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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A ceremonial feathered shield secreted inside an ancient Peruvian temple

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

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

Roman Britain's finest work

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

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

The importance of music in Peru

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

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

How to ward off an earthquake with Roman magic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How the other half played chess in medieval England

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

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

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

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

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

Styling hair in Bronze Age Wales

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

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

The dragon that guarded Xanadu

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

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

How a Viking warrior got an English sword

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

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

How a Medusa survived Christianity

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

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

How the ancient Egyptians learned their ABCs

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

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

The Wild Man of the medieval world

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

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

How an Old World horseshoe tells an unexpected New World story

How a small Dutch village became Europe's greatest port

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

Where Anglo-Saxons kept their mementos

The highly personal archaeology of enslavement on a tobacco plantation

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

A Cambridge don’s magic shoe

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

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

How not to get frostbite

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

Self-expression in the Bronze Age

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

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

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

How the Maya kings made it rain

A venerable bead

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

Archaeologists rethink the early civilizations of the Amazon

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

A forgotten regiment’s badge of courage

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

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

A face from the past

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

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

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

A dog that heals

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

The early sherd special

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

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

Man of the hours

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

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

Archaeologists explore the landscape of England’s first civil war

It was a bout time, too

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

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

Not just a pretty base

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

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

A draft of comfort

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

Exploring the unlikely history of sanitation management in medieval Holland

Heirloom apparent

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

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

A lady’s circle of influence

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

At some point in the past

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

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

Bronze Age costume jewelry

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

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

Just a fleeting impression

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

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

Another face in the crowd

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

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

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

The formula for success

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

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

Ahead of the curve

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

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

An emblem of endurance

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

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

A Roman soldier’s gift to the gods

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

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

Reeling in the years

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

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

Turning over an old leaf

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

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

Praying inside the box

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

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

Ancient athletic accoutrements

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

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

In tune with the times

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

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

All wonders great and small

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

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

Putting a finger on fate

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

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

Lost in translation

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

Archaeologists uncover the remote archipelago’s forgotten human history

Opener to interpretation

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

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

Connected by craft in the deep past

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

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

A curse for every occasion

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

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

A portable connection

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

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

A memento left along the way

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

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

A roll of the dice

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

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

The Byzantine gold standard

Snacking in the Colosseum, Japanese tomb statue, Attila the Hun’s motives, 300,000-year-old fur coats, and Egyptian crocodiles in the afterlife

New evidence shows that the remote North Atlantic archipelago was settled hundreds of years before the Vikings reached its shores

Tunes for all time

Uncovering a new Easter Island statue, the first equestrians, a sphinx’s familiar smile, 14,000-year-old mastodon spearpoints, and an early Chinese toilet

Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw

Ancient inside joke

Bolivia’s mystery sites, Viking visits to North America, a Roman doctor’s high-end instruments, DNA from a Paleolithic pendant, and tailoring clothes 40,000 years ago

For 13,000 years, hunter-gatherers thrived in some of the world’s harshest environments

Ode to Odin

Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia, world’s oldest birdcalls, a sunken Maya canoe, Roman poetry on a pot, and unearthing the “Dutch Stonehenge”

Survivors of the infamous disaster rebuilt their lives on the ashes of the A.D. 79 eruption

Under lock and key

5,500-year-old Baltic amber bead, Maya nose accessory, Bronze Age Kazakhstan’s horse cult, bottling an eternal Egyptian scent, and ancient Indonesian fashion trends

Archaeologists discover a long-forgotten capital where Indigenous peoples and Spanish colonists arrived at a fraught coexistence

A tight-fisted deity

8,000-year-old salty superfood, hidden Hittite graffiti, an Egyptian queen’s favorite vintage, defending the Great Wall, and the oldest surviving Shakespearean stage

A subterranean necropolis offers archaeologists a rare glimpse of the city’s early Jewish community

Maya toy story

Earliest archers in the Americas, sounds of a spirit cave, Tibetan yak herders, joining up with Caesar, and the first Buddhist king of the Khmer Empire

Archaeologists are challenging long-held assumptions about Mesoamerica’s influence on Indigenous peoples to its south

Don’t forget your basket