News by Subject Archaeology

On Feb. 16, the Art Institute of Chicago announced the results of significant new research on five terracotta sculptures -- so named Bankoni after a village in present-day Mali where they were found. The objects date from between the 12th and 15th centuries.

Contrary to the dominant narrative of cultural extinction, indigenous residents of Marin County survived colonization, preserving and passing on their traditions and cultural practices.

Coinciding with the Pit Grave culture (4200-3600 years before our era), coming from Southern Europe, the Neolithic communities of the north-eastern Iberian Peninsula started a ceremonial activity related to the sacrifice and burial of dogs. The high amount of cases that are recorded in Catalonia suggests it was a general practice and it proves the tight relationship between humans and these animals, which, apart from being buried next to them, were fed a similar diet to humans'.

The UPV/EHU's IBeA research group has used a non-destructive methodology to determine the role of specific algae, lichens, mosses, cyanobacteria, etc. that may be causing exfoliation and delamination, which are degrading the Sacred Rock of Machu Picchu, one of the most important symbols in the Peruvian archaeological city.

This work started 10 years ago, when the first dates using the OSL method were obtained. It is then that the first traces of footprints left by vertebrates were found. In subsequent years the successive natural collapse of sand has revealed further material and has permitted a detailed study including new dates.

An exceptional sauropod dinosaur specimen from the middle Cretaceous of Tanzania represents a unique species and provides new insights into sauropod evolution, according to a study published Feb. 13, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Eric Gorscak of Midwestern University, Illinois, and Patrick O'Connor of Ohio University, USA.

About eight hundred years ago, a ship sank in the Java Sea. There are no written records saying where the ship was going or where it came from -- the only clues are the mostly-disintegrated structure of the vessel and its cargo. But archaeologists have found a new way to tell where the ceramic cargo of the ship originally came from: by zapping it with an X-ray gun.

A new oviraptorosaur species from the Late Cretaceous was discovered in Mongolia, according to a study published in Feb. 6, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Yuong-Nam Lee from Seoul National University, South Korea, and colleagues.