Enlarge / Neanderthals and Denisovans probably enjoyed the view from Denisova cave, too. (credit: flickr user: loronet) At various points in the last 300,000 years, Denisova Cave has sheltered three different species of hominins. But with fossils from only eight individuals—four Denisovans, three Neanderthals, and the daughter of a Neanderthal/Denisovan pairing—it’s hard to tell a […]
Enlarge / Original excavation photograph of Tsukumo No. 24, a young adult male with evidence of severe trauma consistent with an attack by a white or tiger shark. (credit: Kyoto University) Marine biologists have spent decades counteracting the popular misconception of sharks as aggressive predators that target humans, particularly in the wake of the blockbuster […]
Enlarge / Spanish archaeologists recreated three common types of Paleolithic lighting systems. (credit: Medina-Alcaide et al, 2021, PLOS ONE) In 1993, a media studies professor at Fordham University named Edward Wachtel visited several famous caves in southern France, including Lascaux, Font-de-Gaume, Les Combarelles, and La Mouthe. His purpose: to study the cave art that has […]
Enlarge (credit: Ida Marie Odgaard AFP) Roughly a thousand years ago, a young man in his early 20s met a violent end in England. 800 kilometers (500 miles) away, in Denmark, an older man who had survived a lifetime of battles died sometime in his 50s. At first glance, there’s nothing to suggest a connection […]
Enlarge (credit: Gimranov et al. 2021) During the last Ice Age, more than 100 cave bears died in Imanay Cave, a 100-meter-long corridor of stone in Russia’s southern Ural Mountains. The dead bears, along with a cave lion and a few other Pleistocene mammals, left behind nearly 10,000 bones, which have mostly worn down to […]
Enlarge (credit: Crevecoeur and Antoine 2021) When archaeologists in the 1960s unearthed a 13,400-year-old cemetery at Jebel Sahaba in Sudan, it looked like they’d stumbled across the aftermath of a large-scale battle fought during the Pleistocene. At least half the people buried at the site, which straddles the banks of the Upper Nile, bore the […]
Enlarge / Two shipwrecks discovered in 2019 have been identified as 17th century Swedish war ships Apollo and Maria. (credit: Vrak Museum of Wrecks) Back in 2019, Swedish maritime archaeologists discovered the wrecks of two 17th century ships at the bottom of a busy Swedish shipping canal near Vaxholm. Initially they suspected these might be […]
(credit: Pawlowicz and Downum 2021) Real archaeological fieldwork is seldom as exciting as it looks in the movies. You tend to get fewer reanimated mummies, deadly booby traps, and dramatic shootouts with Nazis. Instead, you’ll see pieces of broken pottery—a lot of them. Potsherds are ubiquitous at archaeological sites, and that’s true for pretty much […]
Enlarge / Detailed rock-art recording by ARKENAS archaeologist in Maros-Pangkep. (credit: Adhi Agus Oktaviana) The limestone caves and rock shelters of Indonesia’s southern Sulawesi island hold the oldest traces of human art and storytelling, dating back more than 40,000 years. Paintings adorn the walls of at least 300 sites in the karst hills of Maros-Pangkep, […]
armi del soldato When Mount Vesuvius destroyed the Roman city of Pompeii in 79 CE, the eruption also killed hundreds of people huddled on the shores of nearby Herculaneum. A recent study of the remains of one victim, who died on the beach not far from a small naval vessel, suggests that he might have […]