Tag: archaeology

20,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Unearthed in South Africa

A team of archaeologists from Chicago’s Field Museum has uncovered thousands of stone tools in coastal caves near South Africa’s southern tip. Some of the tools date back as far as 24,000 years. The discovery, detailed in a recent Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology study, reveals advanced blade-making techniques developed during the Last Glacial Maximum. These findings offer new insights into how Ice Age humans connected, adapted, and exchanged knowledge over long distances.

The excavation was led by Dr. Sara Watson, a postdoctoral researcher at the museum’s Negaunee Integrative Research Center. It focused on caves near what would have been an inland plains region 20,000 years ago. At that time, lower sea levels had pushed the coastline miles beyond its current boundary. The area, rich with antelope and other megafauna, gave hunter-gatherers a strategic place to live and hunt.

The tools, crafted between 24,000 and 12,000 years ago, include small, razor-sharp bladelets and stone cores—the parent rocks from which blades were systematically chipped. By analyzing minuscule striations and reduction patterns on these artifacts, the team reconstructed the meticulous methods used to produce them. Notably, the cores exhibited a distinctive reduction strategy known as “Robberg” technology, named after the region’s caves, where tiny bladelets were precision-struck in sequences to maximize efficiency.

“The core is the storyteller,” Watson explained. “It reveals the intentionality behind each strike—a shared ‘recipe’ repeated across sites.” Strikingly, this method mirrors techniques identified in sites hundreds of miles away in modern-day Namibia and Lesotho. “The repetition of these patterns isn’t accidental. It signals a transmission of knowledge, likely through direct interaction between groups,” Watson added.

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Archaeologists May Have Just Found the Site of Jesus’s Tomb

As a literary device, this description of the burial place of Jesus Christ is effective; it offers a contrast between the site of Jesus’s death at the crucifixion site of Calvary (also called Golgotha, both derived from the Latin for “place of the skull”) and a fertile garden, brimming with life. It also provides a cyclical shape to the final chapter of the Christ narrative, which begins with his arrest in the garden of Gethsemane.

So, as storytelling, this single sentence from the Gospel of John (the most recently written of the four canonical gospels, most scholars agree) has a substantial power to its brevity. But, as a historical record of where, exactly, one of the most famous men who ever lived was laid to rest, you’d be forgiven for finding it sorely lacking in detail.

Yet, thanks to a new discovery reported in the Times of Israel, that sentence might be key to confirming where the real man at the center of the Christian faith was placed after his famous crucifixion.

As the Times notes, the site that now hosts the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is held in the Christian tradition to encompass both the crucifixion site and the tomb in which Christ was buried. As such, it is beset upon at all times by Christ-following pilgrims from across the planet, determined to worship at the site where they believe the Messiah lay dead for three days before his resurrection on Easter Sunday.

But this popularity is only part of the problem for archaeologists hoping to examine the purportedly holy site.

There was also, as the Times describes, “decades of in-fighting” between the three religious communities charged with managing the church: the Orthodox Patriarchate, the Custody of the Holy Land, and the Armenian Patriarchate. When these groups finally came to a consensus in 2019 that the Church of the Holy Sepulchre required renovations to replace the site’s 19th-century floor, a team of Italian architects with La Sapienza University saw their opportunity.

“With the renovation works, the religious communities decided to also allow archaeological excavations under the floor,” Francesca Romana Stasolla from the Sapienza University of Rome noted to the Times of Israel. The excavations have been under Stasolla’s direction since they commenced in 2022.

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Archaeologists Found a 3,000-Year-Old Lost City That May Hold Secrets of a Royal Past

Just like scientific hypotheses are ever-evolving, so is our understanding of history. 15 years ago, researchers began excavating what they thought were the remains of a military outpost, built to guard against Roman attacks—but their recent findings prove to be much more exciting. The site in Northern Macedonia, known as the archaeological site of Gradishte, might actually be an entire ancient city. And not just any city; it may have a direct connection to the lineage of Alexander the Great.

Using advanced drone-deployed LiDAR and ground penetrating radar technologies, researchers from Macedonia’s Institute and Museum–Bitola and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt (Cal Poly Humboldt) are uncovering the mysteries of this once thriving city. The team announced their findings in a university press release.

“We’re only beginning to scratch the surface of what we can learn about this period,” Engin Nasuh—curator-advisor archaeologist at the National Institute and Museum–Bitola—said in the press release.

Ancient Macedonia was a small, initially insignificant kingdom in Greece. Fighting among major powers in the region—such as between the Athenians and Persians or the Spartans and Athenians, respectively—made it easy for Macedonia (under the heavy hand of King Philip II to stake its claim to power. The kingdom eventually expanded into an empire, most notably under Philip II’s son, Alexander the Great, but eventually fell under Roman control due to internal power struggles.

