Are 3,000-year-old carvings from Italy a star map? Researchers can't agree. (www.livescience.com)
A roughly 3,000-year-old stone disk covered with enigmatic markings is actually an ancient celestial map marking the brightest stars in the night sky, researchers claim....
Ancient fortifications revealed underneath Bronze Age village on Italian island (www.livescience.com)
Archaeologists find 9-mile-long ancient fortification at desert oasis (www.newsweek.com)
U.K. archaeologists uncover ancient grave holding teen girl, child and treasures: "Striking discovery" (www.cbsnews.com)
2,700-year-old temple with altar overflowing with jewel-studded offerings unearthed on Greek island (www.livescience.com)
Archaeologists in Greece have discovered a 2,700-year-old temple that houses a horseshoe-shaped altar overflowing with offerings....
Huge ancient city found in the Amazon (www.bbc.co.uk)
100 ancient genomes show repeated population turnovers in Neolithic Denmark (www.nature.com)
Major migration events in Holocene Eurasia have been characterized genetically at broad regional scales. However, insights into the population dynamics in the contact zones are hampered by a lack of ancient genomic data sampled at high spatiotemporal resolution. Here, to address this, we analysed shotgun-sequenced genomes from...
Lasers reveal ancient settlements hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest (www.livescience.com)
Lasers have revealed a complex network of pre-Hispanic structures and roadways hidden beneath the canopy of the Amazon. At 2,500 years old, it’s the earliest (and largest) example of an agricultural civilization ever recorded in South America’s dense rainforest....
A princess's psalter recovered? Pieces of a 1,000-year-old manuscript found (phys.org)
A special find has been made in the Alkmaar Regional Archive: A number of 17th-century book bindings contained pieces of parchment from a manuscript from the 11th century. The original manuscript may have belonged to a princess who fled England after the Norman Conquest....
2 golden tongues symbolizing 'flesh of the gods' unearthed in ancient Egyptian mummies (www.livescience.com)
Archaeologists in Egypt have discovered two mummies outfitted with golden tongues at the ancient town of Oxyrhynchus, bringing the total number of golden tongues found at the location to 16, archaeologists say....
First prehistoric person with Turner syndrome identified from ancient DNA (phys.org)
Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute, working with University of Oxford, University of York and Oxford Archaeology, have developed a new technique to measure the number of chromosomes in ancient genomes more precisely, using it to identify the first prehistoric person with mosaic Turner syndrome (characterized by one X...
Their Civilization—Whose Archaeology? (www.jhiblog.org)
The centrality of archaeology in articulating and espousing the politics of nation states as also erstwhile empires is today undeniable. The history of archaeological research and practice is replete with cases where material culture has been used to produce origin myths, shared imaginaries of communities simultaneous with...
Ancient Egyptian mummy masks, tombs and 'god of silence' statue discovered at Saqqara (www.livescience.com)
Ancient DNA reveals origins of multiple sclerosis in Europe (www.nature.com)
Discovery of immense fortifications dating back 4,000 years in northwestern Arabia (phys.org)
The North Arabian Desert oases were inhabited by sedentary populations in the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE. A fortification enclosing the Khaybar Oasis—one of the longest known going back to this period—has just been revealed by a team of scientists from the CNRS and the Royal Commission for AlUla (RCU)....
Medieval grave of 'very, very powerful' man and his 4-foot-long sword unearthed in Sweden (www.livescience.com)
First ever scientific study on First World War crater reveals new details on its history (phys.org)
The spectacular explosion of the mine at Hawthorn Ridge—a fortified German front-line position in the First World War—marked the beginning of the Battle of the Somme, and remains one of the best-known pieces of film from the whole conflict....
Ancient but perfectly preserved Roman village hidden in the English countryside (www.express.co.uk)
Archaeologists' pagan temple find challenges history of Roman Christianity (www.newsweek.com)
Non-masticatory striations on human teeth from the British Upper Palaeolithic to the Neolithic (www.nature.com)
Abstract...
A visit to the Museo Nacional de Antropología, Mexico City (johnhawks.net)
Early medieval Welsh cemetery found containing crouching bodies (www.theguardian.com)
The strange story of the grave of Copernicus (theconversation.com)
Nicholas Copernicus was the astronomer who, five centuries ago, explained that Earth revolves around the Sun, rather than vice versa. A true Renaissance man, he also practised as a mathematician, engineer, author, economic theorist and medical doctor....
Medieval belt buckle of 'dragon' eating frog discovered in Czech Republic may be from unknown pagan cult (www.livescience.com)
The puzzling depiction of a vicious predator — either a dragon or a snake — devouring a frog on an early medieval belt buckle from the Czech Republic may be a symbol from an unknown pagan cult, archaeologists say....