Archaeology

A new method of handwriting analysis is offering fresh clues as to who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. Testing the machine learning tool on one of the most famous ancient scrolls has revealed not one but two scribes were responsible for the ancient text.

A team of scientists at the University College London has used 3D tomography to shed new light on the Antikythera Mechanism – the world's first computer, which was an accurate model of the Cosmos as it was known to the ancient Greeks.

A 3,500-year-old Egyptian medical text is shedding new light on the ancient practice of mummification. Recently discovered inside a much larger work, the papyrus document being studied by University of Copenhagen is the oldest known mummification manual.

Archeologists from University College London (UCL) have found the remains of a stone circle in west Wales, which indicate that part of Stonehenge was made from recycled stones. Excavations at Waun Mawn suggest that bluestones from the Welsh circle were moved 140 miles (225 km) away, about 5,000 years ago.

A novel analytical technique has revealed undiscovered compounds in an ancient Maya drug container previously thought to only be used for tobacco. The findings offer the first clear evidence that the Maya mixed tobacco with other plant materials.

A seven-year global effort has used almost 15,000 samples from a variety of sources to draw new, more accurate calibration curves to enable more precise radiocarbon dating of objects as old as 55,000 years.

An investigation by scientists from the University of Tübingen has found that foxes may have been feeding off human scraps for over 40,000 years, based on a study of several sites in southern Germany.

A new method for determining the sex of human remains based on proteins extracted from tooth enamel has proven more reliable than those based on DNA or bone anatomy.

An archaeological conundrum may have been solved by DNA analyses carried out by a team of Stanford Medicine scientists led by Alexander Ioannidis that indicates Native Americans and Polynesians came into contact centuries before the arrival of the first Europeans.

Researchers have found the first evidence Native Americans smoked a plant other than tobacco. Smooth sumac was likely consumed for medicinal qualities, but it's the method used to make the discovery that is really getting archaeologists excited.

Stonehenge cuts an imposing figure – but it’s just a fraction of the structures that once stood in the area. Now, archaeologists have discovered a huge, previously unknown ring of structures surrounding the region at Durrington Walls.

The rise of the Roman Empire may have been helped along by a colossal volcanic eruption that occurred on the opposite side of the Earth just after the death of Julius Caesar. The eruption may have altered the climate triggering famine and unrest.