#archaeology

#archaeology

The axe was the most important find in the group and would have been highly valued in the Neolithic community. Experiments with fiddle bows have found that it takes more than a day of work to manufacture an axe like this one.

We are delighted to unite these incredible archaeological finds from across the North for our latest exhibition. From Roman silver discovered along Hadrian's Wall to 9th-century gold found by a Newcastle University student, this is a rare opportunity to see these scattered treasures displayed alongside one another.

The footage captured by Trevor Grassi shows dozens of square shafts carved into bedrock, many extending deep underground but primarily filled with sand, raising new questions about what may lie beneath the surface.

"Willowdale Sports Precinct is located at the juncture of an ancient landscape (with archaeological evidence suggesting inhabitation for the past 10,000 years or more) and a burgeoning new suburb in the changing southwest Sydney region."

The momoztli altar measures about one meter square and consists of three sections: a base of andesite quarry stone, a second section of larger slabs, and a top section of river stones and basalt.

'Women fighting beasts in arena games are attested by the written sources, but no visual source is known to show their image,' author Alfonso Mañas wrote in the International Journal of the History of Sport.

The ostraca show us an astonishing variety of everyday situations. We find tax lists, deliveries, short notes about everyday activities, religious texts, and priestly certificates attesting the quality of sacrificial animals.

'This is the first instance of the Greek word "learn" attested on sling bullets - probably the local defender's sense of sarcasm.'

Two people walking their dogs on a beach in Scotland came across footprints left by humans and animals 2,000 years earlier. Although ancient footprints have been found in a handful of locations in England, this is the first such site ever recorded in Scotland. Ivor Campbell and Jenny Snedden spotted the prints on Lunan Bay in Angus, eastern Scotland, after a strong storm in January.

The oldest known pieces of sewn clothing have been discovered in a cave in Oregon, potentially rewriting all of human history. Researchers from the US uncovered pieces of animal hide stitched together from the end of the last Ice Age, approximately 12,000 years ago. That would mean that humans in North America had advanced skills, specifically for working with plants, animals, and wood, thousands of years before the Great Pyramid of Egypt was constructed.

In a white and sterile office that could belong to any one of the warehouses that dot this industrial strip between Brisbane's airport and horse-racing precinct, a young woman is engrossed in a puzzle. Only this puzzle comprises, perhaps, three different sets, each almost (but not quite) identical to the other and none likely to be completed. Emily Totivan wears blue plastic gloves. She is an archaeology student helping to catalogue artefacts.

While the bone was worn and poorly preserved, archaeologists managed to identify its origin by comparing it with modern elephant and mammoth bones. Despite there not being enough DNA to confirm the exact species, the researchers were able to carbon date a tiny sample of the bone. This places the elephant's death between the late fourth and early third centuries BC - right in the middle of the Second Punic War.

Treasures unearthed by hundreds of archaeologists so far during work on the controversial planned HS2 train line have been shown exclusively to the BBC. The 450,000 objects, which are being held in a secret warehouse, include a possible Roman gladiator's tag, a hand axe that may be more than 40,000 years old and 19th Century gold dentures. It is an "unprecedented" amount and array of items, which will yield new insights into Britain's past, says the Centre for British Archaeology.

Archaeologists in Mexico have uncovered a 1,400-year-old tomb in the Central Valleys of Oaxaca that had been lost to history. The stone structure, built by the Zapotec culture, known as Be'ena'a, or 'The Cloud People', is adorned with sculptures, murals and carved symbols that suggest ritual significance. The Zapotec believed their ancestors descended from the clouds and that, in death, their souls returned to the heavens as spirits.

Pottery made by people of the Halafian culture, who inhabited northern Mesopotamia between around 6200 and 5500 BC, is painted with flowers that have 4, 8, 16 or 32 petals, and some show arrangements of 64 flowers. These patterns show a clear understanding of symmetry and spatial division long before written numbers came into use around 3400 BC, argue scientists in a new study. The skill might have helped the Halafian people with tasks such as sharing harvests or dividing communal fields, the authors say.

The excavation revealed 19 small and medium-sized pits containing bones of different animals, including: short-horned domesticated buffalo, deer, roe deer, wolves, leopards, foxes, serows, wild boars, porcupines, swans, cranes, geese, haws and eagles. What makes it clear that at least a portion of the animals were kept and likely raised in captivity rather than hunted for sacrifice is the discovery of bronze bells worn around several of the animals' necks. Twenty-nine bells were found in 13 of the 19 pits.

Carved on the walls surrounding her sarcophagus were more than 150 ancient Greek poems in which Bilitis recounted her life, from her childhood in Pamphylia in present-day Turkey to her adventures on the islands of Lesbos and Cyprus, where she would eventually come to rest. Heim diligently copied down this treasure trove of poems, which had not seen the light of day for more than two millennia.

Taking its name from the word for "boiling waters," Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park in Georgia dates back more than 12,000 years and features Indigenous earthen mounds used for burials and ceremonies. Today, it's in talks to be designated a national park with expanded acreage. "This was a capital city for the Creek Confederacy," says Tracie Revis, a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and director of advocacy for the Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative (ONPPI).

The use of poisoned hunting weapons is one of the most important innovations in the history of humans obtaining meat and has intrigued researchers for centuries. Until now, the oldest evidence came from bone arrowheads with traces of toxic glycosides found in Kruger Cave, South Africa, dating back to the mid-Holocene, about 6,700 years ago. However, a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances significantly extends that timeline.

Researchers have found traces of what appears to be plant-derived poison on tiny stone arrowheads from South Africa dated to 60,000 years ago. The finding pushes back the origin of this revolutionary hunting technology by tens of thousands of years. Scientists have long been fascinated by the development of poisoned hunting weapons. For one thing, they would have seriously leveled up our ancestors' foraging game.

The word vampire first appears in English in sensational accounts of a revenant panic in Serbia in the early 18th century. One case in 1725 concerned a recently deceased peasant farmer, Peter Blagojevic, who rose from the grave, visited his wife to demand his shoes, and then murdered nine people in the night. When his body was disinterred, his mouth was found full of fresh blood. The villagers staked the corpse and then burned it.

Research suggests that the introduction of monetary systems in Central Europe can be traced back to Celtic mercenaries. These men were paid for their services in Greece with coins and brought them back home with them. Around the middle of the 3rd century BC, the Celts began their own coinage, imitating gold coins of the Macedonian king Philip II (359336 BC).