A Stone Age burial site in Majoonsuo in the municipality of Outokumpu in eastern Finland has provided an exceptional find during an archaeological dig. Buried underneath a gravel road in a forest in...
Based on the DNA extracted from a 19th century skeleton, a forensic artist has recreated the face of a man who was buried, but never laid to rest. Mr. John Barber’s body was later dug up so that his...
A grave found in Late Viking Age eastern Norway looks uncannily similar to one of the most immaculate graves from the Roman Age in Norway, from the Hunn burial site in Østfold. A rich burial site, it...
Many fascinating artifacts and ruins have been uncovered accidentally, particularly during construction projects or by farmers plowing their fields. This pattern has just been repeated in a small...
Archaeologists in Peru have unearthed the bodily remains of three children and five adults. This adds to bodies discovered at this site in August, the researchers suspect they've identified a rare...
Militaries from many countries past and present have used animals in their work. Whether using horses to carry men, or dogs to track and patrol, the use of animals has been significant throughout...
A team of archaeologists have studied the remains of a 10,000-year-old baby with high technology. Their new paper not only found signs of ritual burial, but it reveals that baby carriers, or baby...
Since the dawn of humanity, countless civilizations have engaged in ritual sacrifice. Often, these sacrifices involved other humans, and were so common they were considered a normal aspect of life...
The first Norman king of England met an untimely and turbulent death, although, to be fair, the situation really ‘exploded’ after his death. William the Conqueror, sometimes known as William the...
A new study has revealed that elite Vikings, specifically highly ranked Danish Vikings, used and wore beaver furs as a means of showing off their exalted social status. This practice is not...
2022 is shaping up to be a big year for colonial era discoveries in Central and South America. Only in May Ancient Origins covered the story of archaeologists studying “42 syphilis-ridden colonial...
A team of 65 Bournemouth University archaeology students exploring an Iron Age site in Dorset County in southwest England have been credited with a significant discovery. While digging at a location...
The ancient city of Kelenderis on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey is the site of the Greek Celenderis, a port and fortress in ancient Cilicia and later Isauria. From here, a furnace for commercial...
Robert the Bruce is one of the most, if not the most famous Scotsmen to have ever lived. Infamous for the 14th-century reign that saw him taking on England’s much bigger and better-equipped army and...
In November 2013 archaeologists from the University of Durham in northern England found two mass graves near Durham Cathedral. At first the archaeologists thought the bodies belonged to the Cathedral...
A rare 2,300-year-old Hellenistic cremation burial has been discovered in Istanbul. Artifacts discovered in the Hellenistic-era burial tomb are revealing secrets about the city of ancient Chalcedon,...
Ancient tombs are fascinating finds, especially when they’re intact. They can provide us with clues on how a person died, social status, burial styles, and funerary rites. The last of these is...
In 2020 construction workers in the Netherlands made a gruesome discovery. While working in the city of Vianen they came across an enigmatic mass burial. Were the 82 skeletons victims of war, a...
Jericho (also called Tell es-Sultan ) is a city with an incredibly rich history located in the Palestinian West Bank, near the Jordan River, some 55 kilometers (34 mi) from Jerusalem. Besides being...
Archaeologists performing excavations in Mexico City’s Centro neighborhood dug up more than they bargained for when they uncovered the hidden ruins of an ancient Aztec dwelling, which had apparently...
Archaeologists in Norway have developed, tested, and deployed a new ground-penetrating radar technique. The results of their work include the discovery of a 30 foot (9 meters) long and 5 foot (1.5...
How a culture buries its dead provides a crucial understanding of a culture across time periods, across historical divides, across geographical territories. Some of these ancient and prehistoric...
How old is the art of embalming the dead and where did it originate? This is one of those eternal archaeological questions that is constantly reinforced and altered with the arrival of new evidence...
In an intriguing discovery, the remains of an African man who died just 350 years ago have been found buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. The middens in Amoreira and other...
