Current Issue - Archaeology Magazine

Table of Contents September/October 2012

FEATURES

DEPARTMENTS

Table of Contents November/December 2012

FEATURES

The Maya Sense of Time

As one Maya calendar reaches the end of a cycle, we take a look at how an ancient people understood their place in the cosmos

Factory of Wealth

A mint from the Han Dynasty produced billions of coins that enabled vast economic growth and trade along the Silk Road

Zeugma After the Flood

New excavations continue to tell the story of an ancient city at the crossroads between east and west

Down by the Savannah Riverside

By studying ancient landforms, archaeologists are uncovering evidence of a novel hunter-gatherer behavior

Pilgrimage to Sudan

Miracles of Banganarti

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

World Roundup

The oldest bow in Europe, domesticated sheep and goats at Namibia’s Leopard Cave, how climate changes fueled Genghis Khan’s invasions, and mistaking matches for ritualistic phallic objects

Letter from India

Searching for a new approach to development, tourism, and local needs at the grand medieval city of Hampi

Artifact

Ceramic beakers were the vessels of choice for the so-called “Black Drink” used at Cahokia by Native Americans in their purification rituals

Table of Contents January/February 2013

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2012

ARCHAEOLOGY's editors reveal the year's most compelling stories

Mohenjo-Daro's New Story

What may be the Bronze Age's largest city lies on the plains of Pakistan

Neolithic Europe's Remote Heart

One thousand years of spirituality, innovation, and social development emerge from a ceremonial center on the Scottish archipelago of Orkney

The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui

Hydraulic engineering was the key to winning the hearts and minds of a conquered people

Gateway to the Netherworld

Spectacular finds reveal the millennia-long history of one of Egypt's most important sanctuaries

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

The Rehabilitation of Richard III
Masked Men
Fixing Ancient Toothaches
Off the Grid
Obsidian and Empire
Ancient Alchemy?
Kidnapped in Copenhagen
The Emperor’s Orchids
Nazi Iron Man Buddha?
Maya Mural Miracle
Neutron Beams and Lead Shot
Site of a Forgotten War
Denisovan DNA
Turning Back the Human Clock

World Roundup

San Francisco's earthquake-ravaged City Hall unearthed, Dakar floodwaters reveal Neolithic artifacts, the source of Angkor Wat's sandstone blocks

Letter from France

Nearly 20 years of investigation at two rock shelters in southwestern France reveal the well-organized domestic spaces of Europe's earliest modern humans

Artifact

A mid-nineteenth-century trident illustrates a changing marine ecosystem in the South Pacific

Table of Contents March/April 2013

FEATURES

Munich Underground

A metropolis' modern needs help reveal its hidden history

Pirates of the Original Panama Canal

Searching for the remains of Captain Henry Morgan's raid on Panama City

Archaeology Island

More than 4,000 years of history in only 16 square miles

A Stunning Sacrifice

Why were hundreds of valuable objects thrown into a Polish bog more than 1,500 years ago?

A Soldier's Story

The battle that changed European history, told through the lens of a young man’s remains

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Saving Northern Ireland's Noble Bog
Off the Grid
Mussel Mass in Lake Ontario
Europe's First Carpenters
Medici Mystery
Deconstructing a Zapotec Figurine
Messages from Quarantine
Let Slip the Pigeons of War
The First Spears
Burials and Reburials in Ancient Pakistan
Life (According to Gut Microbes)
Mapping Maya Cornfields
Inside a Painted Tomb
Minoan Mountaintop Manse
A Prehistoric Cocktail Party

World Roundup

Correcting the record on Tycho Brahe, a 2.5-mile-long labyrinth among Peru’s Nazca Lines, Ramesses III may have been the victim of a “Harem Conspiracy,” and northwestern India identified as the birthplace of the Romani

Letter from Cambodia

A territorial dispute involving an 1,100-year-old Khmer temple on the Thai-Cambodian border turns violent

Artifact

Scientific analyses and experimental archaeology determine that mysterious, 1,000-year-old balls of clay found at a Yucatán site were used in cooking

Table of Contents May/June 2013

FEATURES

Inside Hanoi's Forbidden City

At the heart of Vietnam's turbulent history for more than 1,000 years, the citadel of Thang Long is now providing archaeologists their first intimate look into the capital's past

Uncovering a Maya Warrior Queen

A recently discovered tomb in Guatemala may belong to one of the most powerful women in Maya history

On the Trail of the Mimbres

Archaeologists are tracking the disappearance of a remarkable type of pottery to rewrite the story of a culture’s decline

Haunt of the Resurrection Men

A forgotten graveyard, the dawn of modern medicine, and the hard life in 19th-century London

Hunley Decoded

The discovery of a simple piece of copper is changing how we understand the legendary vessel's last moments

The Kings of Kent

The surprising discovery of an Anglo-Saxon feasting hall in the village of Lyminge is offering a new view of the lives of these pagan kings

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Albanian Fresco Fiasco
Off The Grid
Visions of Valhalla
Archaic Engineers Worked on a Deadline
Europe's First Farmers
A Pyramid Fit for a Vizier
Second to Whom?
Thracian Treasure Chest
A Major New Venue
A Killer Bacterium Expands Its Legacy
Bad Monks at St. Stephen's
Hail to the Bождь (Chieftain)
Oops! Down the Drain
From Egyptian Blue to Infrared

World Roundup

A surprising cannon in Central Park, Hawaiian Buffaloes underwater, ancient Panama’s first shamans, and 4,400-year-old curry in India

Letter from Turkey

Archaeologists conduct the first-ever survey of the legendary WWI battlefield at Gallipoli

Artifact

Ceramic figurines were part of a cache of objects found at an Iron Age temple uncovered at the site of Tel Motza outside Jerusalem

Table of Contents July/August 2013

FEATURES

The First Vikings

Two remarkable ships may show that the Viking storm was brewing long before their assault on England and the continent

Miniature Pyramids of Sudan

Archaeologists excavating on the banks of the Nile have uncovered a necropolis where hundreds of small pyramids once stood

Salt and the City

How a prehistoric saltworks laid the foundations for Europe’s oldest town more than 7,000 years ago

Deadly Retreat

A collapsed WW I tunnel in France reveals a frozen moment on the Western Front

Lost Tombs

In search of history's greatest rulers

A Future for Icons of the Past

Masterpieces of Greek pottery come face-to-face with state-of-the-art technology

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Not Quite Ancient
Off the Grid
Chilling Discovery at Jamestown
Origins of the Maya
Seeds of Europe's Family Tree
France’s Wealthy Warriors
Did the “Father of History” Get It Wrong?
Apollo Returns from the Abyss
Afterlife of a Dignitary
Spain's Lead-Lined Lakes
In Style in the Stone Age
Portals to the Underworld
Roman London Underground
Whale-Barnacle Barbecue
The Human Mosaic

World Roundup

The first evidence of cooking pots in Japan, Indonesia’s earliest farmers, a 600-year-old Chinese coin found on a Kenyan island, and how El Niño plagued South America’s Moche people

Letter from China

Looting reaches across the centuries—and modern China’s economic strata

Artifact

A 13th-century limestone sundial is one of the earliest timekeeping devices discovered in Egypt

Table of Contents September/October 2013

FEATURES

The Everlasting City

A new picture emerges of how a settlement of a few reed huts evolved into the powerful city-state that helped set in motion the urban revolution

Wolf Rites of Winter

Archaeologists digging a Bronze Age site on the Russian steppes are using evidence from language and mythology to understand a remarkable discovery

An Extreme Life

The Kuril Islands, a remote and inhospitable archipelago stretching between Japan and Russia, are providing researchers with insights into the nature of what humans can endure—and what they cannot

Battlefield: 1814

In farmland on Maryland's Eastern Shore, archaeologists have tracked troop movements of an American victory over the British

Tomb of the Vulture Lord

A king’s burial reveals a pivotal moment in Maya history

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

No Changeups on the Savannah
Off the Grid
The Last Flying Pencil
Small Skirmish in the War for Freedom
Sifting Through Molehills
City of Red Stone
Animal Offerings of the Aztecs
High-Definition Obsidian
Tomb of the Wari Queens
Golden Sacrifices
Spain's Lost Jewish History
Samson and the Gate of Gaza
French Wine, Italian Vine
Neanderthal Brain Strain

World Roundup

An Ohio brewery tries its hand at Sumerian beer, English archaeologists expose one of the world's oldest railway tunnels, sediments from Lake Malawi contradict a past "volcanic winter," and the oldest evidence of humans consistently eating meat

Letter from Norway

The race to find, and save, ancient artifacts emerging from glaciers and ice patches in a warming world

Artifact

A tablet bearing a birthday party invite includes the earliest Latin script penned by a woman

Table of Contents November/December 2013

FEATURES

Life on the Inside

Open for only six weeks toward the end of the Civil War, Camp Lawton preserves a record of wartime prison life

Seen and Unseen

How an ancient artifact is changing the way we practice science

Bronze Age Boat Mystery

A puzzling find in eastern England

Ancient Tattoos

Body art has been a meaningful form of expression throughout the ages

Vengeance on the Vikings

Mass burials in England attest to a turbulent time, and perhaps a notorious medieval massacre

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

An Imperial Underworld
Off the Grid
Splendid Surprise
Neanderthal Tool Time
Dutchman Out of His Depth
Catching a Ride from Ireland
The Snake King's New Vassal
Spying the Past from the Sky
Byzantine Riches
The Neolithic Palate
Secrets of Life in the Soil
Who Was First to the Faroes?
Drones Enter the Archaeologist's Toolkit

World Roundup

Prince Albert in a can, a Bulgarian poison ring, first funeral flowers, and shipwrecks in Antarctica

Letter from Bangladesh

A father and son watched over a site in northeastern Bangladesh for decades before archaeologists came to see what was there

Artifact

A ceremonial feathered shield secreted inside an ancient Peruvian temple

Table of Contents January/February 2014

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2013

ARCHAEOLOGY's editors reveal the year's most compelling stories

An Epic Conflict

After years of searching, archaeologists uncover evidence for a bloody battle between Rome and Carthage on a small Spanish hilltop

