Archaeology

Sep 15th, 2025 - The world's oldest known human mummies were created by smoke-drying corpses 10,000 years ago in Southeast Asia and China , long before mummification became commonplace in Chile and Egypt , new research shows. A study of dozens of ancient graves found in China, the Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia revealed that many skeletons that were found in a tight fetal position were treated by an extended period of smoke-drying over fire before being buried. The research was published ... [Read More]

Sep 15th, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! A 1,600-year-old estate connected to the ancient Samaritans – a group depicted in the Bible – has been uncovered in Israel. The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the discovery in a Facebook post on Sept. 2. The estate was excavated in Kafr Qasim, a city in the central region of the country. The estate's remains belonged to a long-running Samaritan community that thrived from the 4th century to the late 7th century A.D., according ... [Read More]

Sep 13th, 2025 - Researchers have discovered that women and children were just as likely as men to be buried with stone tools at a Stone Age grave site, challenging the assumption that such tools were associated only with men. Working with the Latvian National Museum of History, the team analysed artefacts and stone tools found in the Zvejnieki cemetery in Latvia – one of the largest Stone Age burial sites. Zvejnieki cemetery was used for more than 5,000 years and contains over 330 graves. The researchers ... [Read More]

Sep 13th, 2025 - A forgotten stone from a 1924 dig is now steering a long running Stonehenge debate in a clear direction. New analyses of the hand sized Newall boulder point to people, not ice, as the movers of the monument's smaller bluestones. Researchers mapped the rock's minerals and chemistry and matched it to Craig Rhos-y-Felin in west Wales, about 125 miles from Salisbury Plain. The team also showed that its wear patterns and the wider landscape record do not support an ice delivery theory. Why a palm ... [Read More]

Sep 12th, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! A rare cross was recently uncovered in the United Arab Emirates, shedding light on Christian history during the early Islamic era. The discovery, made at Sir Bani Yas Island in the Persian Gulf, was announced by Abu Dhabi's Department of Culture and Tourism in August.  The island contains a variety of luxury resorts and wildlife reserves. Though remote, Sir Bani Yas Island is still accessible via water taxis or private planes. Officials noted in a ... [Read More]

Sep 10th, 2025 - A strange fossilised skull found in a Greek cave more than 60 years ago may finally be giving up some of its secrets. New analysis suggests it's at least 300,000 years old , placing it alongside early Homo sapiens in Africa and the first Neanderthals in Europe. The Petralona skull, discovered in northern Greece in 1960, has long caused headaches for paleoanthropologists, who struggle to decide where it fits into our human family tree. The fossil lacked distinct features of well-known human ... [Read More]

Sep 8th, 2025 - The discovery is the first of its kind ever found in Albania, and is believed to have belonged to a very wealthy person A large Roman burial chamber from the third to fourth century AD has been unearthed by archaeologists in Albania. The discovery is the first of its kind found in the Balkan country that was once part of the Roman Empire. Locals had tipped off staff from the Institute of Archaeology after noticing some unusual stones on a plateau near the border with North Macedonia. They began ... [Read More]

Aug 31st, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! Archaeologists recently unearthed two churches in Egypt that are over 1,500 years old, offering rare evidence of Christianity's rise in the country's Western Desert.  The Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities announced the discovery in a press release in late July. The churches were found at Kharga Oasis, an ancient settlement roughly 350 miles southwest of Cairo.  The site is known for its notable ancient Christian remains , including ... [Read More]

Aug 25th, 2025 - From carved figurines to coins, skeletons, and even entire settlements, the railway has opened up a new golden age of archaeology. When the HS2 railway was first announced, a lot of people were understandably thrilled. The railway is supposed to link Britain's two largest cities, London and Birmingham, via a new, high-speed railway, and then extend even further. But a lot of people were excited for a completely different reason: archaeology. Before engineers can build the tracks, stations, ... [Read More]

Aug 14th, 2025 - A discovery on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi has pushed back the timeline of early human sea crossings and deepened the mystery of who made them. Archaeologists have unearthed stone tools at a site in southern Sulawesi called Calio that are at least 1.04 million years old, and possibly as ancient as 1.48 million years. Because Sulawesi has always been surrounded by deep, fast-moving waters, whoever made them would have needed to travel across open ocean. "This is by far the earliest known ... [Read More]

Jul 24th, 2025 - Archaeologists believe they have found one of the oldest burial sites in the world at a cave in Israel, where the well-preserved remains of early humans dating back some 100,000 years were carefully arranged in pits. The findings at Tinshemet Cave in central Israel, published in an academic journal earlier this year, build on previous discoveries in northern Israel and add to a growing understanding of the origins of human burial. Of particular interest to archaeologists are objects found ... [Read More]

Jul 15th, 2025 - You can now listen to Fox News articles! Archaeologists recently uncovered a mysterious Roman-era settlement site in Germany, complete with building remains and hundreds of artifacts dating back nearly two millennia. The Schafbreite site, located within the western German town of Delbrück, has been settled since the first century A.D. The site was recently excavated by the Regional Association of Westphalia-Lippe (LWL).   In a June 13 statement, the LWL announced the results of its ... [Read More]

Jul 10th, 2025 - The tomb of a Mayan king has been discovered by Texas archaeologists in Caracol, Belize, marking the first time researchers in the ancient city have found a ruler's identifiable resting place. Caracol dates back to 900 B.C., according to the Caracol Archaeological Project , and lasted centuries until the collapse of the Maya civilization in A.D. 800-900. At its peak, the city had a population of over 100,000 people. Today, the city is the largest Mayan archaeological site in Belize, the project ... [Read More]

Jul 2nd, 2025 - For the first time, scientists have sequenced the oldest and complete DNA set of an ancient Egyptian man, dating to when the pyramids were first constructed. The analysis, published in Nature on Wednesday, showed the remains belonged to a potentially well-regarded pottery worker - one who may have lived into his 60s. With DNA analysis that has until now been limited, the study reveals clues about people's movements around that time: Twenty percent of his ancestry showed relations to people in ... [Read More]

Jun 26th, 2025 - Archaeologists have discovered the remains of multistory houses and a ceremonial building linked to the cobra-headed goddess Wadjet in the ancient Egyptian city of Imet. Dense architectural remains indicate that Imet was a bustling urban center during Egypt's Late Period (circa 664 to 332 B.C.), or the last period of Egyptian rule before Alexander the Great and his general Ptolemy I Soter took over, according to a statement describing recent excavations in what is now Tell Nabasha (also spelled ... [Read More]

Jun 23rd, 2025 - For the past 100 years, Egyptologists thought that when the powerful female pharaoh Hatshepsut died, her nephew and successor went on a vendetta against her, purposefully smashing all her statues to erase her from public memory. Now, a new study finds that's not quite the case. Although many statues of Hatshepsut were intentionally broken, the reason behind their destruction has nothing to do with her gender or even blotting out her existence, an Egyptologist says. Rather, Hatshepsut's statues ... [Read More]