Tag: lost civilizations

Ancient ‘female-centered’ society thrived 9,000 years ago in Çatalhöyük

Ancient DNA from Stone Age burials in Turkey has finally put to rest a decades-long debate about whether the 9,000-year-old proto-city of Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society. The research finally confirms what experts have long suspected: Women and girls were key figures in this agricultural society.

“With Çatalhöyük, we now have the oldest genetically-inferred social organisation pattern in food-producing societies,” study co-author Mehmet Somel, an evolutionary geneticist at Middle East Technical University in Turkey, told Live Science in an email. “Which turns out to be female-centered.”

The new research was published Thursday (June 26) in the journal Science.

Located in south-central Turkey, Çatalhöyük was built around 7100 B.C. and was occupied for nearly 1,000 years. The vast settlement — spread over 32.5 acres (13.2 hectares) — is known for its houses that were entered from the roofs, burials beneath the house floors, and elaborate symbolism that included vivid murals and a diverse array of female figurines.

When archaeologist James Mellaart first excavated Çatalhöyük in the early 1960s, he interpreted the numerous female figurines as evidence of a matriarchal society that practiced “mother goddess” worship, perhaps as a way of ensuring a good harvest following a major economic transition from foraging to cereal-based agriculture.

In the 1990s, Stanford archaeologist Ian Hodder took over excavations at Çatalhöyük, and his research suggested instead that the society was largely egalitarian, without meaningful social or economic differences between men and women.

To further investigate the social organization at Çatalhöyük, in a new study, a team of researchers that included both Somel and Hodder analyzed the DNA of 131 skeletons dated to between 7100 and 5800 B.C. that were buried beneath house floors.

The researchers connected 109 people across 31 buildings and found that all first-degree relatives (parents, children and siblings) were buried together in the same building, while second-degree (uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and grandparents) and third-degree relatives (such as first cousins and great grandparents) were often buried in nearby buildings. This suggests that nuclear or extended families had a role in structuring Çatalhöyük households, the researchers wrote in the study.

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7,000-year-old Village Sites Reveal Thriving Life on Remote Alaskan Island

Archaeological discoveries on Shuyak Island in Alaska’s Kodiak Archipelago have unveiled a remarkable chapter in Native American history, with the identification of what may be the island’s oldest known settlement dating back approximately 7,000 years.

The groundbreaking findings, announced by the Alutiiq Museum’s archaeology team, have dramatically expanded our understanding of ancient Indigenous settlement patterns across Alaska’s rugged coastal landscape. Led by Patrick Saltonstall, the museum’s curator of archaeology, the multi-year survey has uncovered dozens of previously undocumented village sites, particularly on the island’s lesser-studied eastern shores, reports Alaska Public Media.

Shuyak Island, known in the Alutiiq language as Suu’aq meaning “rising out of the water,” has long been considered sparsely populated throughout its history. Today, the island is largely encompassed by Shuyak Island State Park, attracting kayakers and wildlife enthusiasts to its pristine wilderness. However, the recent archaeological evidence tells a different story.

“Shuyak Island has always sort of been a place where I think it seems like there were fewer people up there,” Saltonstall explained. “But finding that, you know what your preconceptions are and what you actually find often don’t match” reported Archaeology Magazine.

The survey identified one remarkable village site featuring 11 house pits that researchers believe housed between 200 and 300 people approximately 300 years ago. Even more surprising was the discovery of the 7,000-year-old settlement, which represents the earliest evidence of human habitation ever found on the island.

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Researchers Have Cracked the 4,500-Year-Old Genome of a Mummy From Egypt’s First Pyramid Age

An ancient Egyptian genome has finally been unraveled after four decades of study, thanks to a sample collected from a mummy dating back to the time of the first pyramids.

The achievement marks the first complete sequencing of a genome of such antiquity collected from the region. The genetic data revealed information about the movement of people over millennia, as 80% of the individual’s DNA corresponds to ancient North Africans, while 20% is related to ancient West Asians.

The remains reveal a story of a hard life of manual labor, lived by an individual who possibly belonged to an ancient Egyptian pottery community.

A Decades-Long Genetic Quest

Forty years ago, Svante Pääbo, a Nobel Prize-winning Swedish geneticist, conducted the first successful extraction of ancient Egyptian DNA, although his work only resulted in a partial sequence. Now, scientists at the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) have conducted the first complete sequencing after working with the oldest Egyptian DNA sample ever collected.