Long Undisturbed

A remarkable Etruscan burial is discovered in Tarquinia's famed necropolis

Stone Towns of the Swahili Coast

Along 2,000 miles of the East African coast, the sophisticated trading centers of the medieval Swahili reveal their origins and influences

Child's Play

A technique developed to estimate the ages of cave artists adds the activity of children to the archaeological record

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

French Revolution Forgeries?
Off the Grid
Ham Hill's Violent History
Tracking the Ancient Apache
The Well-Dressed Dead
Lego Supports Slumping Mummy
Mississippian Burning
A Final Journey by Horse
Neanderthal Smorgasbord
Point-and Shoot Obsidian Analaysis
Idu: Lost City of Northern Iraq
Thorfinn the Mighty's Thing
The Doctor Is In

World Roundup

Pot farms disrupt centuries-old Native American villages, the volcano that canceled summer, Easter Islanders ate rat, and 1,800-year-old Roman chain mail

Letter from England

Excavations in an English garden reveal the evolution of the nation’s culture across thousands of years

Artifact

Roman Britain's finest work

Table of Contents March/April 2014

FEATURES

Saving the Villa of the Mysteries

Beneath the surface of Pompeii's most famous house

A Change of Fortune

A destroyed tomb, a stone epitaph, and the last powerful women of Imperial China

All Hands on Deck

Inviting the world to explore a shipwreck deep in the Gulf of Mexico

A Well-Aged Vintage

Archaeologists discover a 3,700-year-old wine cellar

Built to Last

How Roman harbors have stood the test of time

Messengers to the Gods

During a turbulent period in ancient Egypt, common people turned to animal mummies to petition the gods, inspiring the rise of a massive religious industry

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Our Tangled Ancestry
Off the Grid
Viking Finery
Scuttled but Not Forgotten
Game of Stones
How to Pray to a Storm God
Triangulating Buddha's Birth
Mesopotamian Accounts Receivable
Barbarian Body Modification
Did Neanderthals Bury Their Dead?
Florida History Springs Forth
Turtle Power
Battle of the Proxies

World Roundup

Aztec god of the dead, gold in Lake Titicaca, Anglo-Saxon gaming piece, and building the Forbidden City

Letter From Borneo

Archaeology, oral history, and culture deep in the Malaysian jungle

Artifact

The importance of music in Peru

Table of Contents May/June 2014

FEATURES

Beyond the Palace Walls

Nothing is quite what it seems in Egypt's ancient city of Amarna

Pieces of the Song Dynasty

Investigating a hub of Chinese porcelain manufacture

Mosaic Masterpiece

A splendid fifth-century church is evidence of a thriving Byzantine community

America's Chinatowns

Dozens of digs and collections are revealing the culture, diversity, and challenges of the first Chinese Americans

Searching for the Comanche Empire

In a deep gorge in New Mexico, archaeologists have discovered a unique site that tells the story of a nomadic confederacy's rise to power in the heart of North America

Searching for the Comanche Empire (2)

In a deep gorge in New Mexico, archaeologists have discovered a unique site that tells the story of a nomadic confederacy's rise to power in the heart of North America

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

A Brief Glimpse into Early Rome
Off the Grid
Port of the Pyramids
Hardening Brittle Bones
First American Family Tree
Recreating Nordic Grog
The Goddess' Brewer
Peeping through the Leaves
Clash of the War Elephants
England's Oldest Footprints
Secrets of Bronze Age Cheese Makers
Our Lady of the Lake
Big Data, Big Cities

World Roundup

Andean brain surgery, the first Americans, 850,000-year-old footprints, ancient war elephants, tomb of an Egyptian brewer, and Bronze Age cheese

Letter From Philadelphia

The unlikely preservation of thousands of years of history in a modern urban oasis

Artifact

How to ward off an earthquake with Roman magic

Table of Contents July/August 2014

FEATURES

Under Mexico City

Beneath the capital's busy streets, archaeologists are discovering the buried world of the Aztecs

Revisiting the Gokstad

More than a century after Norway's Gokstad ship burial was first excavated, scientists are examining the remains of the VIking chieftain buried inside and learning the truth about how he lived and died

The Tomb of the Silver Hands

Long-buried evidence of an Etruscan noble family

Telling a Different Story

Archaeologists are revealing the dark past of one of the Cold War's most celebrated sites

Egypt's Forgotten Dynasty

Excavations at the ancient city of Abydos have revealed the tomb of a previously unknown pharaoh and evidence of a long-lost royal lineage

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

The Video Game Graveyard
Off the Grid
Byzantine Secret Ingredient
A Bold Civil War Steamer
Inheritance of Tears
Diminutive Gatekeeper
Bannockburn Booty
Ancient Oncology
Egyptian Style in Ancient Canaan
Neanderthal Epigenome
Childhood Rediscovered
Taking a Dive

World Roundup

Scurvy in Columbus' first colony, the Near Eastern lizard diet, a medieval Christian tattoo in Sudan, and how nice weather helped Genghis Khan

Letter From Scotland

Were the residents of a Scottish hillside immoral squatters or hard-working farmers?

Artifact

A 10,000-year-old wand offers a new look at the faces of the Neolithic

Table of Contents September/October 2014

FEATURES

Erbil Revealed

How the first excavations in an ancient city are supporting its claim as the oldest continuously inhabited place in the world

America, in the Beginning

Archaeologists continue their search for evidence of how the vast, once-uninhabited regions of the New World came to be populated

Monumental Discovery

A stunning second-century sanctuary emerges in the heart of Roman Gaul

The Great War in Miniature

The excavation of a unique battlefield model provides insight into military tactics and the evolution of warfare

Royalty from the Sport of Kings

Unearthing a legend of California racing history

Castaways

Illegally enslaved and then marooned on remote Tromelin Island for fifteen years, with only archaeology to tell their story

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Your Face: Punching Bag or Spandrel?
Off the Grid
Sounds of the Age of Aquarius
Conquest and Clamshells
They're Just Like Us
Modern-Day Ruin
World's Oldest Pants
Off With Their Heads
Alone, but Closely Watched
Saving the Golden House
The Dovedale Hoard
An Ancient Andean Homecoming
Dawn of a Disease
The Case of the Missing Incisors

World Roundup

Digging at Halloween's birthplace, superstition in the Virgin Islands, new paintings at Angkor Wat, and how materials scientists are using ancient Chinese pottery

Letter from the Bronx

A collection of objects left behind in a New York City neighborhood connects students with the lives of people who were contemporary with their great-great-great-grandparents

Artifact

Does a Viking figurine depict the goddess of love or simply a very stylish man?

Table of Contents November/December 2014

FEATURES

Dawn of a Thousand Suns

As the beginning of the Atomic Age fades into history, archaeologists work to document a time of uncertainty and experimentation

The Neolithic Toolkit

How experimental archaeology is showing that Europe's first farmers were also its first carpenters

The Power of Images

A view of ancient Mesoamerican life through artists' eyes

Seafaring in Ancient Sri Lanka

The untold story of long distance trade in the Indian Ocean more than 2,000 years ago

The Ongoing Saga of Sutton Hoo

A region long known as a burial place for Anglo-Saxon kings is now yielding a new look at the world they lived in

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

Heart Attack of the Mummies
Off the Grid
Ice Age Lion Made Whole Again
Fate of the Vanquished
Fifteen Centuries of Life in Chianti
Storeroom Surprise
Hormones and Hominins
North Dakota's Archaeology Boom
Colosseum Condos

World Roundup

Earthworks of the Amazon, a water bottle’s 200-year- old secret, excavating a Phoenician shipwreck, and Australia’s Lover’s Walk revealed

Letter From Montana

Vast expanses of grassland near the Rocky Mountains bear evidence of an extraordinary ancient buffalo hunting culture

Artifact

Paintings on a potsherd show that ancient Egyptian art students were highly skilled—and liked a good joke

Table of Contents January/February 2015

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2014

ARCHAEOLOGY's editors reveal the year's most compelling finds

Shipwreck Alley

From wood to steel, from sail to steam, from early pioneers to established industry, the history of the Great Lakes can be found deep beneath Thunder Bay

America's First War

Uncovering evidence of a little known colonial-era conflict that forever altered the dynamics of Native American and European relations in North America

Beyond the Pharaohs

More than a century after its discovery, a tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings is yielding new insights into who was buried in this elite necropolis

Gaul After the Romans

A cemetery in northwestern France is beginning to expand our knowledge of the emergence of the Merovingian dynasty

DEPARTMENTS

Trenches

The Price of Plunder
Off The Grid
A Tale of Two Railroads
On the Origins of Art
Fancy Footwear
The King is Dead. Long Live the King
Cults of the Bronze Age
Symbolic Neanderthals
Hollywood Exodus
Egypt's Disappearing Animals
Across the Atlantic by Flipper
Viking Treasure Trove
Paleo-escargot
Maya Cities Lost and Found

World Roundup

An ancient toilet seat, grave of a Viking blacksmith, enigmatic earthworks in Kazakhstan, New Zealand’s turtle canoe, Egyptian hair extensions

Letter From Cambodia

Through centuries—and perhaps even millennia—of cultural, political, and environmental change, Phnom Kulen has retained its central role in the spiritual life of a people

Artifact

A Bronze Age dagger from Denmark shows that some materials never go out of style

Table of Contents March/April 2015

FEATURES

Rome's Imperial Port

The vast site of Portus holds the key to understanding how Rome evolved from a mighty city to an empire

The Vikings in Ireland

A surprising discovery in Dublin challenges long-held ideas about when the Scandinavian raiders arrived on the Emerald Isle

Packed for the Afterlife

The remarkably well-preserved contents of a Ming Dynasty tomb

Iron from the Sky

Archaeologists and planetary scientists experiment with meteorites, ancient Egypt's first source of precious iron

City of the Moon

New discoveries show that North America's biggest prehistoric settlement may have been the center of a lunar cult

