ARCHAEOLOGY

Very few ancient artifacts signed by their makers survive, leaving archaeologists to wonder at the identities of the people who made the objects they study. Although we may not know the names of the people who created the artifacts featured in this i

In the early 1960s, archaeologists from around the world descended on the Upper Nile Valley. They were scrambling to excavate ahead of the construction of the Aswan High Dam, which would submerge dozens of archaeological sites, including a 13,400-yea

Archaeologists in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu have unearthed brick structures in the town of Maligaimedu that are thought to be traces of the Chola Empire, which ruled the region around 1,000 years ago. “We believe the remains to be the p

A cave carved by human hands out of a sandstone cliff above a tributary of the River Trent in Derbyshire, England, may have been occupied as early as the seventh century A.D. Edmund Simons, an archaeologist at the Royal Agricultural University, recen

Small bronze figurines of women clad in armor and bearing weapons that date to the Viking Age have traditionally been seen as representations of Valkyries, the female warriors of Norse mythology who determined whether human combatants lived or died.

At the sprawling villa of Civita Giuliana just north of Pompeii, archaeologists unearthed a nearly intact four-wheeled chariot, the first of its kind to be found in the Roman world. The chariot, which could seat one or two people, was discovered in a

The genetic origins of modern Japanese people have traditionally been traced to two populations: Jomon hunter-gatherers and Yayoi farmers. New research has identified evidence of a third ancestral strand, dating to the imperial Kofun period (A.D. 300

A Maya ceremonial pyramid and courtyard complex at Tikal, in present-day Guatemala, was hidden by jungle until its recent discovery during a lidar survey. Researchers believe the complex may once have been a hub for connections between Tikal and the

The city of Pompeii was part of a thriving coastal region when it was destroyed by the A.D. 79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius. Entire farms, villages, and grand private estates on the Bay of Naples were buried under a thick layer of ash and debris. Among

UTAH: Tobacco use by early inhabitants of North America may date to 9,000 years earlier than previously thought. Among the material gathered from a 12,300-year-old hearth and campsite in the Great Salt Lake Desert, archaeologists identified several c

A settlement that was buried beneath the sand for thousands of years—and eluded archaeologists for centuries—is believed to be one of the largest ancient Egyptian cities ever unearthed. The site was discovered by a stroke of good luck when archaeolog

The world’s earliest rock art may have been made by two creative children who lived in Tibet between 226,000 and 169,000 years ago. The young artists, probably either Neanderthals or members of the related Denisovan species, left a series of closely

While sorting through some 12,000 bone fragments excavated from Contrebandiers Cave near the Atlantic coast of Morocco, archaeologist Emily Hallett of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History noticed that some were smooth and shiny,

Over the past two decades, archaeologists have discovered a number of sites that show that people first arrived in the Americas as early as 16,000 years ago. Some scholars have explored sites that have yielded even earlier dates, but other researcher

Twelve panels depicting images of camels and wild donkeys are now known to be the oldest life-size animal reliefs in the world. By using techniques such as analyzing tool marks and erosion, as well as radiocarbon dating associated artifacts, research

When a team of researchers led by Clément Nicolas, an archaeologist at Bournemouth University, first saw archival photographs of a broken schist slab held at France’s National Archaeology Museum, they were intrigued. Because the seven-by-five-foot sl

A rare stone that once demarcated the boundary of ancient Rome’s sacred precinct was unearthed by workers renovating the city’s sewer system. The six-foot-tall limestone block was found embedded in the ground where it had been placed almost 2,000 yea

A mass burial containing the remains of at least 25 soldiers who were killed defending Christian-held Sidon during the Crusades was uncovered during excavations close to the town’s Saint Louis Castle. Archaeologists uncovered a belt buckle of a style

A tag worn by an enslaved person who was hired out by his or her enslaver has been discovered in the remnants of a mid-nineteenth-century kitchen on the campus of the College of Charleston. Such tags, which were issued from the late eighteenth centur

JUST STEPS FROM THE walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, Tel Aviv University archaeologist Yuval Gadot stands in a deep pit and peers at two massive and finely dressed limestone pillars framing a doorway. More than 2,500 years ago, they marked the entry in

IN THE VILLAGE OF GONGDONG outside the central Chinese city of Xi’an, construction projects have kept archaeologists busy since the summer of 2020. Thus far, more than 100 ancient tombs have been uncovered in the area, some dating to as early as the

A LITTLE PAST MIDNIGHT on March 17, 2021, art historian Zhao Liguang was awoken by a phone call from the Xi’an Institute of Cultural Heritage. A 1,200-year-old stela inscribed with characters by the eminent Tang Dynasty (A.D. 618–906) calligrapher Li

SOME 400 YEARS AGO in the Austrian Alps, a crew of miners dawdled outside their work site perched between a jagged, snowcapped peak and a sparkling lake. They savored the sunlight and pine-scented breeze—the last fresh air they’d inhale for hours—and

There is perhaps no place on Earth that better symbolizes the majesty of a world unmarred by human encroachment than the Galapagos Islands. The remote archipelago lies along the equator in the eastern Pacific Ocean, more than 600 miles off South Amer