Articles Index
Abri Castanet Photo Essay
The Early Aurignacian site of Abri Castanet contains some of the oldest examples of art in the world. This photo essay examines a few of the images and reports on what archaeologists have interpreted the images to mean.
Classic Maya Astronomy at Xultún
Xultún is a classic period Maya site, occupied in the 7th through ninth centuries AD, where scholars have identified an early copy of astronomical tables used by the Maya to track the moon and the planet Venus.
National Geographic Expedition Week 2009
National Geographic Expedition Week 2009's Search for the Amazon Headshrinkers is disappointing; rather than focused on the people who actually did perform head-shrinking, it's focused on the explorer and his fascination with little shrunken heads.
National Geographic Expedition Week
The National Geographic Society is one of the oldest continuously publishing journals in the world. Founded in 1888, the society has as its main goals "exploration, research, and scientific discoveries'. These days they are best known for video explorations of scientific studies.
The Streets of Pompeii
The streets of Pompeii are fascinating examples of Roman construction.
Coconut Domestication
An illustrated history of the coconut
Butchery in the Lower Paleolithic
Modified bone recovered from a 3.4 million year old site may rewrite what paleontologists understand as the Lower Paleolithic.
Early Modern Human Arrow Points
Recent investigations at Sibudu Cave and other Early Modern Human sites in South Africa suggest that the bow and arrow was part of the tool kit of Howiesons Poort/Still Bay cultures some 60,000 years ago.
Solstice at Stonehenge
A few amazing pictures professional photographers have taken of the Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge
Hohle Fels Figurines
The Hohle Fels figurines are a set of mammoth ivory figurines carved by humans and buried in the Hohle Fels cave of southwestern Germany at separate times between 30,000 and 35,000 years ago. This image is of a horse head (or possibly another animal)
Göbekli Tepe - Early Cult Center in Turkey
Gobekli Tepe is a massive shrine apparently shared by several different Pre-Pottery Neolithic communities over 11,000 years ago.
Shell Beads and Behavioral Modernity
The transition to human behavioral modernity took many hundreds of thousands of years. One of the key pieces of evidence for the blossoming of human intelligence and creativity is shell beads. This photo essay examines the human transition, and the role that shell beads played in that transition.
Later Stone Age Coastal Living and Mega-Middens
The megamiddens of South Africa are enormous heaps of mussel shells, deposited between 3000 and 2000 years ago, along the shore line of the Western Cape province of South Africa, north and west of Cape Town,
The Ancient Maya Civilization Site of Calakmul
Calakmul is an ancient archaeological site in Mexico, one of the great Maya civilization capital cities during the Late Classic period.
Artifacts of the Royal Cemetery of Ur
A collection of artifacts from C. Leonard Woolley's excavations of the Royal Cemetery at Ur, and the collection at the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology
Leonard Woolley at the Royal Cemetery of Ur
The ancient city of Ur was excavated by C. Leonard Woolley in the 1920s and 1930s. This photo essay includes several photos taken and plans of the site drawn during Woolley's excavations, provided by the University of Pennsylvania's Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.
Top Ten Archaeology News Stories of the Decade
During the first decade of the 21st century, archaeological discoveries overturned some old understandings of the process of evolution, a new ancient civilization was discovered in Peru, and the looting of a museum in Iraq
Time Team America 2009
The very first program for Time Team America is on Fort Raleigh, the first English colony located in the Americas.
Monte Verde Photo Essay
Monte Verde is an archaeological site, located in southern Chile, on an inland estuary 55 kilometers west of the current Pacific coastline.
100,000 Year Old Paint Pots at Blombos Cave
Blombos Cave is an important key to understand the beginnings of early modern behaviors: the latest discoveries there of tool kits for making pigment are detailed in this photo essay.
From Hunting to Farming
The transition from hunting to farming in central Europe has long been a source of fascination to many. Recent archaeological investigations have improved our understanding of this difficult, violent era in human history.
Australopithecus sediba
A closeup of the unique physical attributes of Australopithecus sediba
Ileret Footprints
The Ileret footprints were made in the mud by our hominid ancestor Homo erectus more than 1.5 million years ago.
Diego de Landa (1524-1579), Bishop and Inquisitor of Early Colonial Yucatan
Spanish fray, and later bishop of Yucatan, Diego de Landa is famous for his fervor in destroying Maya codices, as well as for the detailed description of Maya society on the eve of the conquest recorded in his book, Relación de las Cosas de Yucatan (Relation on the Incidents of Yucatan).
Benjamin Franklin's Mastodon Tooth
A tooth from the ancient extinct elephant known as a mastodon was recovered from beneath the floor of a building that at one time belonged to Benjamin Franklin. This artifact undoubtedly belonged to Franklin, and it represents Franklin's role in the scientific understanding of the process of evolution. A podcast tour, contributed by Patrice L. Jeppson the historical archaeology consultant to the Benjamin Franklin Tercentenary Consortium.