Kristina Killgrove

The earliest settlers of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island, appear to have had some sort of contact with people from South America as early as 1,000 years ago, a new plant study finds.

Ancient DNA from some of Europe's last hunter-gatherers reveals that they avoided inbreeding.

Excavations at the medieval Beaumont Abbey in France have revealed nearly 800 years of history before the French Revolution shut it down.

A farmer in Bulgaria accidentally discovered two graves of a wealthy Roman-era family, but they appear to tell "a sad family story."

A new look at a 5,000-year-old bog body from Denmark suggests that the individual may have been an itinerant flint trader who was sacrificed by hostile locals.

A look at two Neanderthal skeletons reveals that they could get tuberculosis, and it may have contributed to their extinction.

Scientists uncovered the oldest-ever genome of bacteria in the same family as syphilis.

A new analysis of a skeleton buried under Hernán Cortés' palace in Mexico reveals that it doesn't belong to a monk, as was long thought.

A newfound necropolis in central Italy that once sat near an exclusive villa along an ancient road holds the remains of 67 people and their treasures, including gold jewelry.

A new DNA technique has detected evidence in Iron Age skeletons of Turner, Klinefelter and Down syndrome.

The bullet's inscriptions hint that Indigenous people in Spain supported the would-be dictator, Julius Caesar, during the Roman civil war.

A tomb in Iberia that dates to 6,000 years ago contained bones that were cracked after death.

What's the oldest fossil evidence humans have for our species?

A fifth century Mongolian saddle is one of the earliest examples of evidence of modern horse riding.

Archaeologists in Finland have identified a 6,500-year-old site as potential cemetery with 200 graves.

Civil War weapons, including an unexploded ordnance, were found during a cleanup project in a South Carolina river.

Archaeologists in Norway have discovered a stone-lined tomb from the late Neolithic that holds the remains of at least five people.

A pair of archaeologists has spent the last 15 years cataloging toxic and gross artifacts moldering in museum collections.

An ancient Egyptian woman had an ovarian tumor with teeth and was buried with a possible healing object.

A new analysis of a mass grave from Neolithic Spain reveals that the site wasn't a burial ground from a massacre, but of fallen warriors.

The sunken public building was discovered in the underwater ruins of ancient Greek city.

The ancestors of Europeans first settled in Crimea about 37,000 years ago, DNA analysis on two ancient individuals reveals.

Human violence in the Middle East has ebbed and flowed since 12000 B.C., with spikes in the Copper and Iron ages and a lull in the Bronze Age, new research finds.

Paintings of sea-centaurs, the hellhound Cerberus and other mythical beings cover a 2,200-year-old tomb unearthed near Naples in Italy.