XI’AN, CHINA—According to a Nature report, a team of researchers led by Bin Han of the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences identified a bronze vessel containing remnants of a 2,700-year-old cosmetic among the artifacts recovered from a nobleman’s tomb at the Liujiawa site in northern (...)

The rise of tourism on Palomar Mountain took place at a time when Americans were discovering the allure of wilderness outings, particularly in the West. “There’s this irony that as soon as the California government was able to annihilate the Indigenous population and steal most of their (...)

What is it? Game balls Culture Subeixi Date 1189–911 B.C. Material Cowhide, wool, red paint Found Turfan Basin, China Dimensions 2.91 to 3.6 inches in diameter Whether it’s arcing an orange one through a hoop, kicking a black-and-white patterned one into your opponent’s goal, or crushing a white (...)

Stephen H. Lekson is a curator emeritus of archaeology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and has excavated in the American Southwest for almost 50 years. He first contributed to ARCHAEOLOGY in 1990. Among his articles is “Rewriting Southwestern Prehistory” (1997), in which (...)

After a helmet crafted from thin metal plates was discovered during a 1950s sewer installation project in the town of Yarm in northeastern England, it was initially put on display in the town hall and labeled as a Norman artifact. The object was moved more than 20 years later to the Dorman (...)

In the fall of 2020, archaeologists unearthed 59 wooden mummy coffins from burial shafts at Egypt’s Saqqara necropolis (“Top 10 Discoveries of 2020"). Since then, continued investigations at the site have added to the still-growing tally. A total of more than 100 painted coffins, most dating to (...)

NANJING, CHINA—Science X Network reports that an international team of researchers, including scientists from Nanjing University, Fudan University, the Australian Museum Research Institute, and National Taiwan University, has analyzed human teeth recovered from five caves in southern China and (...)

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND—The islands of the St. Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic Ocean were inhabited some 2,000 years ago, according to a BBC News report. Alan Hunter Blair of Guard Archaeology said Iron Age pottery bearing residues of carbonized food was unearthed on the main St. Kilda island (...)

DENIZLI, TURKEY—According to a Live Science report, 651 silver Roman coins were discovered in western Turkey’s ancient city of Aizanoi by a team of researchers led by Elif Özer of Pamukkale University. All of the coins were minted between 75 and 4 B.C. More than 400 are silver denarii, and some (...)

BOLOGNA, ITALY—Cosmos Magazine reports that an international team of scientists led by Marco Candela of the University of Bologna analyzed 50,000-year-old Neanderthal fecal matter uncovered in El Salt, an archaeological site in Spain, and found it contained microorganisms similar to those still (...)