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Seismic Shift
Off the Grid
Treasures of Rathfarnham Castle
History's Largest Megalith
Squaring the Circles
Hidden in a Coin Hoard
Autumn of the Master Builder
Buried With Care
New Mosaics at Zeugma
How to Eat a Shipwreck
Tomb of the Jealous Dog
Shackled for Eternity
Treason, Plot, and Witchcraft

World Roundup

Native American genes on Easter Island, a Tudor dog’s big secret, precision Inca stonework, searching for Amelia Earhart, and an Egyptian book of spells

Letter From the Marshall Islands

Unexploded ordnance from WWII is a risk for the people of the Marshall Islands—and a challenge for archaeologists

Artifact

How the other half played chess in medieval England

Table of Contents May/June 2015

FEATURES

Mysteries of the Brotherhood

Archaeologists are searching for the origins of a secretive Catholic society in northern New Mexico

When in Rome

New excavations are providing an unexpected view of nearly one thousand years of life in the capital

Ghosts of the Golden Gate

Two ships, two continents, and the ocean that connects them

The Cult of Amun

In the epic rivalry between ancient Egypt and Nubia, one god had enduring appeal

The Minoans of Crete

More than 100 years after it was first discovered, the town of Gournia is once again redefining the island's past

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Charred Scrolls of Herculaneum
Off The Grid
Viking Trading or Raiding?
Telecom History Deep Beneath the Pacific
How Grass Became Maize
Medicine on the High Seas
Cause of Death
A Western Wiki-pedia
Catching Fire and Keeping It
Oysters for the Earth Goddess
Ant Explorers
A Soul of a City
A Slice of Parasitic Life
The Price of a Warship
Medieval Leather, Vellum, and Fur
A Shipwreck in Drydock
Mongol Fashion Statement

World Roundup

Badgers for dinner in Neolithic Spain, the search for Doctor Syntax, a rare coffin emerges in Egypt, Ukraine’s prehistoric McMansions, and fishing for Homo erectus

Letter From Hawaii

Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a rich history that reaches back to a time before humans settled the island and extends to the present day

Artifact

A pagan palindrome in a Christian capital shows how old beliefs die hard

Table of Contents July/August 2015

FEATURES

The Story of the Horse

How its unique role in human culture transformed history

In Search of a Philosopher’s Stone

At a remote site in Turkey, archaeologists have found fragments of the ancient world’s most massive inscription

All in a Day’s Work

Discoveries at the ancient Egyptian town of Deir el-Medina are providing insights into the health and well-being of workmen who dug tombs for royals

Lost Island of the Maya

A submerged ancient pilgrimage site in Guatemala is slowly revealing its past

A Precious Secret

How Korean scientists solved a centuries-old mystery

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

A Spin through Augustan Rome
Off The Grid
The First Toolkit
Anglo-Saxon Jewelry Box
Wrecks of the Pacific Theater
The Environmental Cost of Empire
One Ring to Bind Them
Cosmic Rays and Australopithecines
Bison Bone Mystery
Rome's Earliest Fort
A Parisian Plague
Finding Lost African Homelands
Neanderthal Necklace
Slime Molds and Roman Roads
Open House

World Roundup

Civil War booze, world’s oldest pretzels, Austria’s war camels, coral tombs of the Pacific, and a 2.8-million-year-old human

Letter from Virginia

Excavations are providing a new look at some of the Civil War’s earliest fugitive slaves—considered war goods or contraband—and their first taste of liberty

Artifact

Styling hair in Bronze Age Wales

Table of Contents September/October 2015

FEATURES

Golden House of an Emperor

How archaeologists are saving Nero’s fabled pleasure palace

New York's Original Seaport

Traces of the city’s earliest beginnings as an economic and trading powerhouse lie just beneath the streets of South Street Seaport

Cultural Revival

Excavations near a Yup’ik village in Alaska are helping its people reconnect with the epic stories and practices of their ancestors

Mexico’s Enigmatic Figurines

Until now, some of Mesoamerica’s most intriguing artifacts have been much admired, but little understood

Reclaiming Lost Identities

Life and death in a workhouse during Ireland’s Great Famine

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Bronze Age Ireland’s Taste in Gold
Off the Grid
A Rare Bird
Atacama’s Decaying Mummies
Bronze Age Traveler
Great Lakes Shipwreck Spotting
Early Parrots in the Southwest
The Red Lady of El Mirón
For the Love of a Noblewoman
Blood on the Ice
Under the Rug
What’s in a Name?
A Place to Hide the Bodies
“T” Marks the Spot
As American as Sliced Bacon in a Can
Surely You Joust?

Letter From England

Graffiti from the Middle Ages provides insight into personal expressions of faith in medieval England

World Roundup

Maya city zoning, trophy skulls in Bolivia, saving the Spanish Armada, an Indus migration, and Papua New Guinea’s smoked mummies

Artifact

The dragon that guarded Xanadu

Table of Contents November/December 2015

FEATURES

The Acropolis of Athens

The decades-long project to restore the site to its iconic past

Eternal Banquets of the Early Celts

An extraordinary 2,500-year-old tomb offers vital evidence of trade, ritual, and power in fifth-century B.C. France

Where the Wells Never Go Dry

In a remote corner of Saudi Arabia, a team has been excavating the remains of the ancient oasis of Tayma

North of Paris

Remains of a medieval castle and manor house help tell the story of a powerful French family

Where There's Smoke...

Learning to see the archaeology under our feet

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Second Americans?
Off the Grid
How Much Water Reached Rome?
Paleo-Dentistry
Friars' Leather Shop
The Gates of Gath
Slinky Nordic Treasures
Lake George's Unfinished Fort
Last Flight of a Tuskegee Airman
Mysterious Golden Sacrifice
Aftermath of War
Game of Diplomacy
The Magnetism of the Iron Age
Rituals of Maya Kingship
Premature Aging
Switzerland Everlasting

Letter From Wales

Searching for evidence of cultural changes that swept the prehistoric British Isles

World Roundup

Alaskan shipwreck survivors, chewing tobacco in the Southwest, Hellenistic chicken farms, a Swedish bishop’s secret, and one tough Scythian

Artifact

How a Viking warrior got an English sword

Table of Contents January/February 2016

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2015

ARCHAEOLOGY's editors reveal the year's most compelling finds

The Many Lives of an English Manor House

A major restoration project at a grand estate reveals centuries of a nation’s history

Family History

Giving new life to some of Pompeii’s dead

Living with the Sea Bear

Carvings unearthed in the Arctic reveal a deep connection between an ancient people and polar bears

The Alchemist’s Tale

Long regarded as a charlatan’s game, alchemy is now taking its proper place in the history of science

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Reading the Invisible Ink
Off the Grid
Irish Roots
A Kestrel’s Last Meal
Pompeii Before the Romans
A Baltic Sea Monster Surfaces
Built upon Bones
An Opportunity for Early Humans in China
Hidden Blues
Mr. Jefferson’s Laboratory
Under a Haitian Palace
From Yacht to Trawler to Wreck
Buddha Stands Tall
Denmark’s Bog Dogs
Leftover Mammoth
Finding Parker’s Revenge
Living the Good Afterlife

Letter from Hawaii

On the slopes of Mauna Kea, Hawaii’s cowboys developed a culture all their own

World Roundup

Prehistoric deadliest catch, Roman silver in Slovakia, victims of the Inquisition, Papua New Guinea pottery workshop, and Tomb of the Cave Lions

Artifact

How a Medusa survived Christianity

Table of Contents March/April 2016

FEATURES

Öland, Sweden. Spring, A.D. 480

A hastily built refuge—a grisly massacre—a turbulent period in European history

France’s Roman Heritage

Magnificent wall paintings discovered in present-day Arles speak to a previously unknown history

Colors of the Priesthood

An intriguing source of power is revealed in an ancient Andean tomb

Recovering Hidden Texts

At the world’s oldest monastery, new technology is making long-lost manuscripts available to anyone with an Internet connection

The Lost Town of Dunluce

Just outside an iconic Irish castle, archaeologists uncover the remains of a completely undisturbed historic town

An Ancient Battlefield Emerges

Evidence of a dramatic military victory has been found beneath fishponds and rice paddies around Vietnam's Bach Dang River

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Legends of Glastonbury Abbey
Off the Grid
A Circle of Skulls
Medieval Russian Memo
The Ring’s the Thing
Chinatown before the Quake
Tomb from a Lost Tribe
Alfred the Great’s Forgotten Ally
Reading an Inca Archive
Minding the Beeswax
Quarrying Stonehenge
A Viral Fingerprint
Caesar’s Diplomatic Breakdown
Ship Underground

Letter from Guatemala

Beneath Guatemala’s modern capital lies the record of the rise and fall of an ancient city

World Roundup

Alaskan ghost fleet, how Tut got his beard back, an ill-fated Spanish colony, oldest church in the tropics, East Timor’s giant rats

Artifact

How the ancient Egyptians learned their ABCs

Table of Contents May/June 2016

FEATURES

The World's Oldest Writing

Used by scribes for more than three millennia, cuneiform writing opens a dramatic window onto ancient Mesopotamian life

An Overlooked Inca Wonder

Thousands of aligned holes in Peru’s Pisco Valley have attracted the attention of archaeologists

Masters of the Ancient Mediterranean

The rare discovery of a Phoenician shipwreck off southeastern Spain is providing new information about their centuries-long dominance of the sea

Coup de Grâce for a Desert Castle

A group of murder victims discovered in a frontier stronghold in Jordan may define the last chapter in its history

A Myth in Stone

The delicate work of conserving a 2,000-year-old story

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Dressing for the Ages
Off the Grid
Let a Turtle Be Your Psychopomp
The Price of Tea in China
What Happened After 1492?
Women in a Temple of Death
Islam North of the Pyrenees
Mesolithic Markings
Vikings, Worms, and Emphysema
Medieval River Engineering
The Death of Joe the Quilter
Egypt’s Immigrant Elite
The First Casus Belli

Letter from Florida

In Florida's Panhandle, tribal leaders and archaeologists reach into the past to help preserve a native community's identity