“Forty years have passed since the early pioneering attempts to retrieve DNA from mummies without successful sequencing of an ancient Egyptian genome,” said co-author Pontus Skoglund, Group Leader of the Ancient Genomics Laboratory at the Francis Crick Institute. “Ancient Egypt is a place of extraordinary written history and archaeology, but challenging DNA preservation has meant that no genomic record of ancestry in early Egypt has been available for comparison.” 

“Building on this past research, new and powerful genetic techniques have allowed us to cross these technical boundaries and rule out contaminating DNA, providing the first genetic evidence for potential movements of people in Egypt at this time,” Skoglund added.

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6,000-Year-Old Ancient Venus Figurine Discovered in the Polish Baltic, Rewriting History

Deep in the peaceful countryside along Poland‘s Baltic shore, where the Parsęta River flows toward the ocean, a farmer unearthed a find that would rewrite northern Europe’s prehistory. In the sandy ground lay a small, beige sculpture — no more than 12 centimeters tall — given the title of the ‘Kołobrzeg Venus’, a 6,000-year-old limestone statuette.

Now celebrated as one of the most sensational archaeological discoveries in Polish history, the statuette has wide hips, prominent breasts, and absence of facial features. It recalls the ancient Venus figurine convention — female forms sculpted in the Neolithic and Paleolithic eras that have long fascinated and baffled archaeologist, reports  Muzeum Oręża Polskiego w Kołobrzegu.

The figurine was discovered in December 2022 by a farmer working the land near Kołobrzeg, a city that today is better known for its seaside resorts than its ancient past. The farmer passed the object to Waldemar Sadowski of the Parsęta Exploration and Search Group, an amateur archaeological team that collaborates with the Polish Arms Museum.

The discovery was finally shown to professional archaeologist Marcin Krzepkowski of the Relicta Foundation in 2023, who recognised its singularity at once.

“This is the find of the century,” said Aleksander Ostasz, director of the Polish Arms Museum in Kołobrzeg, in an interview with National Geographic. “It absolutely pushes the boundaries of our history of Kołobrzeg.”

Radiocarbon testing established that the figurine is Neolithic in age — around 6,000 years old — which makes it one of the oldest known artifacts associated with settled agricultural communities in this part of Europe. Previously, no such figurines were ever found north of the Carpathians, so Kołobrzeg Venus is a stunning exception and an anomaly in Poland’s archaeological history.

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Study Confirms Controversial 23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints, Challenging Past Views on Peopling of the Americas

New radiocarbon dating of purportedly 23,000-year-old footprints discovered in a dried lakebed in White Sands, New Mexico, has confirmed their age, reigniting controversy regarding the earliest arrival of humans in the Americas.

Several scientists have questioned the early dating of the fossil footprints, and have noted the lack of artifacts found at the location. However, the scientists behind the newly confirmed dates say the transitory nature of their location supports the idea that the makers of the 23,000-year-old footprints were likely only passing through and did not leave any objects behind.

23,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Appear 10,000 Years Too Early

For much of the 19th and early 20th  centuries, archaeologists believed humans had not arrived in the Americas until as recently as 3,000-4,000 years ago. In the late 1920s, archaeological discoveries at sites like Folsom and Clovis in New Mexico pushed that date back thousands of years, with the most commonly accepted date for human arrival being extended to 13,000 years ago. This date is supported by geological history, indicating that the land bridge between Asia and North America would not have been passable 10,000 years earlier.

The situation changed in 2019 when researchers from the UK’s Bournemouth University and the U.S. National Park Service unearthed a series of undoubtedly human footprints in White Sands dated to between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago. As noted, those findings, which were published in 2021, remain highly controversial since they seem to go against a relatively well-established timeline.

“The immediate reaction in some circles of the archeological community was that the accuracy of our dating was insufficient to make the extraordinary claim that humans were present in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum,” said study author and U.S. Geological Survey USGS research geologist Jeff Pigati in a later statement.

Even Pigati and colleagues’ 2023 follow-up analysis lending support for the extremely ancient date, as well as a separate study offering evidence of 22,000-year-old transport technology in the same area, and the discovery of an alternate, ancient ice-highway route from Asia to North America still did not manage to settle the debate.

Recently, Vance Holiday, an archaeologist and geologist from the University of Arizona whose 2012 study of the White Sands area just a few yards from the location of the footprints assisted with their initial 2021 dating, returned to perform a new analysis of the footprints. Unlike previous tests that relied on seeds and pollen to date the footprints, Holliday and his team used radiocarbon dating of ancient mud in an independent lab to confirm the controversial dates.

New Soil Radiocarbon Dates Confirm Ancient Origin

Before returning for a new set of tests, Holliday enlisted the help of Jason Windingstad, a doctoral candidate in environmental sciences who worked as a consulting geoarchaeologist for previous research projects at White Sands.

