to be found in the wreckage at Pompeii.The horse with no name met its fate in 79 A.D., when the Mount Vesuvius ...read more

Northern Peru is known for its pre-Columbian ruins and its sunny beaches. A recent archaeological discovery combines both—in the most grisly way imaginable. At a dig in a shantytown near Trujillo, Peru, archaeologists have located the bodies of hundreds of children and llamas, ...read more

In 2014, Greenpeace got in trouble for disturbing a mysterious World Heritage site of desert hieroglyphs known as the Nazca Lines (and in early 2018, a truck drove across them, too). The site consists of massive designs that pre-Incan people etched into the ground starting around ...read more

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known human footprints in North America. Specifically, they’ve discovered footprints from three ice-age humans who walked the shores of a Canadian Island approximately 13,000 years ago.Researchers believe that the 29 clay footprints, ...read more

Historians have long known that boxing was popular in the Roman Empire. The sport appears in mosaics from the period and pops up in literature like Virgil’s The Aeneid. Now, archaeologists have uncovered more evidence: a pair of well-preserved Roman boxing gloves.A discovery like ...read more

Archaeologists have uncovered a 4,400-year-old Egyptian tomb that they believe belonged to a high-ranking priestess. The Egyptian government revealed the new discovery on February 3, 2018, noting that this tomb on the Giza plateau contains rare wall paintings.The researchers say ...read more

The city of Rome is over 2,700 years old. Dig into the ground and you’ll eventually bump into what the old residents left behind.Over the past decade, the construction and extension of Rome’s third subway line—Line C—has unearthed a treasure trove of artifacts. In December 2017, ...read more

Amazing discoveries came to light nearly every single month in 2017. Take a chronological journey back through 15 of the year’s most intriguing historical events, from archaeological finds and fascinating DNA evidence to newly uncovered documents that change our understanding of ...read more