World Roundup

Ancient Southwestern footprints, Salem’s witch executions, fermented Mesolithic fish dish, Siberian mammoth hunt, and a seven-foot-tall Aussie bird

Artifact

The Wild Man of the medieval world

Table of Contents July/August 2016

FEATURES

Rites of the Scythians

Spectacular new discoveries from the Caucasus set the stage for a dramatic hilltop ritual

Franklin’s Last Voyage

After 170 years and countless searches, archaeologists have discovered a famed wreck in the frigid Arctic

Timelines

Tracking when humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans crossed paths—and what became of their offspring

Children of Giza

Finds from a cemetery near the pyramids are illuminating the Egyptian view of youth and the afterlife

The Bard at Home

Renovations, entertainment, and grief at New Place, Shakespeare’s manor in Stratford-upon-Avon

Vietnam’s First City

At the site of Co Loa, researchers are examining the foundations of power in Southeast Asia

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Is it Esmeralda?
Off the Grid
New Dates for the Oldest Cave Paintings
Fact-Checking Lawrence of Arabia
Etruscan Code Uncracked
Naval Mystery Solved
Off with Their Heads
Cursing the Competition
Proof in the Prints
Fit for a War God
A Life Story
A Villa under the Garden
Iceland’s Young Migrant

Letter from England

Excavations at one of Britain’s most majestic castles help tell the story of an Anglo-Saxon kingdom

World Roundup

Pirates of the Caribbean, evidence for the oldest Irishman, Iron Age Swiss cheese, India’s cannabis frescoes, and the Silk Road route to Nepal

Artifact

How an Old World horseshoe tells an unexpected New World story

Table of Contents September/October 2016

FEATURES

A New View of the Birthplace of the Olympics

Taking an innovative approach to one of ancient architecture’s most intriguing questions

Romans on the Bay of Naples

A spectacular villa under Positano sees the light

Worlds Within Us

Pulled from an unlikely source, ancient microbial DNA represents a new frontier in the study of the past—and modern health

Royal Sherwood

A long-overlooked site, the excesses of English royalty, and the origin of a legend

A Splendid Failure

The wreck of CSS Georgia, a unique Civil War relic, emerges from Savannah’s harbor

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Piecing Together a Plan of Ancient Rome
Off the Grid
Gimme Middle Paleolithic Shelter
Zapotec Power Rites
Mystery Buildings at Petra
Sun and Moon
The Great Parallelogram
The Prisoners of Richmond Castle
A True Viking Saga
Culture Clash
Lost and Found (Again)
The City That Wasn’t
Mask Metamorphosis

Letter from Rotterdam

How a small Dutch village became Europe's greatest port

World Roundup

Kennewick Man’s roots, rise of the Wari Empire, turtle soup, hyenas vs. humans, and an ancient Chinese beer recipe

Artifact

Where Anglo-Saxons kept their mementos

Table of Contents November/December 2016

FEATURES

Samhain Revival

Looking for the roots of Halloween in Ireland’s Boyne Valley

Expanding the Story

New discoveries are overturning long-held assumptions and revealing previously ignored complexities at the desert castle of Khirbet al-Mafjar

The Temple Builders of Malta

How an isolated island culture became Europe’s most sophisticated Neolithic civilization

Korea’s Half Moon Palace

An unexpected source begins to tell the story of a long-forgotten ancient Asian royal residence

A Last Day, Reclaimed

Called the Great War in its day for its unparalleled scope and bloodshed, World War I still has stories to tell of both violence and humanity

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Piltdown’s Lone Forger
Off the Grid
Codex Subtext
The Rabbit Farms of Teotihuacán
Murder on the Mountain?
Breaking Cahokia’s Glass Ceiling
Evolve and Catch Fire
Coast over Corridor
Ötzi’s Sartorial Splendor
And They’re Off!
The Blood of the King
China’s Legendary Flood
Shifting Sands
Man Meets Dog, Both Meet Death

Letter from Maryland

The highly personal archaeology of enslavement on a tobacco plantation

World Roundup

Maya victory monument, Neanderthal cannibals, Paleolithic smorgasbord, King Tut’s meteor dagger, and Melanesian tattooing

Artifact

A Cambridge don’s magic shoe

Table of Contents January/February 2017

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2016

ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors reveal the year’s most compelling finds

December 7, 1941

The underwater archaeology of the attack on Pearl Harbor

Hoards of the Vikings

Evidence of trade, diplomacy, and vast wealth on an unassuming island in the Baltic Sea

Fire in the Fens

A short-lived settlement provides an unparalleled view of Bronze Age life in eastern England

Seeing Beauty in the Mundane

Looking for traces of a celebrated but unusual artist in suburban Idaho

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Proteins Solve a Hominin Puzzle
Off the Grid
A Pharaoh’s Last Fleet
The Curse of a Medieval English Well
Discovering Terror
Hungry Minds
Guide to the Afterlife
Japan’s Early Anglers
A Removable Feast
Blue Collar in Ancient Peru
The Monkey Effect
Figure of Distinction
Death by Boomerang

Letter from Laos

New technology is enabling archaeologists to explore a vast but little-studied mortuary complex in war-damaged Laos

World Roundup

Asian metal in Alaska, Oaxaca’s stone crocodile, U-boat vs. fantastic beast, Bronze Age cheese mishap, and a cannabis burial in China

Artifact

How not to get frostbite

Table of Contents March/April 2017

FEATURES

The First American Revolution

Exploring the legacy of the New World’s most successful native rebellion

Kings of Cooperation

The Olmec city of Tres Zapotes may have owed its longevity to a new form of government

The Road Almost Taken

An ancient city in Germany tells a different story of the Roman conquest

Town Beneath the Waves

In a chance find just off Greece’s Peloponnese, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a once-thriving Early Bronze Age settlement

Memento Mori

A cemetery used for centuries is an expression of the enduring relationship between the living and the dead

Hidden From View

One of Cappadocia’s underground cities may yet yield clues about its history

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Digging up Digital Music
Off the Grid
Revisiting Montezuma Castle
Secret Spaces
Something New for Sutton Hoo
A Surprise City in Thessaly
Zinc Zone
Behind the Curtain
Royal Gams
A Mix of Faiths
Neolithic FaceTime
Bathing, Ancient Roman Style
The Church that Transformed Norway
Siberian William Tell
A Traditional Neanderthal Home

World Roundup

Following the whale diet, climate change in ancient Tanzania, domesticating turkeys, Kazakhstan’s cult complex, and kangaroo jewelry

Artifact

Self-expression in the Bronze Age

Letter from Philadelphia

An unusual industrial history emerges from some of the city’s hippest neighborhoods

Table of Contents May/June 2017

FEATURES

The Wall at the End of the Empire

The long and varied history of life along Hadrian’s Wall

The Blackener’s Cave

Viking Age outlaws, taboo, and ritual in Iceland’s lava fields

After the Battle

The defeat of a Scottish army at the 1650 Battle of Dunbar was just the beginning of an epic ordeal for the survivors

One + One = Forty-Nine

A crocodile mummy’s many surprises

When the Ancient Greeks Began to Write

Newly discovered inscriptions help explain how literacy spread

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Scroll Search
Off the Grid
A Cornucopia of Condiments
Bronze Age Bling
Squeezing History from a Turnip
Aurignacian School of Art
Common Ground
Standing Still in Beringia?
The Vikings’ Wide Reach
Close Quarters
The Third Reich’s Arctic Outpost
The Buddha of the Lake

Letter from Greenland

The race to save Greenland's Arctic coastal heritage from a shifting climate

World Roundup

Maya land sharks, exotic libations in Ghana, Viking toy ship, Abu Dhabi’s Neolithic building boom, and the world’s oldest silk

Artifact

How the Maya kings made it rain

Table of Contents July/August 2017

FEATURES

Egypt’s Final Redoubt in Canaan

The fiery end of the last Egyptian colony

Set in Stone

Why did prehistoric Native Americans fashion the enigmatic objects known as bannerstones?

A Residence Fit for a President

New evidence revises a long-held belief about James Monroe’s home

Looking Beyond the Hillforts

A unique settlement in southwestern England is changing archaeologists’ views about how Iron Age people lived 2,000 years ago

The First Australians

The story of the continent’s earliest human arrivals is being revealed at a rock shelter in remote and challenging territory

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Ka-Ching!
Off the Grid
While You Are Waiting
A Dangerous Island
House Rules
Renaissance Melody
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
Tomb Couture
Not So Pearly Whites
Late Paleolithic Masterpieces
Afterlife on the Nile
Knight Watch
The Grand Army Diet
Angry Birds

Artifact

A venerable bead

World Roundup

First World War booze, Russian bear grease, Mediterranean mystery religion, and exploring under Algiers

Letter From Peru

Archaeologists rethink the early civilizations of the Amazon

Table of Contents September/October 2017

FEATURES

The Heights We Go To

The links among extreme environments, genetics, and the human ability to adapt

Painted Worlds

Searching for the meaning of self-expression in the land of the Moche

Lost Kingdom of the Britons

A doomed hillfort in far southwestern Scotland may have been a royal stronghold

To Die Like an Egyptian

An ancient burial shroud offers insights into belief and identity at the beginning of Roman-era Egypt

Landscape of Secrets

Archaeologists confront painful memories of the Spanish Civil War

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

White Horse of the Sun
Off the Grid
Doll Story
Freeze Frame
Last Stand of the Blue Brigade
Where There’s Coal…
Reading Invisible Messages
Disposable Gods
A Princely Update
Fast Food
Andean Copper Age
Capital Gains
Not by Bread Alone

World Roundup

A prehistoric canoe in Louisiana, the Spanish cat-fur trade, an Egyptian’s wooden toe, and escaping Crusader-style

Artifact

A forgotten regiment’s badge of courage

Letter From California

Lessons emerge from the ways in which North American hunter-gatherers managed the landscape around them

Table of Contents November/December 2017

FEATURES

In the Time of the Rosetta Stone

Turbulent events surrounding the Rosetta Stone are being revealed by new excavations in the ancient Egyptian city of Thmuis

