Archeaology

Using a helicopter-based lidar mapping tool, an international team of scientists led by University of Exeter archaeologists has discovered a network of mound villages in the south-eastern portion of Acre State, Brazil, dating back to 1300-1700 CE. Detail of a circular mound village called Dona Maria with ‘twin’ village. Image …

Archaeologists on the ERC project LASTJOURNEY have discovered spectacular rock pictographs in three separate rock shelters in the Guaviare Department of Colombia. The drawings, made around 12,600 and 11,800 years ago, provide proof the Amazon rainforest’s earliest inhabitants lived alongside now-extinct Ice Age animals such as giant sloths and mastodons. …

Obesity is rare in hunter-gatherer cultures. Nevertheless, dozens of handheld ‘Venus’ figurines — the oldest art sculptures of humans known and tend to be of women who have obesity or are pregnant — have been identified that date to Ice Age European hunter-gatherers from 38,000 to 14,000 years ago. In …

A team of professional and amateur archaeologists from the Temple Mount Sifting Project has found a tiny gold bead from the First Temple period in Jerusalem, Israel. The 3,000-year-old gold bead found in Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Temple Mount Sifting Project. “Pieces of gold jewelry are rarely found among archaeological …

By the very early CE in the U.S. Upland Southwest, turkey feather blankets or robes began to replace those made with strips of rabbit fur. Feather blankets would have been important possessions of most members of Ancestral Pueblo communities. In a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: …

A team of archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) has uncovered the remnants of an ancient fortified complex believed to have been founded by the Geshurites, the ally of King David, in the 11th or 10th century BCE. Dr. Tzin with a figurine and an engraved stone at the …

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority have found a small jar containing four 1,000-year-old gold coins in Jerusalem, Israel. The 1,000-year-old juglet with found gold coins. Image credit: Dafna Gazit, Israel Antiquities Authority. “The coins were in excellent preservation and were immediately identifiable even without cleaning,” said Dr. Robert Kool, …

Archaeologists digging in the Tzurim Valley National Park in Jerusalem, Israel, have found a small gem seal, dating from the first century CE, with a portrait of the ancient Greek deity Apollo. The 2,000-year-old gem seal found in Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Eliyahu Yanai, City of David. “Although Apollo is …

Archaeologists have discovered figures of animals, mainly bison, engraved in a Gravettian style in three caves in northern Spain. Engravings in the A panel of Aitzbitarte III cave in Spain. Top: tracing of the panel formed by the bird and the bison, engraved on the left wall. Bottom left: detail …

Archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) have found a two-shekalim limestone weight dating from the First Temple period in Jerusalem, Israel. The 2,700-year-old two-shekalim weight found in Jerusalem, Israel. Image credit: Shai Halevi, Israel Antiquities Authority. “The weight is dome-shaped with a flat base,” said IAA archaeologists Dr. Barak …