Archaeology, features and articles | Educational Science

Jan 19, 2024

1,000-year-old cemetery with dead wearing dramatic rings on their necks and buckets on their feet found in Ukraine

Archaeologists in Ukraine have discovered a 1,000-year-old cemetery whose dead were buried with weapons, jewelry and, curiously, buckets around some of their feet. The 11th-century cemetery is located about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Kyiv. Of its 107 graves, most of the identified burials were deposed in wooden coffins,...

Jan 19, 2024

10,000-year-old burials from unknown hunter-gatherer group discovered in Brazil

Archaeologists in Brazil have discovered a large Indigenous cemetery housing over 40 skeletons and thousands of grave goods from as far back as 10,000 years ago. The earliest human remains appear to be from a previously unknown ancestral community predating the Sambaquians, coastal hunter-gatherers who historically lived in the area....

Jan 23, 2024

Remains of 4,000-year-old 'lost' tomb discovered in Ireland

An archaeologist in Ireland has discovered an ancient megalithic tomb — one that was seen and sketched in the 19th century but then lost for almost 200 years. Local scholar Billy Mag Fhloinn, an archaeologist and folklorist with Sacred Heart University in the Irish town of Dingle, found the tomb...

Jan 24, 2024

Mysterious skeleton found in Hernán Cortés' palace revealed to be Indigenous woman, not Spanish monk

A skeleton visible within a burial at the entrance of the palace of Hernán Cortés —the Spanish conquistador who caused the fall of the Aztec Empire — is not the remains of a Spanish monk as was long thought. Instead, a new analysis reveals that the bones belonged to a...

Jan 24, 2024

Hoard of Bronze Age jewelry discovered in Poland was part of ancient water burial ritual, study finds

Archaeologists in Poland have discovered a collection of more than 550 pieces of Bronze Age jewelry that were once part of an ancient burial ritual. Known as Papowo Biskupie, the dried-out lake bed site was occupied from roughly 1200 to 450 B.C. by the Chełmno group, a community from the...

Jan 26, 2024

Even Stone Age people burned their porridge, 5,000-year-old food-scorched clay pot reveals

People have been burning their porridge for at least 5,000 years, remains of a charred cooking pot unearthed in Germany confirms. And just like today, cleaning the pot was more hassle than it was worth. Archaeologists discovered the meal mishap after examining a trash heap of mixed pottery shards at...

Jan 29, 2024

Prehistoric jewelry reveals 9 distinct cultures across Stone Age Europe

Tens of thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans in Europe adorned themselves with such a wide variety of beads that researchers have classified nine distinct cultural groups across the continent based on their location and distinctive styles. The researchers focused on the Gravettian period, which stretched between 34,000 and 24,000...

Jan 29, 2024

Denmark's oldest runes inscribed on ancient knife

Archaeologists in Denmark have discovered runic letters inscribed on a knife blade dating back nearly 2,000 years, making them some of the oldest runes ever found in the country. The 3-inch (8 centimeters) iron blade was found in an ancient grave near the city of Odense on the central island...

Jan 29, 2024

90,000-year-old human footprints found on a Moroccan beach are some of the oldest and best preserved in the world

Two trails of ancient human footprints pressed into a beach in Morocco form one of the largest and best-preserved trackways in the world. Researchers happened upon the footprint site near the northern tip of North Africa in 2022 while studying boulders at a nearby pocket beach, according to a study...

Jan 30, 2024

1 of Sweden's oldest stone tombs is mysteriously missing skulls

Archaeologists in central Sweden have unearthed a 5,500-year-old stone chamber containing several burials from the Early Neolithic period — but many of the largest bones, including skulls, seem to have been removed around the time the dead were placed there. This differs from what we usually see in megalithic graves,...

Jan 30, 2024

Early medieval sword fished out of Polish river is in 'near perfect' condition

Workers made a surprising discovery in Poland when they pulled an early medieval sword from a muddy riverbed while dredging, and some researchers think the weapon could have a Viking connection. The 1,000-year-old sword, which is thought to be older than Poland itself, was found cloaked in silt and in...

Jan 30, 2024

Amelia Earhart's plane may have crashed in the heart of the Pacific Ocean, explorer claims

An ocean exploration team believes they've found iconic pilot Amelia Earhart's plane in the heart of the Pacific Ocean. But some experts say they're not so sure. The group, known as Deep Sea Vision, recently released underwater sonar images that resemble a plane lodged more 16,000 feet (4,900 meters) underwater,...

Jan 31, 2024

45,000-year-old bones unearthed in cave are oldest modern-human remains in Central Europe

Modern humans crossed the Alps into chilly Northern Europe about 45,000 years ago, meaning they may have coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for thousands of years longer than experts previously thought, according to new research. The discovery — of 13 bone fragments belonging to Homo sapiens who occupied a cave...

Jan 31, 2024

Jade mask depicting Maya storm god unearthed in royal tomb in Guatemala

Archaeologists have discovered a 1,700-year-old royal tomb in Guatemala that's overflowing with funeral offerings, including an intricately designed jade mask depicting a Maya deity. The tomb, which is located at an archaeological site known as Chochkitam near the borders of what are now Mexico and Belize, was the burial site...

Feb 1, 2024

2,000-year-old 'bog body' of teenager with missing skull discovered in Northern Ireland

Archaeologists have uncovered a bog body in the U.K. that is between 2,000 and 2,500 years old. The find was made after the police were alerted about the discovery of human bones in peatland near Bellaghy, a village in the central part of Northern Ireland, according to a statement by...