Reading the White Shaman Mural

Paintings in a Texas canyon may depict mythic narratives that have endured for millennia

Evolution of a Town

The beginnings of a Roman settlement in southern Gaul

Marooned in Russian America

Two centuries after a ship sank off an Alaskan island, the fate of those who survived has now been uncovered

Fortress Above the City

Surprising evidence of a powerful kingdom in the center of Seoul

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Hidden Stories of the York Gospel
Off the Grid
Iconic Discovery
Arctic Ice Maiden
Desert Life
Living Evidence
Putting on a New Face
Fit for a Saint
The Glass Economy
Henry VIII’s Favorite Palace
Itinerant Etruscan Beekeepers
Spain’s Silver Boom
Conspicuous Consumption
Tablet Time
By the Light of the Moon

World Roundup

Viking cod exports, Bronze Age cereal box, Commodore Perry’s Revenge, Easter Island ecology, and Zanzibar’s colonial past

Artifact

A face from the past

Letter From Singapore

The founding mythology of this city-state was once thought to be pure fiction—archaeology says otherwise

Table of Contents January/February 2018

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2017

ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors reveal the year’s most compelling finds

Where the Ice Age Caribou Ranged

Searching for prehistoric hunting grounds in an unlikely place

New Zealand's First City, Uncovered

Stories of the founding inhabitants of Christchurch have been brought to light as the rubble from a major earthquake continues to be cleared

A View From the Birthplace of Zeus

Excavations at the Sanctuary of Zeus on Mount Lykaion have revealed the earliest evidence to date associated with the cult of ancient Greece's most powerful Olympian god

Angkor Thom's Divine Medicine

An extensive 12th-century hospital network is being revealed in Cambodia

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Secrets of Sabotage
Off the Grid
A Monumental Find
The Pink Standard
Hot Property
Spotting the Sun
Bronze Beauty
Masked Man
Queen of the Old Kingdom
Underground Party
Assyrian Archivists
Unknown Elites
Front Row Seats
Irish Vikings

Letter From Albania

As a new pipeline cuts its way through the Balkans, archaeologists in Albania are grabbing every opportunity to expose the country’s history—from the Neolithic to the present

World Roundup

Canadian model airplane, ball games in Belize, Roman Tunisia, Arizona turquoise mines, and a Rwandan palace

Artifact

A dog that heals

Table of Contents March/April 2018

FEATURES

The Viking Great Army

A tale of conflict and adaptation played out in northern England

The Archaeology of Gardens

ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors explore the many reasons people have tended the earth

How to Survive Climate Change

Peru’s Casma state endured unpredictable El Niños and centuries of drought

Imaging the Past

What stone toolmaking and neuroscience can tell us about what it means to be human

Entombed in Asphalt

A natural tar pit in Trinidad is a time capsule of some of the oldest wooden objects in the Caribbean

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Mesopotamian Merchant Files
Off the Grid
He’s No Stone Face
Satellites on the Silk Road
Gods of the Galilee
The Venus of Vlakno
Caesar’s English Beachhead
Head in the Sand
Seals of Approval
Early Signs of Empire
Tut’s Mesopotamian Side
Newtonian Whiteboard
Nomadic Chic
Old Woman and the Sea

Letter From Hungary

How archaeologists trying to locate the final resting place of Suleiman the Magnificent uncovered the remains of a crucial outpost of the Ottoman Empire

Artifact

The early sherd special

World Roundup

A rare Neolithic vintage, rock art on the Orinoco, Little Foot the Australopithecus, and medieval bishops’ bachelor pad

Table of Contents May/June 2018

FEATURES

Emblems for the Afterlife

Tomb paintings hold clues to the ancient Egyptian desire to bring order out of chaos

Global Cargo

Found in the waters off a small Dutch island, a seventeenth-century shipwreck provides an unparalleled view of the golden age of European trade

Cultivating an Arid Landscape

Excavations in a Byzantine village in Israel are raising questions about how and why desert agriculture thrived—and then disappeared

A Sanctuary’s Final Farewell

Excavations at Casas del Turuñuelo tell a tale of ritual destruction in the mythical land of Tartesso

Desert Orca

A geoglyph recently discovered in southern Peru may date to the beginning of the renowned Nazca Lines tradition

Exploring a Prehistoric Borderland

Hunter-gatherers in northern Europe withstood the spread of agriculture for 1,500 years

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Conquistador Contagion
Off the Grid
Circle of Life
Norwegian Knight
A Night Out in Leicestershire
The Pirate Book Club
Alternative Deathstyles
Afterlife Under the Waves
No Dice Left Unturned
A Mark of Distinction
Early Buddhism in India
A Bronze Age Landmark
Time’s Arrow
We Are Family

Letter From the Philippines

Archaeologists uncover evidence suggesting rice terraces helped the Ifugao resist Spanish colonization

Artifact

Man of the hours

World Roundup

Taino DNA, island Etruscans, IRA buttons, gate to the afterlife, and the last wild horses

Table of Contents July/August 2018

FEATURES

Westminster Abbey’s Hidden History

Far above the royal pomp and circumstance, archaeologists unexpectedly discover seven centuries of England’s past

The City at the Beginning of the World

The only Maya city with an urban grid may embody a creation myth

Haiti’s Royal Past

An early 19th-century palace is a reminder of the ambitious monarchy that rose from the ashes of the Haitian Revolution

Paradise Changed

An ancient Peruvian city stood at the crossroads of technologies

An Etruscan Family Story

Surprising evidence of daily life and of one of Rome’s greatest conflicts is found in a wealthy residence in Tuscany

Ancient Athens’ Other Cemetery

Excavations at Phaleron, a vast Archaic burial ground, are poised to tell the story of the city before the age of democracy

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Sun Storm
Off the Grid
Honoring Osiris
Mirror, Mirror
Pompeii Revisited
Nazi Sub Discovered
Divine Invitation
Samurai Nest Egg
Far From Home
Late Antique TLC
Pinpoint Precision
A Final Account
Seaworthy Sumerians
Tales Out of School

World Roundup

New Mexico’s giant sloth, Peruvian llama sacrifice, Sweden’s oldest onion, bovine brain surgery, and the first Arabians

Letter from England

Archaeologists explore the landscape of England’s first civil war

Artifact

It was a bout time, too

Table of Contents September/October 2018

FEATURES

The Rulers of Foreign Lands

Was a new regional power, once thought of as a bloodthirsty invading force, actually a catalyst for ancient Egypt’s most prosperous era?

Shipping Stone

A wreck off the Sicilian coast offers a rare look into the world of Byzantine commerce

Fragments of Ancestral Memory

Native texts discovered in a remote church in Mexico belong to an ancient sacred tradition

When the Inuit Met the Basques

A site in southeastern Canada bears evidence of surprising 17th-century interactions between peoples from disparate parts of the world

A Local Institution

The cellar of an 18th-century coffeehouse has been unearthed in Cambridge, revealing a dynamic social venue

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Ice Age Necropolis
Off the Grid
Hellenistic Helmet Safety
All Bundled Up
Spheres of Influence
Hand Picked
Ancient Foresters
Indian Warrior Class
Please Wash Your Hands
Can You Dig It, Man?
Breaking the Mold
A Very Long Way to Eat Rhino
Hold Your Horses
Making an Entrance
Do No Harm

World Roundup

Ancient Japanese peach pits, the weight of Maya prestige, kangaroo cookout, early American smokers, and a lost Illyrian city

Letter from Brooklyn

Long-lost clues to the lives of forgotten New Yorkers are emerging from the sands at Dead Horse Bay

Artifact

Not just a pretty base

Table of Contents November/December 2018

FEATURES

The Marks of Time

A six-week heat wave in the U.K. and Ireland exposes nearly 5,000 years of history

Reimagining the Crusades

A detailed picture of more than two centuries of European Christian life in the Holy Land is emerging from new excavations at monasteries, towns, cemeteries, and some of the world’s most enduring castles

People of the White Tiger

In southwestern China, a man’s richly furnished grave reveals how identity can persist even in a time of great change

At the Edge of the New World

The remains of a 400-year-old ship off Bermuda are refining the history of the island’s earliest inhabitants

All Roads, Eventually, Lead to Rome

Discoveries at the ancient town of Satricum on the Italian peninsula bear witness to the earliest expressions of what would become the Roman Empire

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The American Canine Family Tree
Off the Grid
Mars Explored
Aztec Fishing
Iron Age Teenagers
Hand of God
Beauty Endures
Let Them Eat Soup
Another Form of Slavery
Eat More Spore
Well, Well
Nomadic Necropolis
Conan's Storm Cellar

World Roundup

Aztec rain temple, Ötzi’s last meal, Roman whalers, and Germany’s oldest public library

Letter from California

A rugged volcanic landscape was once the site of a dramatic standoff between the Modoc tribe and the U.S. Army

Artifact

A draft of comfort

Table of Contents January/February 2019

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2018

ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors reveal the year’s most compelling finds

A Dark Age Beacon

Long shrouded in Arthurian lore, an island off the coast of Cornwall may have been the remote stronghold of early British kings

What Sank San Diego?

Was it a German torpedo, a mine, or saboteurs that sent this imposing World War I ship to the bottom of the Atlantic?

The Maya Animal Kingdom

Captive big cats might be key to understanding ancient Mesoamerica’s complex network of culture and commerce

Cambodia's Cave of Bridges

A vast mountainside cave in the midst of lush farmland conceals at least 70,000 years of Southeast Asian prehistory

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Case of the Stolen Sumerian Antiquities
Off the Grid
Ancient Amazonian Chocolatiers
Fit for a Prince
When Things Got Cheesy
Funny Business
Double Vision
Raise a Toast to the Aurochs
A Lost Sock's Secrets
Land of the Ice and Snow
Bath Tiles
India's Anonymous Artists
No Rainbow Required
Passage to the Afterlife

World Roundup

Scottish clan memorabilia, a conquistador shrine, Neolithic nutmeg, Maya sea salt harvesters, and a Chinese model house

Letter from Leiden

Exploring the unlikely history of sanitation management in medieval Holland

Artifact

Heirloom apparent

Table of Contents March/April 2019

FEATURES

Egypt's Eternal City

Once the most sacred site on the Nile, Heliopolis was all but forgotten until archaeologists returned to save it from disappearing forever

Sicily's Lost Theater

Archaeologists resume the search for the home of drama in a majestic Greek sanctuary

A Memory of Home

A volcanic eruption forced the people of Ecuador’s Jama Valley to abandon their homeland. What brought them back?

