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A melting patch of ancient snow in the mountains of Norway has revealed a bow and arrows likely used by hunters to kill reindeer as long ago as 5,400 years. The discovery highlights the worrying effects of climate change, said study author Martin Callanan, an archaeologist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "It's actually a little bit unnerving that they're so old and that they're coming out right now," Callanan told LiveScience. "It tells us that there's something changing." Locked in snow Callanan and his colleagues spend every summer hiking up the Trollheim and Dovre mountains a few...

Archaelogists excavating a medieval church in a dales village have found further evidence that the site was an Anglo Saxon settlement. A carved section from an eighth century stone cross was unearthed during a dig at St Botolph"s field in Frosterley in Weardale this week. The discovery was met with great excitement from the archaeologists and volunteers who were digging on the site as part of the Altogether Archaeology project... Mr Frodsham said Frosterley was largely a post-medieval village but recent finds have suggested people lived in the area much earlier... It has already attracted more than 500 volunteers who...

Chemical analyses of teeth from 41 human skeletons excavated on Easter Island revealed the inhabitants ate rats rather than seafood; Here, Moai statues at Ahu Tongariki on the south-eastern part of the island, where 26 of the skeletons were found. The inhabitants of Easter Island consumed a diet that was lacking in seafood and was, literally, quite ratty. The island, also called Rapa Nui, first settled around A.D. 1200, is famous for its more than 1,000 "walking" Moai statues, most of which originally faced inland. Located in the South Pacific, Rapa Nui is the most isolated inhabited landmass on Earth;...

New findings from an archaeological excavation led this winter by Dr. Erez Ben-Yosef of Tel Aviv University’s Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology and Near Eastern Cultures prove that copper mines in Israel thought to have been built by the ancient Egyptians in the 13th century BCE actually originated three centuries later, during the reign of the legendary King Solomon.Based on the radiocarbon dating of material unearthed at a new site in Timna Valley in Israel’s Aravah Desert, the findings overturn the archaeological consensus of the last several decades. Scholarly work and materials found in the area suggest the mines...

Buried under soil for hundreds of years, the goddess of love and beauty has some chipping on her nose and face. Researchers think her presence could shed light on the extent of the Roman Empire's wide cultural influence at the time of its peak. Archaeologists found the sculpture while working at a site called Antiochia ad Cragum (Antioch on the cliffs), on the Mediterranean coast. The researchers believe the region, which is dotted with hidden inlets and coves, would have been a haven for Cilician pirates — the same group who kidnapped Julius Caesar and held him for ransom around...

A Sarmatian burial mound excavated this summer in Russia’s Southern Ural steppes has yielded a magnificent but unusual treasure. The artefacts contained within the mound are helping to shed light on a little-known period of the illiterate nomadic culture that flourished on the Eurasian steppe in the 1st millennium BC and interacted with the Persian Achaemenid and Greek civilizations. The archaeological study of this remarkable ancient tomb, or kurgan, was carried out by the expedition of the Institute of Archaeology (Russian Academy of Sciences), led by Professor Leonid T. Yablonsky.

Eyewitnesses told Turkish media this week that a portion of the Temple Mount platform near the Al Aqsa Mosque has collapsed, creating a serious safety hazard and a possible threat to the stability of the Islamic structure. If the report is accurate, it would be the second serious collapse on the Temple Mount in the past five years. Palestinian officials claim that the collapses are caused by deliberate Israeli action to bring down the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock so that the Jewish Temple can be rebuilt. But archaeologists and engineers have been warning for...

The discovery in Peru of another tomb belonging to a pre-Hispanic priestess, the eighth in more than two decades, confirms that powerful women ruled this region 1,200 years ago, archeologists said. The remains of the woman from the Moche—or Mochica—civilization were discovered in late July in an area called La Libertad in the country's northern Chepan province. It is one of several finds in this region that have amazed scientists. In 2006, researchers came across the famous "Lady of Cao"—who died about 1,700 years ago and is seen as one of the first female rulers in Peru. "This find makes...

Experts find enormous marble tomb fit for a king under a massive mound in Greece Archaeologists have uncovered what could be the grave of Alexander the Great at a site near ancient Amphipolis, 370 miles north of Athens The warrior king was thought to be buried in Egypt but experts have discovered a marble-faced wall dating from the 4th century BC Site archaeologist Aikaterini Peristeri has voiced hopes of finding 'a significant individual or individuals' withinArchaeologists have uncovered what could be the grave of Alexander the Great at a site near ancient Amphipolis. The warrior king - who ruled in...

A 10-year legal battle is drawing to a close in the Holy Land over several astounding biblical relics, including a limestone box said to have held the bones of the purported brother of Jesus and the first-ever relic of biblical King Solomon's First Temple. But are they real or the greatest hoax in a hundred years? Last year, the Israel Antiquities Authority failed to prove in court that the items were forged by antiquities collector Oded Golan. Now the IAA seems to have changed its tune, and the two parties found themselves in court again in early August. Now Israel...