During several outings in 2022 and 2023, the duo dug a new series of trenches in the dried ancient lakebeds. These efforts included collecting ancient mud samples taken from the beds of a stream where the supposedly 23,000-year-old footprints were discovered. Holliday says even more ancient evidence was likely here at one time, but millennia of wind erosion have left scarce material for his team to study.

“The wind erosion destroyed part of the story, so that part is just gone,” he explained. “The rest is buried under the world’s biggest pile of gypsum sand.”

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5,000-Year-Old Stone Basin Predates Tomb by 1,000 Years, Transported by Boat

A team of Spanish archaeologists has unraveled one of the most intriguing mysteries in Iberian prehistory: how a massive stone basin ended up inside the Matarrubilla dolmen near Seville—and why it is at least 1,000 years older than the structure meant to enshrine it.

Their findings, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, not only confirm the earliest known example of megalithic maritime transport in the Iberian Peninsula but also suggest that the Copper Age society in southern Spain was more complex and interconnected than previously believed.

A Monumental Enigma Inside a Dolmen

The Matarrubilla dolmen, part of the vast prehistoric site of Valencina de la Concepción in Andalusia, has long puzzled researchers due to an unusual artifact discovered inside: a rectangular stone basin measuring 1.7 m long, 1.2 m wide, and nearly 0.5 m high. Weighing more than 2,000 kg, the basin’s sheer size, unique material, and placement within the dolmen’s chamber raised numerous questions.

First documented in 1917, the basin seemed far too large to have been maneuvered through the dolmen’s narrow corridor. Additionally, its distinctive rock—gypsiferous cataclasite with red, green, and white veining—does not naturally occur anywhere near Valencina.

Provenance and Transport: From Distant Quarry to Ritual Center

By using geological and geoarchaeological techniques, the research team traced the stone’s likely origin to the opposite side of the ancient Gulf of Guadalquivir, near present-day Las Cabezas de San Juan, approximately 55 km from Valencina. At the time (around 3000–4500 BCE), the gulf stretched much farther inland than it does today.

Because of the stone’s weight and the distance, the team concluded that prehistoric people transported it via water—on rafts or boats—across the ancient bay. Once ashore, the basin was dragged approximately 3 km uphill, likely using wooden sleds and human or animal power.

This marks the first confirmed instance of riverine or maritime transport of a megalith in Iberian prehistory. Comparable methods have only previously been documented at sites like Stonehenge (UK) and Newgrange (Ireland).

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Archaeologists Discover 140,000-Year-Old Hidden City Beneath the Ocean

Near Indonesia’s Madura Street in the ocean researchers have discovered a city submerged which dates back around 140,000 years. This incredible discovery has had a ripple effect through the anthropological and archaeological communities around the world. They found this submerged city between the islands of Java and Madura, as it was once part of a prehistoric land mass.

It was discovered during marine sand, mining operations and artifacts, as well as fossilized remains, were discovered. Excavations followed, which revealed homo erect skull fragments and over 6000 other fossils that represents 36 different species such as the Komodo dragon and some other extinct fauna.

The wall land mass that connected parts of Southeast Asia was known as Sundaland. In the modern day, it encompasses Malaysia, Indonesia, and other surrounding oceans. Because of lower sea levels back in the day, this land mass was exposed and was a terrestrial habitat that supported human populations and diverse ecosystems.

Because of climate change, the climate has warmed over time, and the glaciers melted approximately 14,000 to 7000 years ago, making the sea levels rise gradually. This resulted in the Sundaland being submerged and becoming the archipelagic geography we see today. One can only assume that the Submersion of this prehistoric gland mass had incredible implications for prehistoric human populations.

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Ancient DNA Study Uncovers Mysterious “Ghost” Lineage in Tibet

Discovery of a 7,100-Year-Old Genetic Enigma

A recent genomic analysis of over 100 ancient individuals from China has revealed a previously unknown “ghost” lineage, shedding light on the genetic diversity of early populations in the region. The findings, published on May 29 in the journal Science, center on a 7,100-year-old female skeleton unearthed at the Xingyi archaeological site in China’s Yunnan province.

The study, led by researchers including paleontologist Qiaomei Fu from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, examined 127 ancient human genomes, most dating between 1,400 and 7,150 years ago. The oldest individual, a woman referred to as Xingyi_EN, provided crucial insights into an elusive ancestral group that may have contributed to modern Tibetan populations.

Tracing the Origins of Tibetans

One of the key questions in East Asian prehistory has been the origins of Tibetan populations. Previous research indicated that Tibetans possess a mix of northern East Asian ancestry and an unidentified genetic component—now potentially linked to the newly discovered ghost lineage.