Between Two Empires

Exploring the extensive remains of a short-lived city that flourished during a turbulent era of ancient Near Eastern history

Art at the End of the Ice Age

Newly discovered engraved stone tablets are evidence that a prehistoric tradition endured long after it was thought to have vanished

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Fairfield's Rebirth in 3-D
Off the Grid
Reburial in Luxor
Mild Boars
Foreign Funeral Rites
The Magic Mineral
Die With Your Boots On
After the Rain
Ice Merchants
The Chicken People
Honoring the Ancestors
Ahead of His Time
Celtic Trophy Heads
A Ride to Valhalla
India's Temple Island

World Roundup

English food culture, Japanese weevils, the Sri Lankan spice trade, and surviving the Tibetan Plateau

Letter From Texas

Excavations at a ranch in the southern High Plains show how generations of people adapted to an iconic Western landscape

Artifact

A lady’s circle of influence

Table of Contents May/June 2019

FEATURES

Mapping the Past

ARCHAEOLOGY’s editors explore the genius and creativity of mapmakers through time

Bringing Back Moche Badminton

How reviving an ancient ritual game gave an archaeologist new insight into the lives of ancient Peruvians

China’s Hidden City

Recent discoveries at an isolated northern settlement are challenging traditional narratives about the origins of Chinese civilization

Inside King Tut’s Tomb

A decade of research offers a new look at the burial of Egypt’s most famous pharaoh

Medieval England’s Power Monastery

For nearly 1,000 years, monks on the Holy Island of Lindisfarne wielded unprecedented political and economic might

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Epic Proportions
Off the Grid
Stabbed in the Back
A Fox in the House
Tigress by the Tail
Family Secrets
Cold War Storage
Marrow of Humanity
Maya Beekeepers
Roman Soldier Scribbles
Understanding Hornet's Fate
Viking Warrioress
Colonial Cooling
Temple of the Flayed Lord
Celtic Curiosity
Submerged Scottish Forest

Letter from the Dead Sea

Natural resources from land and sea sustained a thriving Jewish community for more than a millennium

Artifact

At some point in the past

World Roundup

American whaler petroglyphs, Chinese “elixir of immortality,” Neanderthal footprints, and Ice Age rabbit hunting

Table of Contents July/August 2019

FEATURES

Digging Deeper into Pompeii’s Past

New research is uncovering the ancient city’s dynamic story from its origins to the eruption that buried it

Place of the Loyal Samurai

On the beaches and in the caves of a small Micronesian island, archaeologists have identified evocative evidence of one of WWII’s most brutal battles

Magnetic Mesoamericans

Did an ancient culture master a fundamental force of nature?

The Prayerstone Hypothesis

Thousands of decorated stone artifacts in the American West may be the key to understanding a people’s contested history

Sacred Rites of an Early Andean Empire

A trove of offerings discovered in Lake Titicaca shows how the Tiwanaku used religion to control their territory

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

You Say What You Eat
Off the Grid
Snake Snack
A Funeral Fit for Etruscans
History in the DNA
A Plot of Their Own
Picnic for the Afterlife
A Big Production
Putting Dinner on the Table
Medieval Baby Bootie
Cotton Mill, Prison, Main Street
Animal Archaeology
The Unseen Mummy Chamber
Neanderthal Fashion Statement
Spring Boards

Letter from England

6,000 years of life on the Cambridgeshire landscape has been revealed by a massive infrastructure project

Artifact

Bronze Age costume jewelry

World Roundup

Crusader genetics, Neanderthal cannibalism, Terracotta Army weapons, and Connecticut’s oldest English town

Table of Contents September/October 2019

FEATURES

World of the Griffin Warrior

A single grave and its extraordinary contents are changing the way archaeologists view two great ancient Greek cultures

Minaret in the Mountains

Excavations near a 12th-century tower reveal the summer capital of a forgotten Islamic empire

A River Runs Through It

The twists and turns of a medieval English city’s history emerge from an artifact-rich riverbed

Piecing Together a God's Journey

By tracking a Mesoamerican sculpture’s lengthy voyage from Mexico to Denmark, researchers discover its true identity

The Antarctic Hunt

How late 18th- and 19th-century seal hunters survived on the harsh island landscape of South Georgia

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

The Case for Clotilda
Off the Grid
A God Goes Shopping
Half in the Bag
Herding Genes in Africa
Bronze Age Palace Surfaces
Upper Paleolithic Cave Life
Scarab From Space
A Catalog of Princes
Sowing the Land
We Are Family
Home on the Plains
Saqqara's Working Stiffs
Inner Beauty
Volcano Viewers
Partially Identified Flying Objects

Letter from Lake George

Evidence from forts, hospitals, and taverns in upstate New York is illuminating the lives of thousands of British soldiers during the French and Indian War

Artifact

Just a fleeting impression

World Roundup

Egyptian watermelons, a Sumatran tsunami, Siege of Yorktown shipwrecks, and the house of the nine-day queen

Table of Contents November/December 2019

FEATURES

Searching for the Witches’ Tower

Archaeologists hunt for evidence of a 17th-century English family accused of witchcraft

Artists of the Dark Zone

Deciphering Cherokee ritual imagery deep in the caves of the American South

Life in the City of the Gods

Inside the neighborhoods of Teotihuacan, Mesoamerica’s first great metropolis

Farm to Emperor’s Table

Excavations reveal the inner workings of an ancient Roman imperial estate

Magical Beasts of Babylon

How the Ishtar Gate safeguarded the Mesopotamian world

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

Proof Positive
Off the Grid
The Wrath of the Hittites
Melting Season
Provincial Pen Pal
Megalithic Mystery
Worlds Apart
The Lead Standard
Egypt's Temple Town
Æthelburga's Local Church
Down by the River
Rise of the Greek Crane
Jetting Across the British Isles

Letter from Jordan

After the famous city of Petra was deserted, a small village thrived in its shadow

Artifact

Another face in the crowd

World Roundup

Island hopping to Australia, Dead Sea Scroll survival, Roman social security, and the village Canada forgot

Table of Contents January/February 2020

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2019

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine reveals the year’s most exciting finds

Japan’s Sacred Island

For centuries, rituals performed on an isolated island played a key role in the emergence of Japan

Temple of the White Thunderbird

Excavators in southern Iraq have uncovered the long-lost home of the powerful Sumerian warrior god

Friend? Roman? Countryman?

A rare Iron Age burial in southern England reflects the close connections between Britain and Gaul two millennia ago

Inca Power Politics

Ruins of a half-built Andean capital are evidence of how the Inca controlled their vast empire—until the Spanish arrived

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

The Man in Prague Castle
Off the Grid
As Told by Herodotus
Bath Buddy
Maya Maize God's Birth
Cretan Coastal Rites
Still Standing
Deerly Departed
The Time Had Come, the Walrus Said
Skoal!
Maya Total War
A Seaside Journey to America
City Limits
Where's the Beef?

Around the World

Rapa Nui moai farmers, the world’s oldest pearl, a rowdy Scottish tavern, and what ancient Assyrian stargazers saw

Letter from Ireland

Millions were forced to flee during the Great Famine—some of those left behind were condemned to Ireland’s most notorious prison

Artifact

The formula for success

Table of Contents March/April 2020

FEATURES

Inside a Medieval Gaelic Castle

A tiny Irish island holds the secrets of an unknown royal way of life

Remembering the Shark Hunters

Unique burials show how ancient Peruvians celebrated dangerous deep-sea expeditions

Lord of the Oasis

In Egypt’s Western Desert, worship of the mysterious god Seth thrived long after it waned elsewhere

The Founder's Tomb

Frescoes discovered in a Jordanian village narrate the early days of a once-cosmopolitan city on the eastern edge of the Roman Empire

Atomic Age Ghost Fleet

The submerged remains of two massive bomb tests in the Pacific illustrate the potential horrors of nuclear war

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Ancient Academia
Off the Grid
Bicycles and Bayonets
A Barrel of Bronze Age Monkeys
Domestic Harmony
Shock of the Old
Sailing the Viking Seas
Egyptian Coneheads
China's Carp Catchers
Field of Tombs
Bird on a Wire
Tool Time
Protecting the Young
Early Adopters

Around the World

Neolithic chewing gum DNA, the first sled dogs, and swelling the ranks of the Terracotta Army

Letter from the Four Corners

Native peoples of the American Southwest dined on a little-known spud at least 10,000 years ago

Artifact

Ahead of the curve

Table of Contents May/June 2020

FEATURES

Weapons of the Ancient World

How people of the past developed arms to master the challenges of their time

A Path to Freedom

At a Union Army camp in Kentucky, enslaved men, women, and children struggled for their lives and fought to be free

Villages in the Sky

High in the Rockies, archaeologists have discovered evidence of mountain life 4,000 years ago

Megasites of Ukraine

Massive 6,000-year-old settlements are revolutionizing how archaeologists understand ancient cities

The King's Canal

Rock reliefs in Iraqi Kurdistan show how Assyrian farmers toiled under the royal gaze

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

The Parthenon by Any Other Name?
Off the Grid
Guardian Feline
The Cursing Well
If These Walls Could Talk
Warrior Stone
At Press Time
Polychrome Patchwork
Scaredy Cats
Arms and the Women
Birds of a Feather
Viking Knights, Polish Days
Z Marks the Spot

Around the World

Neanderthal clam divers, bananas in Vanuatu, the Maya Great Road, and a secret door in Parliament

Letter from Morocco

Excavations of a bustling medieval city tell the tale of a powerful Berber dynasty

Artifact

An emblem of endurance

Table of Contents July/August 2020

FEATURES

From Head to Toe in the Ancient Maya World

Clothing, jewelry, and body modification spoke volumes about people’s social status and the varied roles they played

A Silk Road Renaissance

Excavations in Tajikistan have unveiled a city of merchant princes that flourished from the fifth to the eighth century A.D.