According to the release, experts initially dated the city back to King Philip V’s reign (221-179 B.C.), but later archaeological findings pushed estimates further back. A coin minted between 325 and 323 B.C. points to the city’s existence during Alexander the Great’s lifetime. But other artifacts including axe fragments and ceramic vessels have led researchers to believe humans could have inhabited the area as far back as the Bronze Age (3,300-1,200 B.C.).

Of the structures uncovered at the site, a Macedonian-style theater and textile workshop are among the most notable. Archaeologists have also discovered coins, axes and textile tools, game pieces, pottery, and even a clay theater ticket at the site, suggesting that the area was a thriving city before Rome’s rise to power, according to Nasuh.

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Cave discovery could rewrite 1,000 years of Mediterranean history

Evidence discovered in a cave on Malta indicates hunter-gatherers visited the picturesque Mediterranean island long before they began farming on mainland Europe. If true, the 8,500-year-old archeological site appears to contradict commonly held assumptions about societal development among the continent’s last Mesolithic communities. Researchers published their findings on April 9 in Nature, and argue that as much as a millennium’s worth of Maltese prehistory may warrant reevaluation.

The trajectory of paleohistorical societies often goes something like this: first farming, then the open ocean. That’s because, generally speaking, the tools and techniques needed to craft seafaring technology such as sails only arrived after the invention of farming tools. Because of this, most archeologists long believed Mediterranean islands like Malta were some of the last wildernesses to encounter humans.

However, a cave site known as Latnija in Malta’s northern Mellieħa region is forcing experts to consider alternative historical narratives. There, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology and the University of Malta have uncovered evidence indicating a human presence on the island at least 8,500 years ago—roughly 1,000 years before the first known farmers arrived. More specifically, Latnija contained stone tools and hearth fragments, as well as cooked food waste. Some of this food even came from animals believed to have already died out on the island.

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Ancient Hunting Tools Unearthed in Texas Cave

Archaeologists have uncovered a remarkable collection of prehistoric hunting equipment in a remote cave near Marfa, Texas. Dating back approximately 6,500 years, the assemblage includes fragments of an atlatl (spear-throwing device), a curved wooden object resembling a boomerang, and multiple darts tipped with stone and wood. Discovered alongside remnants of a small fire and preserved fecal matter, these artifacts offer a rare window into the lives of North America’s early inhabitants. Researchers from Sul Ross State University and the University of Kansas suggest this may be one of the oldest near-intact sets of organic and stone tools ever found on the continent.

The discovery site, known as the San Esteban Rockshelter, appears to have served as a temporary shelter for ancient hunters. Evidence suggests that early humans used the cave to assess and repair damaged gear. ‘This wasn’t just a campsite—it functioned as a toolkit maintenance station,’” explained Dr. Bryon Schroeder, lead researcher at Sul Ross State University. “They’d discard broken items here while preparing for their next hunt.” Among the finds were wooden tips that may have delivered toxins to prey, highlighting sophisticated hunting techniques. The team theorizes that nomadic groups traversing the arid landscape periodically used the shelter to regroup and re-equip.

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Hidden tomb discovered by scientists investigating vast city beneath Giza pyramid

A ‘sarcophagus’ hidden more than 600 feet below the surface in Egypt is the latest discovery from the team that uncovered a ‘vast city’ beneath the Giza pyramids.

Italian researchers told DailyMail.com that they identified an unknown chamber under the Tomb of Osiris, which is believed to be a symbolic burial site dedicated to the Egyptian god of the afterlife.

Last week, the team announced the discovery of wells and chambers more than 2,000 feet below the Khafre Pyramid. If confirmed, these findings could rewrite human history.

Many independent experts have called the claims ‘outlandish,’ noting that using radar pulses to create images deep below the structure lacks scientific basis.

An image produced by the technology revealed the known levels within the Tomb of Osiris, descending 114 feet below the surface, along with a vertical shaft followed by three distinct steps.

It also detected a previously unknown structure, which ‘appears to reach an empty chamber’ 656 feet below the surface.

‘There is also a sarcophagus (?), which remains surrounded by running water,’ said the team.

However, Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who specializes in archaeology and was not involved in the study, said the technology cannot penetrate to such depths.

‘Maybe 30 or 40 feet, depending on the wavelength they’re using. But they’re not even telling us that. All of this is very speculative,’ he added

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Archaeologists Claim They Have Found a ‘Vast Underground City’ Underneath Egypt’s Giza Pyramids

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered evidence of a massive underground city lying beneath Egypt’s famous Giza pyramids.

