Tag Archives: Archaeology and Anthropology

Michael Frachetti was on an archaeological dig high in the mountains of southeastern Uzbekistan in 2015 when a forestry official approached him. “You know, I’ve seen some of those kinds of ceramics in my backyard,” the official said, referring to the artifacts emerging from the dirt. “Come see.” The casual …

In June, the Italian Ministry of Culture announced the excavation of a new room, not yet open to the public, in the ruins of Pompeii. A few weeks later, a group of archaeologists gathered to marvel at it: walls covered with bright blue paint — an expensive pigment reserved for …

As soon as you put starch in your mouth — whether in the form of a dumpling, a forkful of mashed potatoes or a saltine — you start breaking it down with an enzyme in your saliva. That enzyme, known as amylase, was critically important for the evolution of our …

Archaeologists in Peru have excavated a monumental chamber featuring elaborate murals of snakes, and a pillared hall with a worn throne, which they say bears clues suggesting a powerful woman ruled there more than 1,300 years ago. The site, Pañamarca, was a religious and political center for the ancient Moche …

By the time Dr. Richard Bates swept his radar device over the sandstone of Petra’s ancient Treasury building, it had been more than two decades since anyone had so deeply probed the stone city’s grounds. For nearly as long, archaeologists had been stymied by a maddeningly stubborn mystery. In 2003, …

A new study describes 700,000-year-old teeth and arm bones from one of our most enigmatic relatives: a toddler-size “hobbit” who lived on a small island between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. The study, published on Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, suggests that the species, Homo floresiensis, sometimes nicknamed hobbits, …