Idol of the Painted Temple

On Peru’s central coast, an ornately carved totem was venerated across centuries of upheaval and conquest

Hagia Sophia's Hidden History

Unprecedented fieldwork in Istanbul has revealed new evidence of the cathedral at the heart of the Byzantine Empire

The Power of Secret Societies

Clandestine groups throughout history have used shadowy rituals to control the world around them

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

The Emperor of Stones
Off the Grid
Ice Age Ice Box
Sticking Its Neck Out
ID'ing England's First Nun
Play Ball!
History in Ice
Roman River Cruiser
Prized Polo...Donkeys?
Twisted Neanderthal Tech

Around the World

Prehistoric Floridian fishermen, Hannibal’s army in Spain, Paleolithic mystery spheres, and a lost Maya city

Letter from Normandy

More than 75 years after D-Day, the Allied invasion’s impact on the French landscape is still not fully understood

Artifact

A Roman soldier’s gift to the gods

Table of Contents September/October 2020

FEATURES

A Nubian Kingdom Rises

Excavations at a city on the Nile reveal the origins of an ancient African power

Walking Into New Worlds

Native traditions and novel discoveries tell the migration story of the ancestors of the Navajo and Apache

Wealth of a Medieval Power Broker

In England’s far northeast, a commanding bishop built a chapel rivaling the grandest in Europe

South Africa's Fateful Shipwreck

A seventeenth-century vessel foundered off the coast and transformed a nation’s history

Resisting Rome

How a Celtic tribe fought to defend their Iberian homeland against the emperor’s legions

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Siberian Island Enigma
Off the Grid
Closing in on a Pharaoh's Tomb
A Rare Egg
Mouse in the House
Commander's Orders
The Means of Production
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Missing Mosaics
Stonehenge's New Neighbor
Dark Earth in the Amazon
Reindeer Training

Around the World

A president’s torpedo boat, Cahokia corn farmers, a Viking surprise, and Genghis Khan in winter

Letter from Alcatraz

Before it was an infamous prison, Fort Alcatraz played a key role defending the West Coast

Artifact

Reeling in the years

Table of Contents November/December 2020

FEATURES

Alcohol Through the Ages

How the magic of fermentation has transformed the human experience

In the Reign of the Sun Kings

Old Kingdom pharaohs faced a reckoning that reshaped Egypt’s balance of power

The Great Wall of Mongolia

A nomadic medieval dynasty constructed a 450-mile barrier to help manage their sprawling empire

Canada's Forgotten Capital

Beneath the streets of Old Montreal, the rubble of a short-lived Parliament building offers a glimpse into a young country’s growing pains

Weaving for Their Ancestors

For 1,000 years, the Paracas people of Peru expressed their vivid conception of life and death through textiles

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Our Coastal Origins
Off the Grid
A Day by the Rhone
Painful Past
Miniature Masterpieces
Precision Instruments
Ship of Plenty
A Tale of Two Pipes
To Reach the Gods
Bronze Age Keepsakes
Honoring the Dead
Paleolithic Bedtime
Laurens' Last Stand
Piggy Playthings
What's in a Norse Name?

Around the World

Poison projectiles, Cortés’ Mexico City abode, Peruvian pelican fertilizer, and solving a Crusader mystery

Letter from Israel

Archaeologists have found new evidence of a robust dye industry that endured on the Mediterranean coast for millennia

Artifact

Turning over an old leaf

Table of Contents January/February 2021

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2020

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine reveals the year’s most exciting finds

Top 10 Discoveries of the Decade

The best finds of the past 10 years

Return to the River

Members of Virginia’s Rappahannock tribe are at work with archaeologists to document the landscape they call home

An Oasis Civilization Rediscovered

In the deserts of Central Asia lie the ruined cities of a lost Bronze Age world

Behind the Lines of the Great Arab Revolt

Along an abandoned railroad, traces of a bitter WWI-era guerilla conflict have emerged from the sands

Unfolding the Bayeux Tapestry

A new theory may explain the origins of the famed medieval textile

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Reading, Writing, and Algorithms
Face Off
Formatting Bronze Age Tablets
Cat's Eye View
The Bone Collector
Who Is That Masked God?
Persian Steel
Head Space
Offerings at Sea
Bathing With the Toad Goddess
Off the Grid

Around the World

Peopling the Caribbean, Scythian warrior couple, dogs of the First Nations, and a stonemason’s inside joke

Letter from Woodhenge

A 4,000-year-old ringed sanctuary reveals a German village’s surprising connections with Britain

Artifact

Praying inside the box

Table of Contents March/April 2021

FEATURES

The Amazing True Story of Nathan Harrison

Excavations of a mountain cabin uncover the hidden life of a formerly enslaved man who became a California legend

The Visigoths' Imperial Ambitions

How an unlikely Visigothic city rose in Spain amid the chaotic aftermath of Rome’s final collapse

The Lost World of Lihyan

A forgotten city of spice traders once ruled the oases of northern Arabia

Mapping a City in the Clouds

Drone-mounted lasers reveal a new view of an ancient Peruvian citadel

Golden Goats of Ur

Decoding the meaning of a pair of 4,500-year-old Sumerian statuettes

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

An Enduring Design
The Mummies Return
A Dutiful Roman Soldier
In Full Plume
Joust Like a King
Temple of Heaven
Lady Killer
More Vesuvius Victims
Flower Child
Tyrrhenian Traders
Off the Grid

Around the World

Neanderthal burial practices, Mexican marigold, Levantine bananas, and defending a Phoenician colony

Letter from Chihuahua

A recurring design motif found in northern Mexico’s ancient mountain villages reflects complex cultural ties between distant peoples

Artifact

Ancient athletic accoutrements

Table of Contents May/June 2021

FEATURES

Ancient Tax Time

How taxpayers funded the rise of empires

Last Stand of the Hunter-Gatherers?

The 11,000-year-old stone circles of Göbekli Tepe in modern Turkey may have been monuments to a vanishing way of life

The Vikings Head West

Discoveries on Iceland’s coast challenge the traditional time line of the island’s settlement

Exploring the Kingdom of Izapa

An overlooked people living between the Olmec and Maya worlds were a cultural force far beyond their realm

Between Athens and Thebes

Archaeologists investigate an imposing stronghold that overlooked the contested border dividing two rival city-states

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

You Are How You Cook
After the Fall
Consider the Craniums
Ship of Ivory
Money Talks
Heads of the Family
Mistaken Identity
Beast Masters
Swan Songs
A Welsh Ancestor
Artemis, Apollo, and Friends
A Twin Burial
Off the Grid

Around the World

Chumash currency, resisting the Russians in Alaska, conversing with Osiris, and an Aztec golden eagle

Letter from Australia

Newly discovered rock art panels depict how ancient Aboriginal ancestors envisioned climate change and creation

Artifact

In tune with the times

Table of Contents July/August 2021

FEATURES

The Ugarit Archives

Thousands of cuneiform tablets written in a distinctive script tell the dramatic story of a Bronze Age merchant city in Syria

Autobiography of a Maya Ambassador

A grand monument and a humble burial chronicle the changing fortunes of a career diplomat

Rise of the Kings of Tonga

By combining excavation and oral history, archaeologists are discovering how a dynasty of chiefs united a Polynesian archipelago

Pompeii's Urban Oasis

Newly restored frescoes reveal an unexpected garden refuge

Rediscovering Archaic America

The surprising history of eastern North America’s early hunter-gatherers

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

A Challenging World
The Spider's on the Wall
Mirror, Mirror
Return to Sender
The Copper Standard
Red Carpet Treatment
Buddhist Retreat
Tubman's Training Ground
Anchors Aweigh
In the Anatolian Arena
Lost Egyptian City
Laws of the Land
Bathing at the Bar
Off the Grid

Around the World

Ancient Australian multi-tools, Africa’s oldest house, Neanderthal hygiene, and Viking warrior bedding

Letter from Alaska

A little-known World War II campaign in the Aleutian Islands left behind an undisturbed battlefield strewn with weapons and materiel

Artifact

All wonders great and small

Table of Contents September/October 2021

FEATURES

The Pursuit of Wellness

How the ancients attended to mind, body, and soul

Secret Rites of Samothrace

Reimagining the experience of initiation into an ancient Greek mystery cult

Who Were the Samaritans?

Investigating a once-powerful sect that has preserved its sacred traditions for millennia

Searching for the Fisher Kings

In the waters of southern Florida, the creative Calusa people forged a mighty empire

The Equestrian's Cave

Recent discoveries in western Mongolia suggest that nomadic horsemen may have invented a revolutionary technology

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Viking Fantasy Island
Kaleidoscopic Walls
For Eternity
Maryland's First Fort
Snake Guide
Man of the Moment
Kiwi Colonists
Leisure Seekers
Neanderthal Hearing
Head of State
A Twisted Hoard
Crowning Glory
Herodian Hangout
Off the Grid

Around the World

Maya city parks, Paleoindian obsidian traders, Çatalhöyük smoke alarm, and a shark attack in Japan

Letter from Scotland

New excavations reveal the truth behind the legend of the fearsome northern warriors known as the Picts

Artifact

Putting a finger on fate

Table of Contents November/December 2021

FEATURES

When Isis Was Queen

At the ancient Egyptian temples of Philae, Nubians gave new life to a vanishing religious tradition

Italian Master Builders

A 3,500-year-old ritual pool reflects a little-known culture’s agrarian prowess

Ghost Tracks of White Sands

Scientists are uncovering fossilized footprints in the New Mexico desert that show how humans and Ice Age animals shared the landscape

Piecing Together Maya Creation Stories

Thousands of mural fragments from the city of San Bartolo illustrate how the Maya envisioned their place in the universe

Gaul's University Town

New excavations have revealed the wealth and prestige of an ancient center of learning

