From Stonehenge's origins to ice age baby genetics — how well did you follow this year's top archaeology stories?

Archaeologists uncover artifacts from the Illyrians, an ancient Balkan hunter gatherer tribe, in Spila Cave. | Location: Balkan Peninsula.
(Image credit: Bojan Brecelj/Getty Images)

Archaeologists wasted no time in 2024, digging up incredible finds, such as the remains of an ancient temple in Greece and golden tongues in ancient Egyptian burials, and then analyzing them to learn more about our past.

Meanwhile, people studying human evolution found precious clues about our extinct relatives. For instance, they discovered that 1.4 million-year-old stone tools, the earliest in Europe, weren't made by modern humans. And they learned that Neanderthals, our closest extinct relatives, buried their dead differently from how Homo sapiens treated the dead.

But are you a true archaeology nerd? We've looked over this year's archaeology stories and chosen some of the biggest and most exciting findings. Remember to login to put your name on the leaderboard; hints are available if you click the yellow button. We're rooting for you!

Laura Geggel
Editor

Laura is the archaeology and Life's Little Mysteries editor at Live Science. She also reports on general science, including paleontology. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Scholastic, Popular Science and Spectrum, a site on autism research. She has won multiple awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association for her reporting at a weekly newspaper near Seattle. Laura holds a bachelor's degree in English literature and psychology from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in science writing from NYU.