Archaeologists know a great deal about the Roman Empire. They know its dates: Octavian assumed the title of emperor and the name Augustus in 27 b.c. The last Western Roman emperor was forced to abdicate in a.d. 476, while the last Eastern Roman emper

Adecade ago, archaeologists might have recorded a dark stain in the soil beneath a ball court dating to the turn of the first millennium a.d. in the ancient Maya city of Yaxnohcah, but it would have yielded little information about Maya ways of life.

While digging in the center of the Belgian city of Antwerp, archaeologists from the urban archaeology department made an unexpected discovery. Hidden within the earthen rampart of a nineteenth-century fortress was a very, very large dark red metal bo

Ancient necropolises often provide clues about the lives of the dead, with grave goods helping determine what was valued by people in the past. Traditionally, however, archaeologists could only speculate about relationships among the deceased. Were t

Did a medieval hermit named Guthlac make a plundered prehistoric monument in the Fens of eastern England his home? For generations, scholars inspired by an early eighth-century a.d. account known as the Life of Guthlac have searched for the repurpose

The wreck of the final ship belonging to legendary Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton has been located 1,280 feet down in the Labrador Sea. Shackleton acquired Quest, a Norwegian-built schooner rigged steamship, in 1921, intending to explore the Ar

Archaeologists digging near the village of Offord Cluny recently unearthed the isolated burial of a man who, according to radiocarbon dating of his remains, lived between a.d. 126 and 228, during the Roman period. The man, designated Offord Cluny 203

Marathon runners today may be able to thank ancient hunters for their ftness routine. According to anthropologists Eugène Morin of Trent University and Bruce Winterhalder of the University of California, Davis, humans evolved to maximize stamina and

Humans have been passing through the Barrancas River Valley in what is now western Argentina since at least the end of the last Ice Age, some 10,000 years ago. But excavations starting in 2012 turned up only scant traces of early hunter-gatherers, mo

AS THE NILE FLOWS NORTH out of Sudan into Upper, or southern, Egypt, it passes a small island that was a crossroads of exchange between Africa and the Middle East for thousands of years. Such great quantities of ivory were traded on the island that t

The AIA’s Archaeological Fieldwork Opportunities Bulletin (AFOB) helps thousands of students and volunteers search the world for fieldwork experiences. In addition to in-depth project descriptions, the AFOB contains information about funding sources,

From a sandy spit of land rising more than 20 feet high in the boreal forest of the Lower Ob River region, the vast expanse of the West Siberian Plain stretches to the horizon. The taiga landscape, thick with stands of Siberian pine, spruce, and larc

Editor in Chief Jarrett A. Lobell Deputy Editor Eric A. Powell Executive Editor Daniel Weiss Senior Editors Ilana Herzig Benjamin Leonard Editorial Assistant Malin Grunberg Banyasz Creative Director Richard Bleiweiss Maps Ken Feisel Contributing Edit

When they first opened a 2,000-year-old glass burial urn in 2019, archaeologists were astonished to find it filled to the brim with more than a gallon of reddish liquid. The urn, which was protected by lead casing and also contained the cremated rema

Each cell in a plant, animal, or person contains millions, or even billions, of DNA base pairs—molecules connected by hydrogen bonds that are the building blocks of DNA. These base pairs collectively make up an organism’s genome, the complete set of

Archaeologist Joanna Ostapkowicz of the University of Oxford has spent countless hours combing through documents stored in the two miles of shelves at the National Anthropological Archives (NAA) of the Smithsonian Institution. “It’s an incredible res

Fall brings archaeologists in from the field and back into the classroom brimming with tales of unexpected discoveries, new insights, and local collaboration. Some of these stories may find their way into Archaeology magazine, one of the ways the Arc

The Blackfoot Confederacy is today made up of four bands. The traditional lands of three of them, the Blood (Kainai), Piikani, and Siksika First Nations, are on the plains of southern Alberta, Canada, while the Blackfeet Tribe’s homeland is in northe

Archaeologists have dated the lakefront Neolithic (7000–3200 B.C.) settlement of Dispilio in northern Greece using a method that involves detecting evidence of bursts of cosmic radiation in ancient wood samples. In 2012, physicist Fusa Miyake first i

At the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), we believe that archaeology has the power to provide a better understanding of the past, that it is relevant to the present, and that it can influence the future in a positive way. The AIA provides a

Researchers have highlighted a unique way that some Vikings permanently marked their bodies, perhaps as a way of secretly identifying themselves with a specific group. Archaeologists examined the skulls of 130 men who were buried across the Viking wo

Coffea arabica, the flowering evergreen plant whose vibrant red berries, when dried and roasted, are used to make millions of cups of coffee each morning, originated in the forests of Paleolithic East Africa. For millions of years, two other species

COVER—AdobeStock; 1—Courtesy Soprintendenza Archeologica di Pompei; 3—(clockwise, from top left): Courtesy LNER/Archaeological Service, City of Antwerp; © Dispilio Excavations, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki; Universal History Archive/UIG/Bridg

IN THE CENTRAL TABLELANDS of southeastern Australia’s Wiradjuri Country, the tough exterior bark of a yellow box tree, a type of eucalyptus, has been chiseled away to create a smooth canvas into which geometric patterns have been etched. Undulating p

Why do people wear clothes, and when did they start doing so? To answer this fundamental question, archaeologist Ian Gilligan of the University of Sydney went back to the beginning. “There’s little archaeological evidence of clothing, and certainly n

Cuneiform tablets list myriad plants imported from around the Near East that were cultivated in the gardens of Mesopotamian kings during the first millennium B.C. Since the Akkadian and Sumerian names for these plants differ from those used by modern

A possible reason that early people put giraffe images on pottery (“Sticking Their Necks Out,” July/August 2024) is that, while they are beautiful animals, they are the bane of any hunter trying to put meat on the table. Because the giraffe’s eyes ar

There are countless places that people have transformed into sacred spaces where they can express their devotion to a god or gods, to their family and ancestors, or to the Earth. In this issue, you will discover a fascinating array of locations where

In British folklore, the cuckoo’s song is the symphony that accompanies spring, but when the summer solstice arrives, the bird falls silent. As the days descend into winter, the cuckoo returns to the underworld, dragging the Earth’s warmth along with

ERETRIA, ONE OF ANCIENT GREECE’S most prominent and infuential city-states during the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., lay just off the mainland on the island of Euboea. Meaning “town of rowers,” Eretria was among the first Greek cities to establish c