https://phys.org/science-news/archaeology-fossils en-us The latest news on archaeology, archaeological research and archaeological advancements. A single accessory—an ornate necklace from a child's grave in ancient Jordan—provides new insights into social complexity of Neolithic culture, according to a study published August 2, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Hala Alarashi of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Spain, and the Université Côte d'Azur, France and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-neolithic-necklace-child-grave-reveals.html Archaeology Social Sciences Wed, 02 Aug 2023 14:00:01 EDT news610189573 Early colonial settlers likely survived the harsh frontier conditions of 17th-century Delaware because they banded as family units to work alongside enslaved African descendants and European indentured servants, according to a new study published this summer in Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-dna-delaware-site-kinship-european.html Archaeology Wed, 02 Aug 2023 10:23:48 EDT news610190623 A team of researchers with a wide variety of backgrounds from institutions in Poland, Sweden, the U.K., Czech Republic and Ukraine has learned more about the demographic history of people living in East-Central Europe during the Bronze Age by studying the genes of people living during that time. For their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group conducted genetic analyses of temporal bones and/or tooth remains of 91 people. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-dna-reveals-shift-bronze-age.html Archaeology Wed, 02 Aug 2023 08:41:26 EDT news610184482 In 1970, Lardil man Goobalathaldin (or Dick Roughsey) completed his autobiography "Moon and Rainbow" in which he recounted his ancestors' stories. Among them was a story telling of a time when the North Wellesley Islands were connected to the Australian mainland. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-evidence-oral-stories-australia-nations.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Aug 2023 12:26:29 EDT news610111585 A team of archaeologists and historians from multiple institutions in the U.K. and the U.S. has found evidence that an Iron Age warrior whose remains were found in a grave on the island of Bryher, off the coast of England, was likely female. In their study, reported in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, the group analyzed tooth enamel found in the grave. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-mystery-iron-age-warrior-small.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Aug 2023 10:30:01 EDT news610100829 A large team of archaeologists affiliated with multiple institutions in China and the U.K. has found evidence of systematic coal use by Bronze Age people in what is now China. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes their findings at a dig site called Jirentaigoukou in northwest China. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-systematic-coal-fuel-source-bronze.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Aug 2023 09:26:47 EDT news610100803 An article published on July 31 in Nature Ecology & Evolution reveals that Luzio, the oldest human skeleton found in São Paulo state (Brazil), was a descendant of the ancestral population that settled the Americas at least 16,000 years ago and gave rise to all present-day Indigenous peoples, such as the Tupi. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-luzio-paulo-years-amerindian-indigenous.html Archaeology Mon, 31 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news610015145 An international team of geologists and historians has found that an arrowhead housed at the Bern History Museum was made using meteoritic iron. In their paper published in Journal of Archaeological Science, the group describes the attributes of the arrowhead and where they believe the material it was made of came from. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-arrowhead-housed-bern-history-museum.html Archaeology Mon, 31 Jul 2023 09:40:01 EDT news610014834 Standing atop the mountains in the southern highlands of Peru is the 15th-century marvel of the Inca empire, Machu Picchu. Today, the citadel is a global tourist attraction and an icon of precolonial Latin American history—but it was once the royal palace of an emperor. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-machu-picchu-dna-analysis-diversity.html Archaeology Sun, 30 Jul 2023 12:10:01 EDT news609678080 The walls of ancient Egyptian tombs can teach us much about the lives of the pharaohs and their entourages. Tomb paintings showed the deceased and their immediate family members involved in religious activities, the burial itself, or feasting at banquets and hunting in the Nile marshes. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-hidden-ancient-egyptian-tomb-revealed.html Archaeology Fri, 28 Jul 2023 12:03:04 EDT news609764582 An international team of linguists and geneticists led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig has achieved a significant breakthrough in our understanding of the origins of Indo-European, a family of languages spoken by nearly half of the world's population. The work is published in the journal Science. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-insights-indo-european-languages.html Archaeology Social Sciences Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:00:01 EDT news609672188 Who lived at Machu Picchu at its height? A new study, published in Science Advances, used ancient DNA to find out for the first time where workers buried more than 500 years ago came from within the lost Inca Empire. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-dna-reveals-diverse-community.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 14:00:02 EDT news609579630 In Britain, the Mesolithic period (10BC to 4000BC) was the last time people lived exclusively as hunter-fisher-gatherers. The recent discovery and excavation of a series of large Mesolithic pits at Linmere, Bedfordshire, is important for rethinking how historians have previously considered life and society during this period. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-extensive-mesolithic-discovery-bedfordshire-importance.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 13:47:04 EDT news609598022 A team of researchers and six students from the University of South Florida have discovered a centuries-old house in exceptional condition during an excavation in Malta, a country located in the Mediterranean Sea. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-team-year-old-roman-house-excavation.