Archaeological Interest

The latest archaeology news from around the web

'Extremely rare event': bone analysis suggests ancient echidnas lived in water

April 28, 2025

New research questions the evolutionary history of some of our most peculiar mammals....

Skeletal evidence of Roman gladiator bitten by lion in combat

April 23, 2025

Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a lion....

Phoenician culture spread mainly through cultural exchange

April 23, 2025

Ancient DNA analysis challenges our understanding of the ancient Phoenician-Punic civilization. An international team of researchers analyzing genome-wide data from 210 ancient individuals has found t...

How activity in Earth's mantle led the ancient ancestors of elephants, giraffes, and humans into Asia and Africa

April 21, 2025

What roils beneath the Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In f...

Extreme drought contributed to barbarian invasion of late Roman Britain, tree-ring study reveals

April 17, 2025

Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the 'Barbarian Conspiracy', a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and Saxons too...

Sunscreen, clothes and caves may have helped Homo sapiens survive 41,000 years ago

April 16, 2025

A study suggests that Homo sapiens may have benefited from the use of ochre and tailored clothing during a period of increased UV light 41,000 years ago, during the Laschamps excursion....

AIA Announces New Public Engagement Award

April 15, 2025

The AIA’s Outreach and Education Committee invites nominations for the inaugural Archaeological Institute of America Public Engagement Award. This award recognizes the broad and important range of o...

Physics reveals the optimal roof ratios for energy efficiency

April 14, 2025

There are roof shapes and ratios that maximize heat retainment and energy efficiency and, interestingly, ancient Italian architects and builders seemed to know it, too....

Archaeologists compared the size of 50,000 ancient houses to learn about history of inequality, they found that it's not inevitable

April 14, 2025

We're living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it's continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study researchers compared house size distributions from...

Wealth inequality's deep roots in human prehistory

April 14, 2025

Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That's according to a new study that challenges traditi...

Footprints of tail-clubbed armored dinosaurs found for the first time

April 14, 2025

Footprints of armored dinosaurs with tail clubs have been identified, following discoveries made in the Canadian Rockies. The 100-million-year-old fossilized footprints were found at sites at both Tum...

AIA Support for the National Endowment for the Humanities

April 11, 2025

The Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) is deeply concerned about recent news of funding cuts and staff reductions at the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH). The mission of the […...

Ancient tools from a South African cave reveal connections between prehistoric people

April 9, 2025

In a cave overlooking the ocean on the southern coast of South Africa, archaeologists discovered thousands of stone tools, created by ancient humans roughly 20,000 years ago. By examining tiny details...

Prehistoric rhinos lived in super-herds

April 9, 2025

Rhinos that flourished across much of North America 12 million years ago gathered in huge herds, according to a new study....

Mediterranean hunter gatherers navigated long-distance sea journeys well before the first farmers

April 9, 2025

Evidence shows that hunter-gatherers were crossing at least 100 kilometers (km) of open water to reach the Mediterranean island of Malta 8,500 years ago, a thousand years before the arrival of the fir...

Mammoth genetic diversity throughout the last million years

April 9, 2025

A new genomic study has uncovered long-lost genetic diversity in mammoth lineages spanning over a million years, providing new insights into the evolutionary history of these animals....