Elderly and ailing, a potter named Georges-André Colas penned a six-page letter to the Regional Archaeological Service of Burgundy in October 2008. “Dear Sir or Madam, although I am aware of the ...

Many populations such as these traders in central Tibet, who live above 8,000 feet, are now known to have genetic characteristics that enable them to survive in environments where lowlanders would ...

An impressive ax head is one of hundreds of Viking artifacts found during excavations under the streets of Dublin. When Irish archaeologists working under Dublin’s South Great George’s Street just ...

There are very few places on Earth where people can’t find twigs, reeds, blades of grass, or other resources to make a basket—and people always need a way to carry their belongings or food. The ...

Sometimes it takes a village to raise a window. Between 2015 and 2017, skilled masons meticulously carved and beveled arches and four-lobed flourishes for a Gothic-style stone window frame in Guédelon ...

SCRIBE STATUE. FOUND: Lagash, Iraq. CULTURE: Sumerian. DATE: ca. 2400 B.C. LANGUAGE: Sumerian. In early 2016, hundreds of media outlets around the world reported that a set of recently deciphered ...

Ideal conditions within an ancient cave system are revealing a rich history that reaches back to a time before humans settled the island and extends to the present day Some six million years ago, in ...

A terracotta figurine in the form of a pig was made in Egypt around 3000 b.c., during the Early Dynastic period. Pork accounts for more than a third of the world’s meat, making pigs among the planet’s ...

The British Museum houses around 130,000 clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia written in cuneiform script between 3200 b.c. and the first century a.d. Since so few scholars can read the languages on ...

How archaeologists are rediscovering the ancient world's most marvelous monuments The canonical Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were renowned for their size or splendor and—in all cases—the ...

For the nearly two centuries since this Etruscan oil lamp was found near the city of Cortona, Italy, it has confounded scholars. It was unearthed in a ditch, so its original context is unknown. And ...

Donor inscription, Galilee, Israel(Mordechai Aviam/Kinneret College on the Sea Galilee/Israel Science Foundation) Sausann mosaic, Galilee, Israel(Mordechai Aviam/Kinneret College on the Sea ...