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In the early 1960s, archaeologist James Mellaart uncovered a mural at Çatalhöyük, the world's largest and best-preserved Neolithic site, which he interpreted to represent a volcanic eruption. Fifty years later, scientific tests done on pumice at the nearby volcano Hasan Dag confirm that there was, in fact, an eruption between 9,500 and 8,400 years ago -- a timespan including the era that the mural was likely painted. ...In an Archaeology Odyssey article, Michael Balter, author of The Goddess and the Bull, wrote: "One painting, he [Mellart] thought, seemed to represent a town plan of the Neolithic village, with an erupting...

Researchers have analysed the oldest obsidian bracelet ever identified, discovered in the 1990s at the site of Asikli Höyük, Turkey. A high level of technical expertise Using high-tech methods developed by LTDS to study the bracelet's surface and micro-topographic features, the researchers have revealed the astounding technical expertise of craftsmen in the eighth millennium BCE. Their skills were highly sophisticated for this period in late prehistory, and on a par with today's polishing techniques. This work is published in the December 2011 issue of Journal of Archaeological Science, and sheds new light on Neolithic societies. Dated to 7500 BCE, the...

Along the shore near the site, archaeologists have found more than 6,000 objects, including fragments of the red ceramics that are characteristic of the area. Beck called the area an “archaeologist’s paradise.” Beck points out that other civilizations were extant at the time, such as Egypt and the nascent civilizations at the islands of Crete and Santorini. The researchers expect that future research at Lambayanna will shed new light on a dense network of coastal settlements stretched throughout the Aegean Sea. Of the structures found by the researchers, Beck said “There must have been a brick superstructure above a stone...

...Now, chemical analysis has revealed that the men were far from home when they were killed, up to several days’ journey from where they were born and raised. The discovery is only the most recent example of violence among prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the region, anthropologists say. But it bears important lessons about the nature of conflict and warfare in pre-contact California... The grave was unearthed in 2012 during the construction of a shopping center in the town of Pleasanton, in the Amador Valley just east of Oakland... One of the men suffered a severe blow above the left eye, causing...

Sacrificial burial deepens mystery at Teotihuacan, but confirms the city’s militarism Partially uncovered figurine, carved in jade, found in connection with three unbound, seated bodies and other objects at the top of the pyramid’s fifth stage (the offering was presumably made in the construction of the sixth stage), circa 350 AD. This object is notable in that it is carved from jade that originated in Guatemala, and appears to be Mayan in style. Other jade objects on top of the figurine are beads and earspools. A spectacular new discovery from an ongoing excavation at the Teotihuacan’s Pyramid of the Moon...

Neanderthals and other extinct human lineages might have been ancient mariners, venturing to the Mediterranean islands thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This prehistoric seafaring could shed light on the mental capabilities of these lost relatives of modern humans, researchers say. Scientists had thought the Mediterranean islands were first settled about 9,000 years ago by Neolithic or New Stone Age farmers and shepherds... For instance, obsidian from the Aegean island of Melos was uncovered at the mainland Greek coastal site of Franchthi cave in layers that were about 11,000 years old, while excavations on the southern coast of Cyprus...

beautiful and expertly-flaked obsidian tool which formed part of a cache, rescued from a development site, offers a greater insight into the lives of ancient people that inhabited the island of New Britain, Papua New Guinea (PNG). In October 2010 Dr Robin Torrence a Senior Principal Research Scientist at the Australian Museum Reseach Institute was contacted by the General Manager at Barema oil palm plantation on New Britain Island. The company was in the process of bulldozing the side of a hill to make a house terrace. In the process they had uncovered a group of finely worked obsidian (volcanic...

New research has turned up some perplexing clues in a prehistoric mystery: the fate of three men found in a mass grave in California, their bodies riddled with arrow points and dumped in a pit some 560 years ago. Their violent deaths came at a tumultuous time in Central California, archaeologists say, as bands were vying brutally for territory and resources. Indeed, the archaeological record from the period is rife with evidence of hand-to-hand combat: fractured skulls, broken arms, even body parts taken as trophies. But the new clues, uncovered by anthropologists at the University of California Davis, don’t have...

Researchers at the University of Sheffield have developed a method of sourcing obsidian artefacts that takes only 10 seconds -- dozens of times faster than the current methods -- with a handheld instrument that can be used at archaeological excavations. Obsidian, naturally occurring volcanic glass, is smooth, hard, and far sharper than a surgical scalpel when fractured, making it a highly desirable raw material for crafting stone tools for almost all of human history. The earliest obsidian tools, found in East Africa, are nearly two million years old, and obsidian scalpels are still used today in specialised medical procedures. The...

Seafaring before the Neolithic -- circa 7th millennium BCE -- is a controversial issue in the Mediterranean. However, evidence from different parts of the Aegean is gradually changing this, revealing the importance of early coastal and island environments. The site of Ouriakos on the island of Lemnos (Greece) tentatively dates to the end of the Pleistocene and possibly the beginning of the Holocene, circa 12,000 BP... Obsidian, or 'volcanic glass', has been a preferred material for stone tools wherever it is found or traded. It also absorbs water vapour when exposed to air -- for instance, when it is shaped...

Obsidian's CEO talks about meeting Matt Stone and Trey Parker, and kick-starting development of an RPG that will stay true to the show's roots, vulgar language and all.

A piece of obsidian (volcanic glass) dating back 4,000 years and believed to have been used as a scalpel for surgery has been unearthed during excavations carried out in the Black Sea province of Samsun. Speaking to the Anatolia news agency, Professor Önder Bilgi, the chairman of the excavations, said that the work in the ruins of the Ekiztepe village in Samsun's Bafra district had begun in 1974. "During this year's excavations, which started July 15, we discovered a piece of obsidian that was used as a scalpel in surgeries. Obsidian beds are generally situated in the Central Anatolian region...

Thirty-one acres in extent, Tell Zeidan is situated where the Balikh River joins the Euphrates River in modern-day Syria. The location was at the crossroads of major trade routes across ancient Mesopotamia that followed the course of the Euphrates River valley. Stein said Tell Zeidan may have been one of the largest Ubaid temple towns in northern Mesopotamia, and that it was as large or larger than any previously known contemporary Ubaid towns in the southern alluvial lowlands of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in what is today southern Iraq. However, because the site was not occupied after about 4,000...

Prehistoric Figurines from Franchthi Cave by Lauren E. TalalayFranchthi Cave has produced the second largest collection, after Corinth, of Neolithic figurines from the Peloponnese. Forty-five possible pieces came to light during excavations, and subsequent study classified 24 animal and human images unequivocally as "figurines." Of those, two are dated to the Early Neolithic, one to an Early/Middle transitional phase, eleven to the Middle Neolithic, six to the Late Neolithic and four to the Final Neolithic. This chronological distribution accords well with what is known from the rest of southern Greece where EN figurines are rare. The pattern stands in...

On September 19, 1997, the New York Times announced the discovery of a group of earthen mounds in northeastern Louisiana. The site, known as Watson Brake, includes 11 mounds 26 feet high linked by low ridges into an oval 916 feet long. What is remarkable about this massive complex is that it was built around 3400 B.C., more than 3,000 years before the development of farming communities in eastern North America, by hunter-gatherers, at least partly mobile, who visited the site each spring and summer to fish, hunt, and collect freshwater mussels... Social complexity cannot exist unless I it...