Archeaology

Like the ancient Roman, Asian, and other civilizations, the ancient Maya produced salt and salted fish — storable commodities for marketplace trade, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Stone tools from the Paynes Creek Salt Works, Belize. Image credit: Louisiana State …

Residue on ceramic potsherds found at an archaeological site on the island of Pulau Ay (Ai), Indonesia, shows the nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) was used as a food ingredient 2,000 years earlier than thought. Lape et al describe the earliest-known use of nutmeg as a food ingredient. Image credit: Quique. The …

The area rockScreenshot: CMU A Michigan man just recently discovered that this 22-pound rock he used for decades as a doorstop on his farm was in fact a meteorite worth over $100,000. According to a Main Michigan University press release: The male, who asked to stay confidential, gotten the meteorite …

Archaeologists from the Cornwall Archaeological Unit and English Heritage have found a stone inscribed with Christian symbols as well as Latin and Greek letters at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, England, a site linked with the legend of King Arthur. The ruins of the upper mainland courtyards of Tintagel Castle, England. …

The ancient people of Easter Island, Chile, were able to move so-called pukao — massive stone hats of the island’s famed monumental statues (moai) — and place them on top of the statues with minimal labor and resources, using a parbuckling technique, according to new research published in the Journal …

Amorphous organic residue from a large storage jar found at the Early Bronze Age settlement of Castelluccio in Sicily, Italy, suggests olive oil was being made on the island at the end of the 3rd millennium BC. The 4,000-year-old storage jar in which traces of olive oil were found. Image …

An analysis of a complete skeleton of an early domestic donkey from the Early Bronze Age (2800-2600 BC) deposits at the site of the Biblical city ‘Gath of the Philistines’ (modern Tell es-Safi) in central Israel demonstrates that the animal was being ridden or managed with the use of a …

Annual lead emissions in Europe closely varied with historical events, including imperial expansion, wars, and major plagues, according to new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. A day in Ancient Rome, being a revision of Lohr’s ‘Aus dem alten Rom,’ with numerous illustrations, by Edgar …

A team of archaeologists and philologists from the Universities of Tübingen and Heidelberg, Germany, has identified the location of the ancient royal city of Mardama thanks to 3,250-year-old cuneiform tablets. 3,250-year-old cuneiform tablets were found inside a clay vessel at the archaeological site of Bassetki in the Kurdistan region of …

An international team of researchers has discovered more than 30,000 artifacts at Panga ya Saidi, a cave in the humid coastal forest of Kenya, which is shedding new light on the crucial time period when Homo sapiens first started showing signs of modern behavior. The discovery is reported in the …