New study reveals that the Gobi Wall—an extensive, little-understood structure in the Mongolian desert—was not merely a defensive barrier but a sophisticated tool of imperial strategy during the Xi Xia dynasty (1038–1227 CE). Constructed primarily from rammed earth, stone, and wood, the wall and its associated garrisons were deliberately placed to manage frontier movement, regulate trade, and assert territorial control, all while adapting to the harsh ecological and geographic realities of the region. This research reframes the Gobi Wall as a multifunctional infrastructure that played a central role in the geopolitical and environmental landscape of medieval Inner Asia.

A new study uses metabolic profiling to uncover ancient knowledge systems behind therapeutic and psychoactive plant use in ancient Arabia.

Archaeologist Greer Jarrett at Lund University in Sweden has been sailing in the footsteps of Vikings for three years. He can now show that the Vikings sailed farther away from Scandinavia, and took routes farther from land, than was previously believed to have been possible. In his latest study, he has found evidence of a decentralised network of ports, located on islands and peninsulas, which probably played a central role in trade and travel in the Viking era.  

A University of Cincinnati expert in ancient Greek wants to produce the most authentic performance of the play “Antigone” that audiences have heard in nearly 2,500 years.

The skeleton of a man with a severe dislocated fracture of the knee, found in a cemetery in Lund, southern Sweden, is helping to unravel the complexities of social attitudes towards individuals with disabilities in the late medieval period. The research combines traditional osteological methods and 3D modelling - a cutting-edge technique for viewing and studying traumatic injury and related skeletal changes - with contextual information from historical texts and digitized excavation records to build a more nuanced understanding of disability and care in the past.