Xingyi_EN, a hunter-gatherer from the Early Neolithic period, exhibited ancestry distinct from other East and South Asians. Instead, her DNA aligned more closely with a deeply diverged Asian population that had remained genetically isolated for millennia.

The Basal Asian Xingyi Lineage

The researchers identified Xingyi_EN as part of a previously unknown lineage, which they named the Basal Asian Xingyi lineage. This group is believed to have separated from other human populations at least 40,000 years ago and remained genetically distinct due to prolonged isolation.

Unlike Neanderthals or Denisovans—archaic humans known to have contributed DNA to modern populations—this ghost lineage represents a unique branch in human ancestry. “The possible isolation allowed this ancestry to persist without apparent admixture with other populations,” Fu explained in an email to Live Science.

Genetic Legacy in Modern Tibetans

At some point, descendants of the Basal Asian Xingyi lineage interbred with other East Asian groups, introducing their genetic material into the ancestral Tibetan gene pool. “The mixed population has lasted for quite a long time and contributed genes to some Tibetans today,” Fu noted.

However, the researchers caution that these conclusions are based on a single individual’s genome. Further studies with additional samples will be necessary to confirm the relationship between this ancient lineage and modern Tibetan populations.

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‘Sacred’ pyramid built by forgotten civilization in Amazon rainforest may be world’s tallest ancient structure

A strange peak in the middle of the Amazon rainforest may actually be the largest pyramid ever built in the ancient world.

Known as Cerro El Cono, this massive, pyramid-shaped formation is cloaked in mystery due to both its striking structure and the extreme difficulty of reaching it. 

The 1,310-foot-tall, pyramid-shaped hill sits in Peru’s Sierra del Divisor National Park, near the Ucayali River in the Amazon. 

Unlike other mountains, however, this extremely steep peak has a set of distinct flat surfaces – like the Great Pyramid of Giza – which have been covered by vegetation over the centuries.

Moreover, this one great peak sticks out from the completely flat rainforest around it, adding to the speculation that Cerro El Cono may not be a natural formation.

While scientists believe the giant hill is just a geological oddity, possibly a volcano or natural rock formation, local Indigenous tribes revere Cerro El Cono as a sacred mountain spirit which protects their communities, calling it ‘Andean Apu.’

This ancient tradition of worshipping mountain spirits dates back to a time before the Inca Empire, between 500 and 1000 CE, but another theory surrounding Cerro El Cono predates even these ancient myths.

Although the few studies of this area have yet to find evidence to prove it, local legends claim that Cerro El Cono sits on the ruins of an ancient pyramid built by a long forgotten civilization that lived in the Amazon.

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Archaeologists Unearth 5,000 Year-Old Tomb That’s Challenging Beliefs About Ancient Society

Buried for five millennia and forgotten beneath what was once a coastal dump, the tomb of a powerful woman from Peru’s ancient Caral civilization has just resurfaced—and it’s rewriting the script on who held status at the dawn of American civilization. This discovery offers fresh insight into a society that may have valued women’s roles far more than history has given credit for.

“This is an important burial because it has elements that correspond to a woman of high status,” archaeologist David Palomino told Reuters. The find was made in Áspero, a site once used as a municipal dump just 112 miles north of Lima, along the Pacific coast. A video of the tomb and women’s findings was shared via @ntc’s Instagram Post.

Far from an ordinary burial, the woman—believed to have died between the ages of 20 and 35—was wrapped with extraordinary care, her body still preserving traces of skin, hair, and even fingernails. She was covered in a mantle woven with blue and brown feathers, possibly from Amazonian macaws, and buried alongside baskets filled with offerings, vases, gourds, and even a toucan’s beak.

Palomino believes the details of the tomb point to more than just individual status—they hint at broader cultural values. “Not only men had an important association in this civilization,” he said, “but this was also complementary with that of women.”

The Caral civilization, active around 3000 B.C., thrived in isolation at the same time as the Egyptian pyramids were rising and Mesopotamia was inventing writing. But unlike those ancient giants, Caral developed without influence from other parts of the world. That makes this discovery all the more fascinating: it suggests gender roles may have been more balanced than previously assumed in one of humanity’s earliest urban experiments.

The site of the tomb—once a forgotten dump—now tells a much older, richer story. And it’s one that might just shift the way we think about power, prestige, and the role of women at the dawn of civilization. The artifacts below were found alongside the burial site at Aspero and serve as physical proof of that the oldest city in the Americas was more advanced than some countries in modern day today.

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