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Archaeology

Archaeology is fundamentally the study of humanity and its past. Archaeologists study things that were created, used or changed by humans. They do this by studying the material remains, in other words, the stuff we leave behind.

Related Topics: Anthropology, Fossils, Human Origins, Shipwrecks

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A drawing (left) and a digital 3D model (right) of a stone slab found at the newly discovered kingdom.

Ancient Maya kingdom with pyramid discovered in southern Mexico

By Grant Currin

The kingdom has the remains of a temple and unique stone carvings.

Sonar scans show the wreck is broken in two parts on the seafloor. This scan shows the submarine's conning tower and bow section.

Explorers find Cold War-era submarine wreck off the coast of Oahu

By Tom Metcalfe

A team of explorers have found the wreck of a United States Navy submarine that sank more than 60 years ago in deep water near the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Archaeologists found bones belonging to mammoths, reindeer, horses, bears, wolves, red foxes and Arctic foxes at the site.

Ice age 'house' made from bones of more than 60 mammoths mystifies archaeologists

By Laura Geggel

The structure was made from the bones of ice age animals, including mammoths.

Archaeologists and volunteers are working to preserve human bones exposed by recent storms in an ancient cemetery above a beach on the Orkney Islands.

Scottish storms unearth 1,500-year-old Viking-era cemetery

By Tom Metcalfe

Powerful storms on Scotland's Orkney Islands exposed ancient human remains in a Pictish and Viking cemetery.

Concealing the saint's remains likely prevented them from being destroyed during the Reformation.

Bones found in a church are earliest verified remains of an English saint

By Mindy Weisberger

Experts recently identified bones found behind a wall in a British church as the remains of a Kentish princess and one of England's first female saints.

The sword was mistakenly thought to be medieval. It is now thought to come from eastern Anatolia and to be about 5000 years-old – one of the oldest swords ever found.

Student discovers 5,000-year-old sword hidden in Venetian monastery

By Tom Metcalfe

A keen-eyed archaeology student made the find of a lifetime when she spotted one of the oldest swords on record, mistakenly grouped with medieval artifacts in a secluded Italian monastery.

MOLA archaeologists excavate the top of the cesspit, which had been backfilled and covered over with several layers of brick flooring.

Rare tile of mythical beast discovered in 14th-century cesspit

By Laura Geggel

The treasures include a gold-plated ring and a rare medieval tile depicting a mythical creature.

Archaeologists have surveyed the Mayan road with airborne LIDAR technology to reveal the ancient structures along its length.

Maya warrior queen may have built the longest 'white road' in the Yucatán

By Tom Metcalfe

A ruthless Maya warrior queen may have ordered the building of an elaborate road more than 1,000 years ago to invade a distant city and to counter the rising power of another.

Archaeologists digitally reconstructed the leopard image from fragments of a sarcophagus cover.

Hello kitty! Leopard face reconstructed from ancient Egyptian sarcophagus

By Mindy Weisberger

Archaeologists have reconstructed part of a colorful leopard painting that decorated the lid of an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus.

An illustration of the Roman dagger, sheath and belt.

'Rusty lump' turns out to be 2,000-year-old silver dagger used by Roman soldier

By Laura Geggel

It's rare to find daggers in Roman graves, as these soldiers weren't buried with weapons.

A local farmer discovered this stone half-submerged in an irrigation canal in Turkey. Inscriptions on the stone, dating back to the 8th century B.C. told the story of an ancient lost civilization in Turkey.

Ancient inscription reveals lost civilization in Turkey that may have defeated King Midas

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

The lost kingdom was one of the largest settlements to exist in ancient Turkey at the time.

The temple at Lachish is the first ancient Canaanite temple found in more than 50 years and is extraordinarily well preserved, say archaeologists.

3,000-year-old Canaanite temple discovered in buried city in Israel

By Tom Metcalfe

A 3,000-year-old temple, built by the Canaanites around the time of the ancient Israelite invasion, has been unearthed in southern Israel.

A 3D laser scan image showing the location of the tomb (in yellow) buried beneath the steps to the Curia Julia, or Senate House, in the Roman Forum.

Tomb of Rome's mythical founder Romulus unearthed

By Tom Metcalfe

A tomb that was buried thousands of years ago and revered by ancient Romans as the resting place of their city's mythical founder Romulus has now been rediscovered beneath the Forum in Rome.

The cave of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, indicated here by an arrow, was the scene of a brutal massacre about 7,300 years ago.

Bones of Neolithic immigrants killed in massacre found in Spanish cave

By Tom Metcalfe

Vicious attack has the hallmarks of a "xenophobic" clash between enemy groups.

This individual had a number of grave goods. It appears that the red pigment ochre covered part of the grave when the deceased was laid to rest.

Dozens of ancient Egyptian graves found with rare clay coffins

By Laura Geggel

Archaeologists have found 83 graves filled with the bones and artifacts of ancient Egyptians, not too far from the Mediterranean Sea.

No Syndication for wall of bones photos.

Bone walls made of human limbs and skulls discovered under church in Belgium

By Laura Geggel

Almost no children's bones were found in the walls.

The Tulloch stone depicts a spear-holding ancient warrior.

Ancient engraving of warrior with 'elaborate hairstyle' and 'pronounced butt' discovered in Scotland

By Yasemin Saplakoglu

"The warrior is an essential part of society, the central part of power."

A close-up shows part of the mass grave at Thornton, where the deceased were carefully positioned and placed in an organized manner without any overlapping.

Plague victims in medieval mass grave were arranged with care by 'last chance' hospital's clergy

By Mindy Weisberger

New analysis of a mass grave in medieval England reveals a bleak glimpse of a community overwhelmed by the Black Death.

Researchers looked at a never-before-studied senet board from the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose, California

Ancient game board could be a missing link tied to the Egyptian Book of the Dead

By Stephanie Pappas

A game board bridges the gap between old and new in ancient Egypt.

The spiral patterns that appear prominently in the rock carvings are thought to be a symbol among ancestral Pueblo peoples for the sky or the sun.

800-year-old spiral rock carvings marked the solstices for Native Americans

By Tom Metcalfe

The Pueblo people created rock carvings in the Mesa Verde region of the Southwest United States about 800 years ago to mark the position of the sun on the longest and shortest days of the year.