Archaeology news, features and articles

Editor's Picks

Tutankhamun
32 astonishing ancient burials, from 'vampire' decapitations to riches for the afterlife Archaeologists have discovered lavish and grisly burials the world over.
A round clay disc with symbolic inscriptions
Phaistos Disk: 3,000-year-old inscriptions from Crete that have never been deciphered None of the many interpretations of the Phaistos Disk's inscriptions are universally accepted.
'The Fire of Rome', oil on canvas painting by Hubert Robert (French, 1733 - 1808). In the forefront we see a bridge. In the distance we see the city in flames against the night sky.
Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned? Everything we know about Nero comes from his enemies.

Latest about Archaeology

Reconstructed bust of Senora de Cao showing her with medium brown skin, dark brown hair, and a fancy headdress

1,500-year-old tomb in Peru holds human sacrifices, including strangled son next to father's remains, genetic analysis reveals

By Kristina Killgrove published

A genetic analysis of six people buried in a Moche tomb around A.D. 500 revealed that two teenagers were sacrificed to their close relatives.

Archaeology
Three Neolithic arrows recovered from the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol: reed and wood (above) and details of tied sinew fibres, feathers and birch bark pitch (below).

Oldest sinew bowstrings ever found in Europe have been hiding in Spain's 'Bat Cave' for 7,000 years

By Stephanie Pappas published

The bowstrings were found with wood-and-reed arrows and were used by the first European farmers.

Archaeology
Two people look at an ancient wooden lyre on display at a museum

Queen Puabi's lyre: A bull-headed music maker played for Mesopotamian royalty 4,500 years ago

By Kristina Killgrove published

A lyre in a treasure-laden royal tomb discovered in Mesopotamia is the earliest stringed instrument ever found.

Archaeology
A fragmented mosaic of Alexander the Great

What if the Persians had defeated Alexander the Great?

By Owen Jarus published

The world we live in might be unrecognizable if Alexander the Great had been defeated by the Persians.

Archaeology
Three skulls are shown in a museum exhibit. They all have pock-marks on their frontal bones. There are two signs that label them as people who had tertiary syphilis.

Syphilis originated in the Americas, ancient DNA shows, but European colonialism spread it widely

By Kristina Killgrove published

Paleogenomics has finally solved a question that has puzzled researchers for decades: Where did syphilis come from?

Archaeology
Silver amulet with rolled-up silver sheet inside against a white background

1,800-year-old silver amulet could rewrite history of Christianity in the early Roman Empire

By Kristina Killgrove last updated

A silver amulet found next to a skeleton in a 1,800-year-old grave in Germany speaks to the importance — and the risk — of being Christian in Roman times.

Archaeology
A variety of reliquaries, some with their heads missing

188 medieval figurines that held Christian saints' bones unearthed in Berlin's oldest town square

By Owen Jarus published

Archaeologists have found 188 medieval reliquaries during excavations at a square in Berlin. Some of them still contain human bones of people considered to be saints or holy.

Archaeology
A reconstruction of a late Neanderthal from El Salt.

10 fascinating discoveries about Neanderthals in 2024, from 'Thorin' the last Neanderthal to an ancient glue factory

By Kristina Killgrove published

This year, we learned that our Neanderthal cousins were a lot like us, despite treading their own path that ended in extinction.

Archaeology
A sculpture of Lamassu in a museum

Ancient Assyrian capital that's been abandoned for 2,700 years revealed in new magnetic survey

By Margherita Bassi published

A new magnetic survey of the ancient Assyrian capital of Khorsabad has revealed several structures, including a villa, buried underground.

Archaeology
A skeletonized horse's mouth appears in the middle of the image, its top teeth showing. Archaeologists work in the background.

Archaeologists have found dozens more sacrificed horses in 2,800-year-old burial in Siberia that's eerily similar to Scythian graves

By Sierra Bouchér, Kristina Killgrove last updated

The sacrifices could be an early form of a Scythian burial tradition that lasted for hundreds of years.

Archaeology
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Archives