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 13:32:03 EDT news609597121 Rome's next luxury hotel has some very good bones: Archaeologists said Wednesday that the ruins of Nero's Theater, an imperial theater referred to in ancient Roman texts but never found, have been discovered under the garden of a future Four Seasons Hotel steps from the Vatican. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-nero-theater-garden-future.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 12:04:24 EDT news609591861 A team of archaeologists from Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority has found a way to reconstruct a fire in a single building in Jerusalem burned by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. In their study, reported in Journal of Archaeological Science, the group analyzed magnetic signals in shards of pottery recovered from the site to learn more about a fire in a single building. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-pottery-shards-reveals-siege.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:30:01 EDT news609587543 The Neolithic lifestyle, based on farming instead of hunting and gathering, emerged in the Near East around 12,000 years ago and contributed profoundly to the modern way of life. The ability to produce and store extra food led Neolithic people to develop new social customs built on wealth, and therefore form social hierarchies. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-family-trees-european-neolithic-social.html Archaeology Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:00:01 EDT news609579618 A team of staff and students from the University of Notre Dame Australia believe they have uncovered the underground remains of an 187-year-old jail at a historic site in Albany, in Western Australia's south. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-year-old-uncovered-albany.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Jul 2023 15:08:32 EDT news609516510 In 2022, the Royal Australian Mint issued a $2 coin decorated with honeybees. Around 2,400 years earlier, a mint in the kingdom of Macedon had the same idea, creating a silver obol coin with a bee stamped on one side. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-bees-coins-millennia-hinting-age-old.html Archaeology Economics & Business Tue, 25 Jul 2023 11:31:18 EDT news609503475 Jakarta … San Francisco … Shanghai … Phoenix … Houston. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-clues-urban-resiliency-ancient-cities.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Jul 2023 16:12:28 EDT news609433941 The wreck of Antikythera was recently brought into the spotlight by the film "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny." Far from the cinematic imagination, an international team of archaeologists, divers, engineers and physical and natural scientists is currently excavating the famous wreck. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-discoveries-antikythera.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Jul 2023 15:26:04 EDT news609431162 Earthen and shell mounds built hundreds of years ago by Indigenous people in the Mississippi River Delta contribute to biodiversity and the area's resiliency to erosion today, research by a Florida State University archaeologist has found. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-highlights-importance-indigenous-cultural-perspectives.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Jul 2023 14:47:04 EDT news609428821 It's hard to imagine a world without spice today. Fast global trade has allowed the import and export of all manner of delicious ingredients that help bring Indian, Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Sri Lankan (and so many more) cuisines to our dinner tables. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-evidence-year-old-curry-oldest-southeast.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Jul 2023 12:45:04 EDT news609421501 Researchers from Peking University School of Archaeology and Museology collaborated with the Gansu Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology to reconstruct the world's earliest composite-tiled roofs. Their findings were consolidated in an article titled "Reconstructing the earliest known composite-tiled roofs from the Chinese Loess Plateau," published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-reconstruct-earliest-composite-tiled-roofs.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Jul 2023 10:47:03 EDT news609414421 New research has confirmed that the commonly repeated statement that the illicit antiquities trade is the third largest illicit trade in the world is unsupported by evidence. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-unproven-distract-real-illicit-antiquities.html Archaeology Economics & Business Sat, 22 Jul 2023 11:50:01 EDT news609158752 Nomadic animal-herders from the Eurasian steppe mingled with Copper Age farmers in southeastern Europe centuries earlier than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-ancient-dna-reveals-earliest-evidence.html Archaeology Sat, 22 Jul 2023 09:40:01 EDT news609061241 A never-before seen manuscript by Scottish-based artisan Esther Inglis, dating back to the early 1600s, was unveiled at The University of St Andrews this week at The International Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Scottish Languages, Literature and Culture. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-rare-esther-inglis-manuscript-unveiled.html Archaeology Fri, 21 Jul 2023 13:39:03 EDT news609165542 During our history, ancient civilizations have considerably shaped the global ecosystems through a coevolution of landscape and local populations. In some cases, the legacy of the disappeared civilizations is still visible in the form of buildings and other monuments such as the Stonehenge, the buildings of the Roman and Hellenic Empires, and ancient burial places and fortresses built by several cultures. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-contribution-cultural-heritage-values-steppe.html Archaeology Social Sciences Fri, 21 Jul 2023 13:36:03 EDT news609165361 After 20 years of above-ground surveys, archaeologists have excavated the famous Iron Age site of Němčice and confirmed the presence of the earliest glass workshop north of the Alps. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-earliest-glass-workshop-north-alps.html Archaeology Fri, 21 Jul 2023 11:41:00 EDT news609158456 Archaeologists have used advanced radiocarbon dating to investigate the age of Neolithic monuments at Dorstone Hill in Herefordshire, revealing that they are appreciably older than expected. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-neolithic-herefordshire-england-revealed.html Archaeology Fri, 21 Jul 2023 10:15:03 EDT news609153301