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News
New finds from Pompeii
Excavating Regio V and Civita Giuliana Discoveries continue at Pompeii as more electoral inscriptions, fine frescoes, and victims of the eruption of Vesuvius are unearthed, offering snapshots of public and private life in the Roman city. We take a look at some of the finds so far. In Pompeii’s Regio V, a large-scale excavation is […]
Hope through heritage
Before September, the people in this picture had never picked up a chisel. Now, only a few months into World Monument Fund’s conservation stonemasonry training programme, they can carve arabesques for zakhrafa jambs, prepare rectangular billet mouldings, or work an ovolo return. Not yet perfect maybe, but still astonishing progress, made more remarkable still given […]
NEWS: Close encounters of the island kind
Archaeologists have uncovered decorative jewellery made from the bones of exotic animals encountered during the first human dispersal to Wallacea – a zone of oceanic islands between South-east Asia and Australia – between 22,000 and 30,000 years ago. A project, led by Adam Brumm and Michelle Langley at Griffith University (Australia), uncovered ancient ornaments during […]
NEWS: Vasa ship look-alike found in Swedish waters
Underwater archaeologists have discovered a historic vessel off the coast of southern Sweden which is similar in construction to the famous Vasa, the ornate 17th-century warship on display in a dedicated museum in Stockholm. Around 45m in length with 68-70 cannons, experts from the Sjöhistoriska Museet believe the ship is the Blekinge, which was built […]
NEWS: The Exotic Libations of Ancient Ghana
Forensic analyses of the hollow cavities inside pre-colonial terracotta figurines from Koma Land, northern Ghana have revealed the exotic contents of libations poured inside them during traditional West African rituals. Researchers from University of Manchester tested the biological contents of a series of terracotta forms which date to the 6th-14th centuries AD. Using swabs and a magnetic extraction […]
NEWS: First Humans in North America
The timing of the first arrival of the humans into North America across the Bering Strait has now been pushed back 10,000 years, claim researchers from Université de Montréal and Oxford University’s Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit. Analysing over 36,000 animal bone fragments from Bluefish Caves in the northern Yukon, Canada, the study, led by Lauriane Bourgeon, Ariane Burke, and Thomas […]
NEWS: Clues of Maya Collapse
Archaeologists have developed a highly-refined chronology for the two major Maya collapses using the largest set of radiocarbon dates ever obtained from a single site. The circumstances behind the Preclassic (2nd century AD) and Classic Maya (9th century AD) collapses – two periods of widespread urban abandonment across Mesoamerica – have long been the subject […]
NEWS: Heartbroken in a French convent
Analyses of graves in the Jacobin convent in Rennes (western France) have revealed previously unknown burial practices, challenging earlier interpretations about the history of death and belief in Europe. Constructed in 1369, the convent became a principal burial site for the aristocracy of Rennes, the seat of Brittany’s parliament. Excavations there by the Institut national […]
NEWS: Death of a Byzantine Mother
An early 13th-century AD skeleton found on the outskirts of ancient Troy has yielded preserved bacterial DNA from a deadly maternal infection – an unparalleled find. The genetic material came from two calcified nodules located at the base of the chest of a 30-year-old pregnant woman discovered in a stone-lined grave by archaeologists affiliated with […]
Obituary: Klavs Randsborg (1944-2016)
Klavs Randsborg, Professor of World Archaeology in Copenhagen University, who died on 13 November aged 72 was one of the great figures in Scandinavian and world archaeology over the past half-century. Randsborg spent most of his academic life in Copenhagen University, but it was for the great breadth of his international research that he should […]
News: Ancient Sun Storms Illuminate the Past
Researchers have identified a new method of precisely dating key prehistoric events using traces left by violent solar storms on trees. A developing branch of astrochronology — the study of the chronology and periodicity of celestial bodies — the new method records the specific timing of solar storms caused by eruptions on the sun’s surface. When these […]
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