EurekAlert! News by Subject: Archaeology - News by Subject: Archaeology

Archaeology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-Sep-2025 14:11 ET (2-Sep-2025 18:11 GMT/UTC)

Extreme drought contributed to barbarian invasion of late Roman Britain, tree-ring study reveals

University of Cambridge
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Three consecutive years of drought contributed to the ‘Barbarian Conspiracy’, a pivotal moment in the history of Roman Britain, a new Cambridge-led study reveals. Researchers argue that Picts, Scotti and Saxons took advantage of famine and societal breakdown caused by an extreme period of drought to inflict crushing blows on weakened Roman defences in 367 CE. While Rome eventually restored order, some historians argue that the province never fully recovered.

Journal: Climatic Change

Iron Age purple dye "factory" in Israel was in operation for almost 500 years, using mollusks in large-scale specialized manufacturing process

PLOS
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Iron Age purple dye "factory" in Israel was in operation for almost 500 years, using mollusks in large-scale specialized manufacturing process

Journal: PLOS One

Coastal heritage threatened by climate change

PNAS Nexus
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Natural and cultural resource management are conducted separately, despite the fact that climate change, sea level rise, and extreme weather threaten them both. Jayur Mehta and colleagues argue a synergy of both approaches is required to protect coastal archaeological landscapes.

Journal: PNAS Nexus

New analysis of archaeological data reveals how agriculture and governance have shaped wealth inequality

University of Oxford
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by Amy Bogaard, Professor of European Archaeology, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, reveals that high wealth inequality in human societies over the past 10,000 years was encouraged by land-hungry farming practices. Where land became scarce, wealth inequality often grew among households, but where land was abundant, wealth was more equally distributed.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Archaeologists discover historical link between inequality and sustainability

Durham University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Inequality has been linked to human sustainability for over 10,000 years, according to new findings by archaeologists.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: National Science Foundation, Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis, Centre for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

New study reveals wealth inequality’s deep roots in human prehistory

Washington State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That’s according to a new study led by Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler that challenges traditional views that disparities in wealth emerged suddenly with large civilizations like Egypt or Mesopotamia. The research is part of a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-edited by Kohler and Amy Bogaard, an archaeologist at Oxford University in England.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Archaeologists measured and compared the size of 50,000 ancient houses to learn about the history of inequality -- they found that it’s not inevitable

Field Museum
Peer-Reviewed Publication

We’re living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it’s continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study published in the journal PNAS, researchers compared house size distributions from more than 1,000 sites around the world, covering the last 10,000 years. They found that while inequality is widespread throughout human history, it’s not inevitable, nor is it expressed to the same degree at every place and time.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

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