Archaeologists say they have discovered massive fortifications on the coast of Israel that may have protected an Assyrian artificial harbor during the Iron Age more than 2,700 years ago. Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) unearthed the crescent-shaped structure in the Israeli city of Ashdod, just south of Tel Aviv. The impressive fortifications date back to the eighth century B.C. At their core is a mud-brick wall that measures more than 12 feet (3.6 meters) wide and 15 feet (4.5 m) high. This wall is covered in layers of mud and sand extending outward hundreds of feet. "The fortifications appear...

A fossil of the oldest known ancestor of modern rats—an agile creature that could climb, burrow and eat just about anything—has been unearthed in China, scientists said Thursday. The newly named species Rugosodon eurasiaticus had flexible ankles for tree-climbing and sharp teeth that could gnaw both animals and plants, according to the journal Science. These adaptations helped the ancient rat-like rodents known as multituberculates become among the longest lived mammals in history, said the study led by Chong-Xi Yuan from the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences in Beijing. Believed to originate 160 million years ago during the Jurassic Period, they...

How far would you go to get your cinnamon fix? If you lived in the Levant 3,000 years ago (a region that includes modern day Israel), very far indeed new research indicates. Researchers analyzing the contents of 27 flasks from five archaeological sites in Israel that date back around 3,000 years have found that 10 of the flasks contain cinnamaldehyde, the compound that gives cinnamon its flavor, indicating that the spice was stored in these flasks. At this time cinnamon was found in the Far East with the closest places to Israel being southern India and Sri Lanka located at...

Archaeological excavations conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the area of the Gihon Spring in the City of David, in the Walls around Jerusalem National Park, have unearthed a layer of rich finds including thousands of broken pottery shards, clay lamps and figurines. Most intriguing is the recent discovery of a ceramic bowl with a partially preserved inscription in ancient Hebrew. While not complete, the inscription presents us with the name of a seventh century BCE figure, which resembles other names known to us from both the Biblical and archaeological record (see examples below) and providing us with a...

The invention of the bow and arrow allowed users to shoot projectiles more rapidly and more accurately than with the traditional spear. A new theory argues that this innovation resulted in more than just a technological revolution. It also had profound social consequences wherever the bow was adopted. Stony Brook University biologists Paul Bingham and Joanne Souza developed the “social-coercion hypothesis” as an explanation for the rise of social complexity. They recently outlined their work in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. According to this idea, the introduction of a more-effective weapon system gave social groups a safer, more-reliable way to coerce...

Magli simulated what the sky would have looked like from Turkey when Göbekli Tepe was built. Over millennia, the positions of the stars change due to Earth wobbling as it spins on its axis. Stars that are near the horizon will rise and set at different points, and they can even disappear completely, only to reappear thousands of years later. Today, Sirius can be seen almost worldwide as the brightest star in the sky -- excluding the sun -- and the fourth brightest night-sky object after the moon, Venus and Jupiter. Sirius is so noticeable that its rising and setting...

Beneath Rome's Fiumicino airport lies a "mini-Colosseum" that may have played host to Roman emperors, according to British archaeologists. The foundations of the amphitheater, which are oval-shaped like the much larger arena in the heart of Rome, have been unearthed at the site of Portus, a 2nd century A.D. harbor near Ostia's port on the Tiber River. A monumental seaport that saved imperial Rome from starvation, Portus is now reduced to a large hexagonal pond on a marshy land owned by a noble family, the Duke Sforza Cesarinis. The two-square-mile site has been known since around the 16th century, but...

Archaeologists from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) recently found the decapitated skull of an individual still lying in the offering bowl, dating back 500 years ago at the Tlatelolco temple site in Mexico City.The area is excavated within the tourist site. Image: INAH Tlatelolco is a site in Mexico City where remains of the pre-Columbian city-state of the same name have been found centred on the Plaza de las Tres Culturas, which is a large square surrounded on three sides by a excavated Aztec monuments and a seventeenth-century church called the Templo de Santiago.According to the archaeologist...

A Polish archaeologist at the Jagiellonian University Institute of Archaeology has made a 3D reconstruction of a 5,500-year-old brewing installation which was found at Tell el-Farcha, an archaeological site in Egypt dating back to approximately 3700 BC when it functioned as a centre of local Lower Egyptian Culture. The virtual reconstruction has brought to life the ancient scene in which Egyptians practiced a traditional form of beer making. The reconstruction was created based on preserved structures of similar analogous buildings at both Tell el-Farcha and other brewing centres in Upper Egypt. The Tell el-Farcha brewery, the oldest ever brewery found...

Established in 1247, the notorious Bethlem (“Bedlam”) Royal Hospital was the first dedicated psychiatric institution in Europe and possibly the most famous specialist facility for care and control of the insane, so much so that the word ‘bedlam’ has long been synonymous with madness and chaos. Now, in a spectacular discovery, archaeologists have uncovered the asylum’s ancient graveyard right in the heart of London, revealing as many as 20,000 skeletons. The 500-year-old graveyard was found during excavations to create a 13-mile high speed tunnel under Central London. Modern-day residents and visitors going about their busy daily lives have been oblivious...