Archaeology

  1. Archaeology

    Openings to the Underworld

    Archaeological finds indicate that ancient groups in Mexico and Central America, including the Maya, held beliefs about a sacred landscape that focused on natural and human-made caves as sites of important ritual activities and burials.

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  2. Archaeology

    New World hunters get a reprieve

    New radiocarbon evidence indicates that, beginning around 11,000 years ago, human hunters contributed to North American mammal extinctions that had already been triggered by pronounced climate shifts.

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  3. Archaeology

    Stone Age Siberians move up in time

    Siberian sites previously thought to have been bases for early human excursions into North America may only date to about 11,300 years ago, when people have traditionally been assumed to have first reached Alaska.

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  4. Archaeology

    Wild Chimps Rocked On: Apes left unique record of stone tools

    Researchers have uncovered the first archaeological site attributed to chimpanzees, which includes stone implements that were used to crack nuts on top of thick tree roots.

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  5. Archaeology

    Almond Joy, Stone Age Style: Our ancestors had a bash eating wild nuts

    New finds at a 780,000-year-old Israeli site indicate that its ancient residents used stone tools to crack open a variety of hard-shelled nuts that were gathered as a dietary staple.

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  6. Archaeology

    Skulls attest to Iron Age scalping

    Archaeologists identified four skulls, previously found in southern Siberia, that bore incisions attesting to the practice of scalping in that region around 2,500 years ago.

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  7. Archaeology

    Farmers took fast track in settling Europe

    A review of radiocarbon evidence indicates that farming groups colonized southern Europe over no more than 100 to 200 years, beginning around 7,400 years ago.

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  8. Archaeology

    Ancestors who came in from the cold

    Researchers found the remains of a 36,000-year-old human occupation in the Russian Arctic, which represents the earliest evidence of a human presence that far north.

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  9. Archaeology

    Neandertals used tools with versatility

    Microscopic data from artifacts found at two Ukrainian sites indicate that Neandertals used stone tools in flexible ways that allowed them to maintain a broad diet for nearly 50,000 years.

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  10. Archaeology

    Stone Age folk in Asia adapted to extremes

    Preliminary evidence indicates that people occupied the harsh, high-altitude environment of Asia's Tibetan Plateau in the late Stone Age, between 11,000 and 12,000 years ago.

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  11. Archaeology

    Ancient ash flow brought sudden death

    Analysis of the excavation in Herculaneum of the victims of the A.D. 79 eruption of Italy's Mount Vesuvius indicates that when the initial ash flow swept through the city, it arrived so quickly that some residents didn't even have time to flinch.

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  12. Archaeology

    Maize domestication grows older in Mexico

    Maize cultivation existed in southern Mexico at least 6,300 years ago, according to a recent radiocarbon analysis of two maize cobs unearthed in a cave nearly 40 years ago.

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