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Archaeology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 16-Sep-2025 10:11 ET (16-Sep-2025 14:11 GMT/UTC)

Upcoming book "Nature’s Greatest Success" presents new paradigm of domestication

Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
Book Announcement

A new book by Dr. Robert Spengler tackles one of the biggest questions in biology and the social sciences: domestication – what it is, how it occurred, and the role that humans really played in developing the first crops and livestock.

Study reveals skeletal evidence of Roman gladiator bitten by lion in combat

University of York
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Bite marks found on a skeleton discovered in a Roman cemetery in York have revealed the first archaeological evidence of gladiatorial combat between a human and a lion.

Journal: PLOS One

Roman-era skeleton from Britain is rare evidence of human-animal gladiator combat

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A skeleton from Roman-era England has bite marks consistent with those of a large cat like a lion, suggesting that this individual may have died as part of a gladiator show or execution, according to a study published April 23, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Tim Thompson from Maynooth University, Ireland, and colleagues.

Journal: PLOS One

Italians spent thousands of years perfecting grape cultivation

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The domestication of grapevine was a slow process in Italy, taking place over thousands of years, according to a study published April 23, 2025 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Mariano Ucchesu of the University of Montpellier, France and colleagues.

Journal: PLOS One

Women from the Bronze Age already carried heavy loads on their heads

Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Peer-Reviewed Publication

An interdisciplinary study led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) reveals that women living in the region of Nubia (present-day Sudan) developed skeletal changes adapted to bearing heavy loads on their heads starting in the Bronze Age over 3500 years ago. The results, published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, shed light on a largely invisible practice that has been ignored by written history and which has been carried out primarily by women for millennia.

Journal: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

Treasures prove Thetford was pagan until 5th century

Cambridge University Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Jewellery in a Roman treasure hoard found in Thetford Forest, East Anglia, indicates that Thetford was pagan until the 5^th century, which is longer than previously believed, a new paper published by Cambridge University Press in Journal of Roman Archaeology reveals.

Journal: Journal of Roman Archaeology

New clues from old bones: Some Vikings were much more violent than others

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

An investigation into Viking skeletons reveals a hidden story of violence, power, and the surprising differences between neighbouring Viking societies.

Journal: Journal of Anthropological Archaeology

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