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 to ‘autoarchaeology’.
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 excavations by the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), Cairo, which has…
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 calendar, for every two years the advisory committee is asked to adjudicate all the nominations for field discovery and research awards.
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). Randsborg’s book was regarded as heresy at the time, but…
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 flourished while Neanderthals died out by examining the differences between the brain cavities of the two species
Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on archives and urban archaeology
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 tropical rainforests of South America. Until now, though, our understanding…
A mammoth discovery A remarkable collection of mammoth bones has been found in a wine cellar in Lower Austria. Excavations at the site in Gobelsburg, carried out by archaeologists from the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW), have revealed a dense…
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 valued commodity across the Late Bronze Age Mediterranean. Recent excavations…
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 Age, c.5500-750 BC. The area of present-day Saxony-Anhalt was a…
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 genetic links to modern populations. In 1967, the remains of…
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, located on the west coast of the Red Sea, was…
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 1.3ha by a team from Inrap in advance of a…
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 more.
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 direction until its frontiers consisted almost entirely of sand, sea,…
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 on ‘Prehistoric Britain’. For many teachers of seven-year-olds, this was…
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, Ivor Noël Hume published several evocative, book-length accounts of studies…
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 thick. Four holes of slightly different sizes have been drilled…
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 Father of Aeneas in Greek mythology (8)13 Extinct language of…
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.
Around 20 Roman villas have been excavated in the Limburg region of the Netherlands. The heyday for this work came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when a succession of sites was investigated with antiquarian zeal. Now fresh research in the field, archives, and find stores is shedding intriguing new light on these villa estates and their inhabitants, as Jasper de Bruin told Matthew Symonds.
A personal tribute by Paul Reynolds.
Nigerian archaeologists are working with the British Museum and UK colleagues to research and excavate in Benin City. Mike Pitts visited the site to learn more.
An exhibition at Pompeii explores the less glamorous side of life in the ancient city.
Across 6 Large knife often found among Anglo-Saxon grave goods (9)8 Fertility goddess worshipped at Carthage (5)10 ___ Wall, Roman fortification in Scotland (8)11 Extinct Tibeto-Burman language (6)12 Opponent of Greece at the battles of Thermopylae and Salamis (6)13 US…
Rome’s frontiers have defeated many, ranging all of the way from menacing barbarians to publishers planning a book series. Now a serendipitous set of volumes has successfully documented this ancient frontier network. David Breeze, who produced the range, tells us more.
The Dolmen of Guadalperal is a megalithic tomb located in the Spanish province of Cáceres, some two hours south-west of Madrid. The site is believed to be a Neolithic funerary monument, probably constructed between the 5th and 4th millennium BC.…
Results We had a fantastic selection of entries sent in for this year’s photo competition, with images that took us all over the world, and back in time. Subjects range from famous monuments and spectacular heritage sites to places of…
Rubina Raja & Søren M Sindbæk on managing ressources in urban African societies.
In the complex story of human migration out of Africa, Homo sapiens are believed to have travelled steadily eastwards to Asia – eventually reaching Australia by around 50,000 years ago – but seem not to have moved into Europe for a period of 20,000 years.
For two centuries, European scholars have explored prehistoric settlements preserved in Alpine lakes and bogs. The discovery of ancient pile-dwelling sites in the Mediterranean region of southern Europe makes it evident that this phenomenon did not stop at the Alps. Albert Hafner reveals the intriguing findings emerging from ongoing investigations in Albania, Greece, and North Macedonia.
I was in Greece, rolling off a ferry at Kyllini, about to visit its mighty castle, when I received the text message accusing me of being a Greek spy. Almost at once, I got an avalanche of emails from angry…
What is it? This small, intricately decorated cylindrical vial, measuring 6.7cm long and 1.9cm in diameter, is made of a greenish chlorite-schist and contains a deep red cosmetic mixture believed to be lip paint. The container, which comes from Iran,…
There has, of late, been a veritable tsunami of results from recent research that are literally transforming prehistory before our very eyes.
Personal ornamentation is a powerful form of self-expression, often used to send messages about the wearer’s social identity, even today. But could such objects hold the key to understanding the cultural landscape of Palaeolithic Europe?
The abandonment of a military barracks in the centre of Tours, France, offered archaeologists a unique opportunity to excavate the entirety of an 11th-century abbey that was completely destroyed during the French Revolution. Philippe Blanchard tells us what the project has revealed so far.