Features
Features November/December 2025
Secrets of the Seven Wonders
How archaeologists are rediscovering the ancient world's most marvelous monuments
RECENT Features
Features November/December 2025
Acts of Faith
Evidence emerges of the day in 1562 when an infamous Spanish cleric tried to destroy Maya religion
Features November/December 2025
Temples to Tradition
A looted cache of bronzes compels archaeologists to explore Celtic sanctuaries across Burgundy
Features November/December 2025
Oasis Makers of Arabia
Researchers are just beginning to understand how people thrived in the desert of Oman some 5,000 years ago
Features November/December 2025
Searching for Venezuela’s Undiscovered Artists
Inspired by their otherworldly landscape, ancient people created a new rock art tradition
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Features January 1, 2011
Cave of the Swimmers - Egypt
The Neolithic rock art at the Cave of the Swimmers, made popular by the 1996 film The English Patient, is being admired to death by tourists who feel compelled to touch the 10,000-year-old paintings.
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Features January 1, 2011
Nondestructive Radiocarbon Dating - College Station, Texas
Precisely dating archaeological artifacts is not as easy or harmless as it might seem. The most common method, radiocarbon dating, requires that a piece of an organic object be destroyed—washed with a strong acid and base at high temperature to remove impurities, and then set aflame.
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Features January 1, 2011
Early Pyramids - Jaen, Peru
Peru's towering burial mounds, with their underground chambers and layers upon layers of history, had long been thought to be a distinctive feature of the country's arid coast.
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Features January 1, 2011
Royal Tomb - El Zotz, Guatemala
A deep looters' trench led archaeologists to a series of amazing, macabre finds beneath the El Diablo pyramid at the modest Maya city of El Zotz.
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Features January 1, 2011
Decoding the Neanderthal Genome - Leipzig, Germany
This past year will always be remembered as the year we found out that the Neanderthals survived and they are us.
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Features January 1, 2011
"Kadanuumuu" - Woranso-Mille, Ethiopia
For the last 35 years, the short-legged “Lucy” skeleton has led some scientists to argue that Australopithecus afarensis didn’t stand fully upright or walk like modern humans, and instead got around by “knuckle-walking” like apes. Now, the discovery of a 3.6-million-year-old beanpole on the Ethiopian plains—christened “Kadanuumuu,” or “Big Man” in the Afar language—puts that tired debate to rest. The new fossil demonstrates these early human ancestors were fully bipedal.
