Archaeology News Online

A majority of the oldest artefacts in the permanent collection of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco are either forgeries or not up to national museum standards, a new report has determined. A tripod bowl from Costa Rica, 900 C.E.-1200 C.E., is an example of a museum quality artefact pictured at  The Mexican Museum [Credit: Leah Millis, The Chronicle] Only 83 of the 2,000 artefacts in the museum's pre-Hispanic, or pre-Columbian, era collection could be authenticated, the report said. The other 1,917 are considered decorative and will probably be donated to schools or smaller museums. The museum board told the San Francisco Chronicle it was shocked by the results of the $80,000 study conducted as a Smithsonian Institution requirement. The Mexican Museum was founded in 1975 and operated as a community museum until it was accepted as a Smithsonian affiliate in 2012, which raised the bar on the quality of artefacts that can be displayed. A turtle vessel from southern Mexico, A.D. 350...

Metin Eren wasn't satisfied just digging up ancient arrowheads to learn about the past. He wanted to use them for their intended purpose. In this June 1, 2017, photo, Metin Eren, an archaeologist at Kent State University, looks at a newly chipped flake of  obsidian in Kent, Ohio. Eren runs a newly-opened laboratory which makes replicas of ancient arrows, knives,  and pottery to be shot, crushed, and smashed. It's allowing researchers to learn about engineering techniques  of the first native Americans without destroying priceless genuine relics in the process  [Credit: AP/Dake Kang] But shooting and shattering priceless millennia-old tips is out of the question, so instead, the archaeologist chips replicas of the stone-age weapons by hand. "We can break 'em and throw 'em," he says. "Our imagination is the limit." The 34-year-old Kent State University professor specializes in experimental archaeology — re-creating ancient pots, knives and arrows. By t...

It had been proposed that vast forests of giant palm trees were cut down by the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) leaving them among other things without canoes. With no canoes, they could no longer fish so they ate chickens, rats and agricultural crops. New isotopic analyses of bones, soils and plant remains from Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provide evidence contrary  to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [Credit: Terry Hunt] However, Rapa Nui is not a tropical paradise with fertile soils so crop productivity decreased. This 'ecocide' hypothesis attributes societal collapse on Rapa Nui to human overexploitation of natural resources. This new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology challenges that interpretation and instead shows that the ancient population ate roughly equal amounts of seafood and terrestrial resources. Catrine Jarman, lead author of the study and PhD student at the University ...

Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment, according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief  that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [Credit: Karen Schwartz/TT] "The traditional story is that over time the people of Rapa Nui used up their resources and started to run out of food," said Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo. "One of the resources that they supposedly used up was trees that were growing on the island. Those trees provided canoes and, as a result of the lack of canoes, they could no longer fish. So they started to rely more and more on land food. As they relied on land food, productivity went down because of soil ...

Women whose skeletons were found in a 1200 years old pre-Inca tomb in Peru could have been aristocrats: daughters or granddaughters of immigrants from different parts of the Wari empire - according to chemical analyses. The tomb was discovered by Polish archaeologists in 2012. With her hair still intact, the skull of a woman from the Wari elite brings new clues about the life of the ruling class  of El Castillo. Before burying her, her maids painted her face with red pigment, still visible over the eye socket  [Credit: National Geographic] The tomb containing 64 skeletons - mostly women - and more than 1200 precious objects made of silver, gold, bronze and other materials was discovered by a team of archaeologists led by Dr. Miłosz Giersz from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Warsaw in 2012. The discovery was made in central Peru in Huarmey, 300 km north of the country's capital Lima. Scientists have established that the tomb belongs to the representatives of ...

A sacrificial wolf elaborately adorned with some of the finest Aztec gold ever found and buried more than five centuries ago has come to light in the heart of downtown Mexico City, once home to the Aztec empire's holiest shrines. Gold pieces formed into symbols are seen at a site where a sacrificed young wolf elaborately adorned with some  of the finest Aztec gold has been discovered, adjacent to the Templo Mayor, one of the main Aztec temples,  in Mexico City, Mexico [Credit: Reuters/Henry Romero] The quality and number of golden ornaments is highly unusual and includes 22 complete pieces - such as symbol-laden pendants, a nose ring and a chest plate - all made from thin sheets of the precious metal, lead archaeologist Leonardo Lopez told Reuters. Held in a stone box, the cache was discovered in April near the capital city's bustling main square, the Zocalo, behind the colonial-era Roman Catholic cathedral and off the steps of what was once the most important Aztec ceremonial...

Many attempts to explain how past people experienced their wider world have focused on sight at the expense of sound, but researchers from the University at Albany and the University at Buffalo have developed a tool that puts sound back into the ancient landscape. UB's David Witt used GIS technology to explore the possible relationships between features of Chaco Canyon's built  environment and the canyon to learn whether sound played a role in where certain sites were located [Credit: University at Buffalo] UAlbany's Kristy Primeau and UB's David Witt use GIS technology to advance a largely theoretical discussion into a modeled sensory experience to explore how people may have heard their surroundings throughout an entire archaeological landscape, or soundscape. The results, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports , have more fully animated the ancient world and opened a discussion about how people at various locations, at sites ranging from sacred t...

