History & Archaeology

Inscribed Shard Treasure recovered

Left: A potsherd with a receipt for offerings to the temple goddess Repit. Center: One of the possible punishments from using the shards...

Roman Empire’s youngest amphitheater discovered

Aerial view of the exposed arena wall. (Image: Cantonal Archeology Aargau) In the greater Basel area, archaeologists have discovered the remains of a Roman...

Lost Schwanenburg located

Left: An archaeologist explores the underground with a magnetometer. Right: Geophysical prospecting reveals traces of the former Schwanenburg. (Images: LWL Archaeology/J. Coolen) After...

Paradox of the Neolithic settlement Pestenacker clarified

Replica of a Neolithic house from the Pestenacker wetland settlement. (Image: Christoph Zielhofer) Around 5,500 years ago, people in the Bavarian foothills of the...

Trace of medieval wine culture

Two oak beams bear witness to a tree press from the 14th century. (Image: State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in the...

Mayan Decline: Drought alone wasn’t enough

Cassava may have served the Maya as food during dry seasons. (Image: Thamizhpparithi Maari) It is widely believed that climate played a major role...

This Austrian dinosaur probably heard very little

Researchers arrive at surprising new insights about an armored Ankylosaurus: it was slow and deaf. Millions of years ago, several special dinosaurs lived on...

Donkey hybrid bred 4,500 years ago

Hunting wild donkeys in Nineveh, Mesopotamia. (Images: Eva-Maria Geigl / IJM / CNRS-Université de Paris Even before domesticated horses were introduced to Mesopotamia around...

What culture invented the horned helmets?

The horned helmet motif existed long before the Vikings. (Image: Michael Burrell / iStock) The horned helmet is often considered the typical headgear of...

Lignite was already burned in the Bronze Age

In the vicinity of the Mycenaean castle of Tiryns, lignite apparently burned in the ovens for the production of bronzes and ceramics. (Image:...

A Raetian settlement in sight

An Austrian team of archaeologists is on the trail of the secrets of a settlement that was enthroned on a hill southwest of Innsbruck...

On the trail of exciting DNA in sediments

Sampling from an impregnated sediment block for the analysis of old DNA. (Image: MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology) How has the genetic material survived the...

Recent Articles