All over Europe, early medieval graves look like they were robbed long ago. But new research suggests that relatives re-opened them to take out heirlooms and make connections with the dead.
An archaeological dig is the holiday experience of a lifetime. And as you learn more skills, the rewards grow.
Emperor moth cocoon rattles on the ankles of a ritual dancer, Kalahari, 1959.
Jurgen Schadeberg, courtesy Claudia Schadeberg via Rock Art Research Institute, Wits University
The moth cocoons are the first archaeological evidence of shamanic ritual paraphernalia in southern Africa.
A crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic lends urgency to scientific research, putting researchers under pressure to produce.
janiecbros/E+ via Getty Images
Scientists can be asked to help find solutions during disasters. A study of how archaeologists worked on the problem of looting during the Syrian war offers lessons for science done during crisis.
Inkatha leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi, former South African President FW de Klerk and Nelson Mandela after signing a peace pledge ahead of the first democratic elections in 1994.
Keith Schamotta/AFP via Getty Images
This history covers twelve decades, from the surrender of Boer guerrillas in the Second Anglo-Boer War in 1902 to the July 2021 looting spree and violence.
Artist’s impression of the viking camp established in 873 at Repton (Derbyshire, England).
Compost Creative
Viking camps across western Europe were carefully planned and organised venues, offering their occupants much more than just a place to safely rest their heads.
Handaxes, as seen in the top row, were common to this period; the tools seen in the bottom row appear to be unique to this site.
Rosalia Gallotti
Knowing that our North African ancestors were making handaxes helps scientists to understand how our human ancestors spread across the African continent.
Mary Elizabeth Shutler in Vanuatu, in the1960s. Permitted to join the first archaeological expedition to New Caledonia in 1952 as a ‘voluntary assistant’, she was the only French speaker and chief interlocuter with the Kanak people.
Family archives, reproduced with the kind authorisation of John Shutler & Susan Arter.
‘Wives’, volunteers, assistants: the vital contribution of women archaeologists has long been underplayed, if not erased. A new project uncovers trailblazers in the Pacific.
The twin buttes that give Bears Ears National Monument in Utah its name are sacred places to many Indigenous Tribes and Pueblos.
T. Schofield, iStock via Getty Images
For thousands of years, Native Americans left their artistic mark deep within caves in the American Southeast. It wasn’t until 1980 that these ancient visual expressions were known to archaeologists.
Are these the footprints of the first-known American teen?
Matthew Robert Bennett
New research suggests that fire from the sky in the form of a small asteroid annihilated a city near the Dead Sea 3,600 years ago.
Archaeologists and marine scientists must work together with Indigenous communities and policy makers to protect Australia’s cultural heritage above and below the sea.
Sam Wright
With 300 stone artefacts submerged on Australia’s continental shelf last year, Indigenous underwater cultural heritage needs to be prioritised in marine science and industry practices.
Archaeologist and paleoenvironmental researcher Isaac Hart of the University of Utah surveys a melting ice patch in western Mongolia.
Peter Bittner
From the high Yukon to the mountains of Central Asia, melting ice exposes fragile ancient artifacts that tell the story of the past – and provide hints about how to respond to a changing climate.
It should be obvious to this diver that this is a shipwreck and not a reef, but what about to someone looking at a image of this spot taken from an aircraft?
LookBermuda/Flickr
It’s difficult to tell a shipwreck from a natural feature on the ocean floor in a scan taken from a plane or ship. This project used deep learning to get it right 92% of the time.