Like the leaders of the Maya Kingdom of Copan, we have failed to react to the warning signs that will make the difference to whether humanity survives.
Brendan van Son / Shutterstock
Archaeology teaches us that we are not immune to extinction.
Mark Lodwick / British Museum
Did Bronze Age Europe have a market economy? New research suggests “hoard piles” could be linked to the exchange of small pieces of metal – much like money changes hands today.
One of the complete Neolithic skeletons found in the Frälsegården passage grave in southern Sweden.
Karl-Göran Sjögren.
Neolithic populations declined 5,000 years ago, but the reasons are subject to debate.
Around 400 local children have been involved in this archaeological project in Cardiff, Wales.
Vivian Paul Thomas
Since 2011, professional and amateur archaeologists in Cardiff have been unearthing prehistoric artefacts. But last summer, they began to discover something even more extraordinary.
It is easy to think that handwashing is accessible to all today, but COVID-19 calls attention to communities both within Canada and around the globe where clean water is not a given.
(Shutterstock)
Why is socio-economic inequality so threatening to complex societies and how can archaeology inform public policies for mitigating it?
Tap O'Noth with its fort enclosure visible at the summit.
Recent excavations reveal that what was once thought to be a Bronze Age fort is actually much younger, and produce evidence of a huge settlement that was home to 4,000 people.
A Middle Bronze Age child from the Lebanese site of Sidon buried in a large jar. Smaller ceramics were placed with the dead as funerary objects.
Claude Doumet-Serhal
Researchers used advanced chemical analyses to study breastfeeding in some of the world’s first farming communities.
© Great Orme Mines Ltd
New research reveals remarkable evidence of a copper-mining bonanza in Wales that was so productive the metal reached France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden.
Late Bronze Age baby bottles from Vösendorf, Austria.
Enver-Hirsch © Wien Museum
Ancient farmers ensured their children were fed and entertained in a similar way to modern parents.
An Islamic State photo purports to show the destruction of a Roman-era temple in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra in 2015.
Islamic State/Handout via Reuters
Armed conflict in Syria has been a disaster for the area’s cultural heritage. A displaced archaeologist describes what’s being lost.
Tin comes from the ore cassiterite.
Shutterstock/PYP
On its own it’s just tin. But mix it with other elements and it turns into a material that helped shape the ancient world.
Milling grain meant less wear and tear on neolithic teeth, which had other effects on language.
Juan Aunion/Shutterstock.com
Considering language from a biological perspective led researchers to the idea that new food processing technologies affected neolithic human beings’ jaws – and allowed new language sounds to emerge.
Rawpixel/Shutterstock.com
Recycling on a large scale is a Bronze Age invention.
brajcev / shutterstock
Serbia was pumping out lead pollution while Britain was still in the stone age.
Ludovic Mann (right) and a colleague studying the site in 1930s.
Historic Environment Scotland
It’s arguably Europe’s premier Bronze Age art site -– but it has spent the last 50 years hidden underground.
Tom Booth
Turns out the Egyptians weren’t the only ones who mummified their dead.
Slurp and thank the Yamnaya.
Samantha Jade Royds/Flickr
Study sheds light on how have traits that were rare in African ancestors became common in Europe.
Dads in Paris.
David McSpadden/Flickr
Genetic study reveals that two-thirds of European men can be traced back to just three individuals who lived between 3,500 and 7,300 years ago.