Archaeology

Researchers and expert seafarers teamed up to re-create an ocean journey from more than 30,000 years ago

Claims that an asteroid or comet airburst destroyed the biblical Sodom captured the public’s imagination. Its retraction shows that scientific conclusions aren’t decided by majority rule in the public square

The Danish government deputized private detectorists to unearth artifacts buried in farm fields. Their finds are revealing the country’s past in extraordinary detail

The first physical evidence of Roman gladiators fighting animals has been found in skeletal remains from England

Discarded authors Sarah Gabbott and Jan Zalasiewicz, observers of the geological past, look into the future

Roughly 8,000-year-old remains unearthed from present-day Tunisia held a surprise: European hunter-gatherer ancestry

Mummies’ aromas may provide insight into historical social classes and periods, according to a team of trained mummy sniffers

Plate tectonics, or the recycling of Earth’s crust, may have begun much earlier than previously thought—and may be a big reason that our planet harbors life

A finger-sized clay cylinder from a tomb in northern Syria appears to be the oldest example of writing using an alphabet rather than hieroglyphs or cuneiform

The 3.2-million-year-old human ancestor known as Lucy sparked a revolution in scientists’ understanding of the origins of clever hands and stone tools

Archaeological and genetic discoveries topple long-standing ideas about the domestication of equines

An ancient temple made by Arabian immigrants from the Nabataean culture has finally been found off the Italian coast