Archaeological Photo Essays

Sibudu Cave is an extremely important Middle Stone Age archaeological site located in South Africa, with 61,000 year-old arrow points. Here's what they look like.

Sipán is one of the Moche capital cities, where in 1987 Peruvian archaeologist Walter Alva discovered 13 elite burials mirroring rituals seen on ceramics and low relief sculptures. The burials had hundreds of exotic and precious objects in copper, bronze, and gold. This essay describes the new elite burial discovered in May 2007.

Archaeologists are fascinated with the scientific pieces of religious belief, this fascination taking many different flavors and investigating most of the religions of the world. This photo gallery is an examination of a few of the more interesting churches in the world ('churches' including synagogues, mosques, temples, and shrines) and why archaeologists are interested in them.

The results of ten years of nuclear DNA research on Africans, collected by University of Maryland professor Sarah Tishkoff and colleagues, and intended to learn about the origins and migration patterns of all of us, were presented in an article in Science on May 1, 2009. This photo essay looks at some of the results already revealed, and discusses some of the potential for this massive study.

Two new sets of ancient hominid footprints were discovered at a site near the modern town of Ileret in Kenya. The footprints, which date to about 1.5 million years ago, belong to those of Homo erectus or Homo ergaster, one of our human ancestors.

One of the most interesting pieces of archaeological data discovered to date is when and where we humans began to domesticate the animals that we depend on today, and who depend on us. The broad period in which animal domestication began is called the Neolithic Period, but each animal has its own specific history.

Glass is that mysterious translucent substance of what is essentially super-heated silica sand. Here's how making glass got started.

This photo essay will provide some context of that argument, as well as an excuse to look at pretty pictures of Indus seals, provided to Science and us by researcher J.N. Kenoyer of the University of Wisconsin and Harappa.com.

A selection of images from the Brooklyn Museum's planned exhibition of Roman mosaics from a Jewish synagogue in Tunisia in the latter days of the Roman empire.

The documentary film Waking the Baby Mammoth contains a fascinating glimpse into life in a Nenets reindeer herding family. These photos were provided by the National Geographic Society in conjunction with the release of their documentary in April 2009.