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Identifying the Unidentified
In Full Color
Typing Time
Otto's Church
An Irish Idol
A Family's Final Resting Place
A Place of Their Own
A Trip to Venice
Salty Snack
The Age of Glass
China's New Human Species
Mesopotamian War Memorial
Off the Grid

Around the World

Under the Temple of the Feathered Serpent, Ice Age camping in Michigan, and a Mesolithic Russian amber merchant

Letter from Ghana

At Christiansborg Castle, a community that embodied the complexity of the transatlantic slave trade is being uncovered by descendants of those who created it

Artifact

Lost in translation

Table of Contents January/February 2022

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2021

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine reveals the year’s most exciting finds

At Face Value

Researchers are using new scientific methods to investigate how artists in Roman Egypt customized portraits for the dead

Under the Holy City

A long-running excavation in Jerusalem unearths evidence for two of the city’s least-known eras

A Brush With Genius

An unprecedented find in central China brings to life the early years of a master calligrapher

Turning Salt Into Gold

In the Austrian Alps, generations of miners toiled to extract the ancient world’s most valuable resource

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

The Roots of Violence
Tamil Royal Palace
Cave Fit for a King...or a Hermit
Burn Notice
Russian River Silver
New Neighbors
Viking Roles
A Ride Through the Countryside
Japan's Genetic History
Off the Grid

Around the World

Uncovering a whisky distillery, the first Azoreans, Chinese mummy genetics, and an ancient hangover cure

Letter from the Galapagos Islands

Archaeologists uncover the remote archipelago’s forgotten human history

Artifact

Opener to interpretation

Table of Contents March/April 2022

FEATURES

A Monumental Imperial Biography

How Constantine’s architects pieced together the past to create a new vision in the heart of Rome

The Last King of Babylon

Investigating the reign of Mesopotamia’s most eccentric ruler

Paradise Lost

Archaeologists in Nova Scotia are uncovering evidence of thriving seventeenth-century French colonists and their brutal expulsion

Set in Stone

New evidence reveals the surprising reach and influence of a little-known Mesoamerican culture

Exploring Notre Dame's Hidden Past

The devastating 2019 fire is providing an unprecedented look at the secrets of the great cathedral

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Poetic License
Gone Fishing
A Shining Example
Oliveopolis
Kublai Khan's Sinking Ambitions
The Treasurer's Tomb
Tudor Travelers
Who Drank From Nestor's Cup?
Reflecting the Past
Murder Will Out
Off the Grid

Around the World

Medieval war ponies, an ancient Arabian board game, the Falkland Islands wolf, and the dead of Santorini

Letter from Doggerland

Evidence of a lost Mesolithic world lies deep beneath the dark waters of the North Sea

Artifact

Connected by craft in the deep past

Table of Contents May/June 2022

FEATURES

Secrets of Scotland's Viking Age Hoard

A massive cache of Viking silver and Anglo-Saxon heirlooms reveals the complex political landscape of ninth-century Britain

The World of Egyptian Demons

Thousands of supernatural beings, including protective cobra spirits and knife-wielding turtles, guarded ancient Egyptians in life and death

Fit for Fighting

The discovery of Mesopotamian-style armor in northwest China offers new insights into a battle- tested ancient technology

To Live and Die in Pompeii

Unearthing the unusual burial of a freedman who gained entrée into the city’s top social ranks

Pottery's Origin Stories

Why did hunter-gatherers make the world’s first pots?

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Cradle of the Graves
Together Forever
Canyon of the Ancestors
First Falconer
Kunga Power
Golden Lucky Charms
Dragon Fire-Eater
Membership Has Its Privileges
Saving Seats
Off the Grid

Around the World

A Revolutionary War shipwreck, early Buddhism in Pakistan, ancient ear surgery, and following a conquistador to Kansas

Letter from the Bay Area

How Native Americans defied Spanish missionaries and preserved their way of life

Artifact

A curse for every occasion

Table of Contents July/August 2022

FEATURES

Journeys of the Pyramid Builders

The story of the highly skilled workers who helped build Egypt’s Great Pyramid is emerging from a papyrus cache unearthed at the world’s oldest harbor

The Philistine Age

Archaeologists are reconsidering the origins and history of a much-maligned ancient people

City Politics

In sixteenth-century Mexico, the democratic city-state of Tlaxcallan thrived in the face of Aztec imperialism

Beauty Under Bruges

Vibrant paintings discovered in forgotten crypts reflect the rise of Belgium’s first great medieval city

A Ticket to the World's Fair

Excavating the hidden traces of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Save the Dates
Spice Hunters
Suspicious Silver
A Civil War Bomb
The Great Maize Migration
Mummy Makers
Dignity of the Dead
Sailing in Sumer
Speak, Memories
The Maya Count Begins
Hail to the Chief
Made in China
Off the Grid

Around the World

Notre Dame’s dignitaries, Bronze Age daggers, the world’s biggest quake, a lost snowshoe, and 50,000-year-old Australians

Letter from Georgia

A complex of Native American rock mounds bears witness to the endurance of ancient traditions

Artifact

A portable connection

Table of Contents September/October 2022

FEATURES

Rediscovering Egypt's Golden Dynasty

How King Tutankhamun’s family forever changed the land of the Nile

1,000 Fathoms Down

In the Gulf of Mexico, archaeologists believe they have identified a nineteenth-century whaling ship crewed by a diverse group of New Englanders

Caribbean Connections

Using pottery to trace the sea routes of early island settlers

Sicily's Sacred Waters

A Phoenician ritual pool on a small island may have been the center of an ancient astronomical observatory

Arabian Avenues of the Dead

Mysterious stone tombs mark a previously unknown network of pathways across a vast desert landscape

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

The Case of Tut's Missing Collar
Alpine Crystal Hunters
Don't Give an Inch
Australia's Blue Period
Romans Go Dutch
Surveying Samnium
Heart of the Matter
Mexican Star Power
Pictish Pictograms
Linking the Lineages
The Avars Advance
Herod's Fancy Fixtures
Off the Grid

Around the World

A pregnant tortoise, sunken Spanish cargo, Maya orthodontics, Mongol summer plans, and the first fruit farmers

Letter from Germany

In the midst of modern construction, archaeologists search for evidence of Berlin’s earliest days

Artifact

A memento left along the way

Table of Contents November/December 2022

FEATURES

Priestess, Poet, Politician

4,000 years ago, the world’s first author composed verses that helped forge the Akkadian Empire

Mexico's Butterfly Warriors

The annual monarch migration may have been a sacred event for the people of Mesoamerica

Magical Mystery Door

An investigation of an Egyptian sacred portal reveals a history of renovation and deception

A Tale of Two Abbeys

How entrepreneurial monks shaped the landscape of medieval England

Bronze Age Urban Experiment

Archaeologists debate who ruled the cities of the ancient Indus Valley

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

Assyrian Soft Power
Take a Seat
Before and After
Opening the Alabama Canal
Reduce, Reuse, Recyle
Neolithic Crystal Age
Colonial Connection
Vikings in Furs
Miniature Gold Canvas
Cretan Antiquing
Royal Mountain Fortress
Side by Side
Off the Grid

Around the World

The Nile’s lost branch, prehistoric Pacific tools, Louisiana’s 11,000-year-old mound, an Iranian fire temple, and the oldest octopus lures

Letter from Australia

The doomed voyage of a seventeenth-century merchant ship ended in mutiny and mayhem

Artifact

A roll of the dice

Table of Contents January/February 2023

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2022

ARCHAEOLOGY magazine reveals the year’s most exciting finds

Jungle Realm of the Snake Queens

How women ascended the ranks in the highstakes world of Maya politics

Twin Cities

The unbreakable bond between allies across the Aegean is commemorated in a newly unearthed inscription

High Plains Mammoth Hunters

A chance discovery in Wyoming leads archaeologists to a unique 13,000-year-old hunting camp

The Falcon God's Shrine

An unprecedented find in a thriving Egyptian port

DEPARTMENTS

Digs & Discoveries

An Undersea Battlefield
Hadrian's Bugler
Farmers and Foragers
(Un)following the Recipe
Storming the Castle
UPDATE: Mesolithic Baby Carrier
Etruscan Burial Crown
A Young Hercules
Off the Grid

Around the World

Pennsylvania’s Revolutionary War POW camp, Roman mini-fridge, Maya mercury poisoning, Australian legend of the Seven Sisters, and the first Neanderthal family

Letter from Ethiopia

Using oral history, texts, and survey, archaeologists search for traces of a once-vibrant religious community

Artifact

The Byzantine gold standard

FEATURES

Burial Customs

Final Resting Place of an Outlaw

The 3,000 Buddhas

A Cargo Twice Dug

The Unknown Temple

Senegal's Forgotten Slaves

DEPARTMENTS

FEATURES

The Maya Sense of Time

Factory of Wealth

Zeugma After the Flood

Down by the Savannah Riverside

Pilgrimage to Sudan

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from India

Artifact

FEATURES

Top 10 Discoveries of 2012

Mohenjo-Daro's New Story

Neolithic Europe's Remote Heart

The Water Temple of Inca-Caranqui

Gateway to the Netherworld

DEPARTMENTS

From The Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from France

Artifact

FEATURES

Munich Underground

Pirates of the Original Panama Canal

Archaeology Island

A Stunning Sacrifice

A Soldier's Story

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from Cambodia

Artifact

FEATURES

Inside Hanoi's Forbidden City

Uncovering a Maya Warrior Queen

On the Trail of the Mimbres

Haunt of the Resurrection Men

Hunley Decoded

The Kings of Kent

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from Turkey

Artifact

FEATURES

The First Vikings

Miniature Pyramids of Sudan

Salt and the City

Deadly Retreat

Lost Tombs

A Future for Icons of the Past

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from China

Artifact

FEATURES

The Everlasting City

Wolf Rites of Winter

An Extreme Life

Battlefield: 1814

Tomb of the Vulture Lord

DEPARTMENTS

From the Trenches

World Roundup

Letter from Norway

Artifact

FEATURES

Life on the Inside

Seen and Unseen

Bronze Age Boat Mystery