Archaeologists in Mexico said Monday they have unearthed what they believe was a dwelling where upper class Aztecs who resisted the Spanish conquest tried to preserve their customs and traditions. Burial at the Aztec site of Colhuacatonco belonging to the time of Spanish contact  [Credit: María de la Luz Escobedo, INAH] The structure, where Aztecs were also buried, is part of an old neighborhood in Mexico City called Colhuacatonco, famous for being a place where the Aztecs resisted the Spanish conquest in the 16th century, the National Institute of Anthropology said in a statement. Human remains at the Aztec site of Colhuacatonco [Credit: María de la Luz Escobedo, INAH] The new find buttresses the argument that Colhuacatonco put up passive resistance after the fall of Tenochtitlan, the capital of the Aztec empire, said Maria de la Luz Escobedo, the archaeologist in charge of the project. INAH archaeologists located a sunken patio and a small ceremonial site [Credit: Meltón Tapia, I...

She died in her 20s some 1,700 years ago, and is believed to have ruled over a desert valley in ancient Peru where her elaborately tattooed body was buried with weapons and gold objects. The woman, dubbed the Lady of Cao, belonged to the Moche culture that thrived in the northern coastal region  between 100 and 800 AD [Credit: Peru Ministry of Culture ] But a glimpse of the former priestess, the Lady of Cao, can now be seen in a replica of her face unveiled by culture officials and archaeologists on Monday. Using 3-D imaging technology and forensics archaeology, the replica was based on the Lady of Cao’s skull structure and ethnographic research and took 10 months to create, Peru’s culture ministry said. The goal, said Culture Minister Salvador del Solar, was to bring the world closer to one of Peru’s best archaeological finds and remind Peruvians of their rich cultural heritage. “Its relevance is really incalculable,” del Solar said of the oval-shaped face with high cheekbones on ...

A majority of the oldest artefacts in the permanent collection of the Mexican Museum in San Francisco are either forgeries or not up to national museum standards, a new report has determined. A tripod bowl from Costa Rica, 900 C.E.-1200 C.E., is an example of a museum quality artefact pictured at  The Mexican Museum [Credit: Leah Millis, The Chronicle] Only 83 of the 2,000 artefacts in the museum's pre-Hispanic, or pre-Columbian, era collection could be authenticated, the report said. The other 1,917 are considered decorative and will probably be donated to schools or smaller museums. The museum board told the San Francisco Chronicle it was shocked by the results of the $80,000 study conducted as a Smithsonian Institution requirement. The Mexican Museum was founded in 1975 and operated as a community museum until it was accepted as a Smithsonian affiliate in 2012, which raised the bar on the quality of artefacts that can be displayed. A turtle vessel from southern Mexico, A.D. 350...

Metin Eren wasn't satisfied just digging up ancient arrowheads to learn about the past. He wanted to use them for their intended purpose. In this June 1, 2017, photo, Metin Eren, an archaeologist at Kent State University, looks at a newly chipped flake of  obsidian in Kent, Ohio. Eren runs a newly-opened laboratory which makes replicas of ancient arrows, knives,  and pottery to be shot, crushed, and smashed. It's allowing researchers to learn about engineering techniques  of the first native Americans without destroying priceless genuine relics in the process  [Credit: AP/Dake Kang] But shooting and shattering priceless millennia-old tips is out of the question, so instead, the archaeologist chips replicas of the stone-age weapons by hand. "We can break 'em and throw 'em," he says. "Our imagination is the limit." The 34-year-old Kent State University professor specializes in experimental archaeology — re-creating ancient pots, knives and arrows. By t...

It had been proposed that vast forests of giant palm trees were cut down by the people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) leaving them among other things without canoes. With no canoes, they could no longer fish so they ate chickens, rats and agricultural crops. New isotopic analyses of bones, soils and plant remains from Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provide evidence contrary  to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [Credit: Terry Hunt] However, Rapa Nui is not a tropical paradise with fertile soils so crop productivity decreased. This 'ecocide' hypothesis attributes societal collapse on Rapa Nui to human overexploitation of natural resources. This new study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology challenges that interpretation and instead shows that the ancient population ate roughly equal amounts of seafood and terrestrial resources. Catrine Jarman, lead author of the study and PhD student at the University ...

Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment, according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief  that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment [Credit: Karen Schwartz/TT] "The traditional story is that over time the people of Rapa Nui used up their resources and started to run out of food," said Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo. "One of the resources that they supposedly used up was trees that were growing on the island. Those trees provided canoes and, as a result of the lack of canoes, they could no longer fish. So they started to rely more and more on land food. As they relied on land food, productivity went down because of soil ...