Archaeological Photo Essays

Qesem Cave is an important early human site in Israel dated to ~225,000 and 400,000 years ago; but it has not been established exactly who the occupants were.

Blombos Cave is an archaeological site on the south coast of South Africa, where  evidence of the earliest examples of modern human behavior have been identified, as early as 100,000 years ago.

The Dikika site in the Lower Awash Valley in the Afar region of northwestern Ethiopia, holdes contains the bones of the early hominid Australopithecus afarensis have been found dated to ~3.5 million years old; and potential evidence of butchery. This photo essay displays the evidence to date.

Archaeological investigations at Dzudzuana Cave, in the Republic of Georgia, have recovered flax (Linum usitatissimum) fibers from four Upper Paleolithic occupations, dated to over 30,000 years ago.

This photo essay illustrates how an archaeological fieldschool works, by showing the progress of an archaeology dig at an elite Maya residence in Belize called Toucan House.

Göbekli Tepe, which roughly translates to "Potbelly Hill" in Turkish, is a remarkably early, completely human-built cultic center, first used by Pre-Pottery Neolithic residents of the Fertile Crescent in Turkey and Syria some 11,600 years ago

The coconut palm (Cocos nucifera L.) was (and is) an important crop cultivated in tropical portions of Africa, America, Asia and Oceania. The history of the coconut begins about 3500 years ago, and is closely tied to three major seafaring cultures.

Maple sugaring--that is to say, obtaining sugar and syrup from maple trees--is primarly a North American phenomenon; and archaeological evidence supporting its discovery and use by Native American tribes prior to the arrival of Europeans is something of a controversy...