Researchers from Italy and Scotland used advanced radar technology to produce detailed images from deep below the surface, revealing possible hidden structures 10 times the size of the pyramids themselves.

The report highlights eight distinct vertical, cylinder-shaped formations stretching over 2,100 feet beneath the pyramids, along with a series of additional unidentified structures located another 4,000 feet further down.

However, some experts remain skeptical of the claim, insisting that such a feat would be structurally impossible.

Mail Online reported:

Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who focuses on archaeology, told DailyMail.com that it is not possible for the technology to penetrate that deeply into the ground, making the idea of an underground city ‘a huge exaggeration.’

Professor Conyers said it is conceivable there are small structures, such as shafts and chambers, beneath the pyramids that existed before they were built because the site was ‘special to ancient people.’

He highlighted how ‘the Mayans and other people in ancient Mesoamerica often built pyramids on top of the entrances of caves or caverns that had ceremonial meaning to them.’

The work by Corrado Malanga, from Italy’s University of Pisa, and Filippo Biondi with the University of Strathclyde in Scotland has only been released during an in-person  briefing in Italy this week and is yet to be published in a scientific journal, where it would need to be analyzed by independent experts.

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Oldest Rock Art: 200,000-Year-Old Carvings Found on Stone in Marbella, Spain

Archaeologists have made a groundbreaking discovery in Marbella, Spain, unearthing a stone with ancient engravings on its face that could rewrite the history of prehistoric art. The find suggests that early humans may have been engaging in symbolic expression far earlier than previously believed, as this ancient rock art may predate the previous oldest samples in Europe by more than 100,000 years.

The stone was discovered at the Coto Correa site in the Las Chapas neighborhood of Marbella, which is located in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. Researchers currently estimate that the engravings are more than 200,000 years old, a timeframe that places them deep within the Lower Paleolithic era. The maker of the engravings would have been part of an early wave of human migrants to leave Africa and move into Europe, with much larger waves destined to duplicate this journey later on.

If these estimates are confirmed, this could be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Spain’s history, as it will literally require the rewriting of textbooks and other official resources that discuss the development of art as a form of human self-expression.

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2,700-Year-Old Meteorite Jewelry Unearthed in Poland Reveals Ancient Connection to the Cosmos

New research has revealed early Iron Age artifacts recovered from ancient Polish burial sites include metal pieces forged from rare extraterrestrial iron.

Culturally, this use may have contributed to a shift in how the value of this otherworldly or off-world material was perceived between the Bronze and Iron Ages, the new findings suggest.

In a recent study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, a team of Polish and French scientists analyzed artifacts from the Częstochowa-Raków and Częstochowa-Mirów burial sites, revealing incredible insights into our past. The discovery connects the cosmos and our ancient ancestors to craftsmanship skills they were previously unknown to possess.  

“During the Bronze Age, the price of iron was about ten times that of gold; in the early Iron Age, it sank drastically to less than copper,” study lead Dr. Albert Jambon notes.

Jambon and his colleagues think the random placement of meteoric iron in graves suggests there were no social or age restrictions on who was able to wear it. 

The study was mainly focused on understanding the origin of iron smelting. “The point of my research is to find out who, when, and where the iron smelting was discovered,” Jambon said. ‘To that end, we need to analyze archaeological irons and check whether they are meteoritic or smelted.”

Although only a modest amount of the material was found, the new findings still represent one of the largest collections recovered from a single archaeological site outside of Egypt. The discovery included 26 iron artifacts, an ankle ring, three bracelets, and a pin—all showing traces of nickel in the iron. Researchers believe this indicates the presence of meteoritic iron, offering a fascinating glimpse into ancient human connections with the cosmos.

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Huge Ancient Inca Underground Labyrinth Discovered Beneath Cusco, Starting At Sun Temple

After centuries of rumor and speculation, archaeologists have finally confirmed the existence of a colossal underground tunnel system beneath the Peruvian city of Cusco. Built by the ancient Inca, the labyrinth – or Chincana – radiates outwards from the Temple of the Sun, extending for more than a mile towards a fortress on the edge of the city.

The discovery was announced at a press conference during which researchers explained how they located the subterranean passages in three stages. The first of these involved studying historical texts from the 16th to 18th centuries in search of references to the Chincana and its whereabouts.

Among the most enlightening accounts was one written by an anonymous Spanish Jesuit in 1594, who explained that the main tunnel ran beneath the bishop’s houses behind Cusco Cathedral. The same text indicated that the passageway began at the Temple of the Sun – or Coricancha – and ended at the citadel of Sacsahuaman, some 1.75 kilometers (1.1 miles) away.

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