Cover Story
Pompeii: The biggest dig in a generation The biggest dig at Pompeii in a generation is working to expose nearly an entire block of the ancient city. Archaeologists are making astonishing discoveries that shed powerful new light on life and death in the shadow of Vesuvius, as… Features
Creatures of the Nile: What animals did for ancient Egypt Ancient Egypt owed many debts to the creatures that lived in and beside the Nile. Both wild and domesticated animals offered an abundance of food, raw materials, and inspiration. But… 
Artificial intelligence rethinks the past: How computers are reconstructing Etruscan and Roman landscapes What can artificial intelligence bring to archaeology? Maurizio Forte introduces recent work dedicated to reconstructing ancient landscapes, and weighs some of the risks and rewards. 
Autoarchaeology at Christiansborg Castle: Digging into ancestral connections to the transatlantic slave trade The discovery of an unsuspected family link to Christiansborg Castle, Ghana, led to a project examining a forgotten aspect of the transatlantic slave trade. Rachel Ama Asaa Engmann introduces us… News
Tracing the origins of chocolate: A recent study is shedding new light on the domestication and spread of the cocoa bean. Mesoamerica is often considered the ‘homeland’ of chocolate due to its significance for many ancient cultures in this region, but the cocoa tree, Theobroma cacao, in fact originated in the… 
Purple dye factory in Greece A purple dye workshop dating back some 3,600 years has been discovered on the Greek island of Aegina. Tyrian purple, a natural pigment produced by sea snails, was a highly… 
Changing culinary traditions in central Europe Analysis of prehistoric pottery is improving our understanding of the changing culinary practices and ceramic usage of people living in central Germany between the Early Neolithic and the Late Bronze… 
Twin sacrifice at Chichén Itzá DNA analysis of human remains from a mass burial at Chichén Itzá in Mexico is revealing new details about the ritual practices of the ancient Maya, as well as their… 
Centurions’ correspondence Archaeologists working in Berenike, Egypt, have discovered the remains of several letters written by Roman centurions. In the early centuries of the 1st millennium AD, the ancient port of Berenike,… 
Mass horse burial in Gaul Archaeologists working in Villedieu-sur-Indre in central France have uncovered a remarkable set of pits filled with the remains of c.2000-year-old horses. The excavations were carried out over an area of… 
Monumental rock art in South America Researchers working in Venezuela and Colombia are documenting some of the largest prehistoric rock engravings in world. Amy Brunskill spoke to Philip Riris, who led the research, to find out… Views
A remarkable painted tomb The Picture Desk An ornately decorated mastaba has been discovered in the cemetery at Dahshur, the southernmost of the necropolises associated with Memphis, an ancient Egyptian capital. The tomb was discovered during recent… 
The Fifth Shanghai Archaeology Forum Comment I was delighted to be invited to the fifth Shanghai Archaeology Forum last December, happily revived after the COVID closedowns. This meeting is becoming a major fixture in the archaeological… 
Bluetooth’s Kingdom Travel I have embarked on an odyssey to revisit Viking Denmark decades after I first became familiar with it through editing Klavs Randsborg’s landmark book The Viking Age in Denmark (1980).… 
Early humans: interbreeding and international travel Comment Our Neanderthal cousins may now be extinct, but they are rarely out of the news. Writing in The Conversation, archaeologist Steven Mithen tackles the perennial question of why Homo sapiens… 
Lost cities: the unpublished words Comment Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on archives and urban archaeology 
Palaeolithic rope-making tool Objects What is it? This perforated baton made of mammoth ivory is believed to be a Palaeolithic tool used to make rope. The baton is 20.4cm long, 3.6cm wide, and 1.5cm… 
CWA #126 crossword, and answers to crossword #125 Competitions Across 7 North American archaeological culture (6)9 Huntress of Greek mythology (8)10 Germanic people defeated by the Huns (10)11 Port, now in Israel, conquered by Alexander in 332 BC (4)12… Reviews
Bluetooth’s Kingdom I have embarked on an odyssey to revisit Viking Denmark decades after I first became familiar with it through editing Klavs Randsborg’s landmark book The Viking Age in Denmark (1980).… 
Assyria: The rise and fall of the world’s first empire REVIEW BY JONATHAN VALK Assyria stands out in history as the fountainhead of empire. It was perhaps the first state to subdue the bulk of its world, extending in every… 
Living in the Ice Age REVIEW BY SIMON NORTON Ten years ago, Year 3 primary school teachers in the UK, like myself, were handed a revised National Curriculum which included a brand-new Unit of Study… 
Jamestown Archaeology: Remains To Be Seen REVIEW BY DENNIS B BLANTON This new book from William Kelso is in the tradition of popularised portrayals of archaeological discoveries linked to the ‘Virginia adventure’. Beginning in the 1960s,… 
Picture worlds: Greek, Maya, and Moche pottery An exhibition at the Getty Villa Museum brings together painted vessels from three major ceramic traditions to explore these dynamic objects and the stories they tell. 
From the editor
Pompeii continues to amaze. The tragedy that befell the city in AD 79 famously preserved powerful and poignant snapshots of everyday life. From family homes ablaze with flamboyant frescoes to the gritty realities of industries reliant on hard manual labour, Pompeii has it all. Now the largest dig in the city for a generation has unearthed a property that brings together both of these facets: a combined bakery and residential complex. It offers plenty of grist for the mill when it comes to understanding the range of lifestyles on offer in a Roman city.
The rich variety of animals in ancient Egypt also had an enormous influence on day-to-day life. From a source of food and raw materials to handy ways to make divine powers tangible, the human kingdoms that developed along the Nile owed a great deal to the animal one. This was not a one-way street, though, and current research is highlighting the decisive impact that humans had on the creatures of the Nile.
Human treatment of fellow humans is under investigation at Christiansborg Castle, Ghana. The origins of this stronghold can be traced back to the 17th century, and an inscription within it alerted Rachel Engmann to an unsuspected family link to the site – and the slave trade. Excavations are now helping a community to understand their past.
Artificial intelligence presents a way to get a fresh take on the ancient world. Environmental evidence from Etruscan and Roman cities in Italy is being combined with knowledge of the terrain to create digital impressions of lost landscapes. We take a look at what AI can achieve with archaeological data.
Finally, in our travel section, Richard Hodges has been exploring Bluetooth’s kingdom. While the 10th-century Viking king is now synonymous with wireless internet, this transformative figure also left a rich and varied archaeological legacy in Denmark.
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