Letters From
Letter from the Levant March/April 2025
On the Origin of the Pork Taboo
Exploring ancient people’s shifting beliefs about rearing and eating pigs
RECENT Letters From
Letter from Nigeria July/August 2024
A West African Kingdom's Roots
Excavations in Benin City reveal a renowned realm’s deep history
Letter from the Catskills May/June 2024
Ghost Towns of the Ashokan Reservoir
An archaeologist investigates how construction of New York City’s largest reservoir a century ago uprooted thousands of rural residents
Letter from Nicaragua March/April 2024
Who Were the People of Greater Nicoya?
Archaeologists are challenging long-held assumptions about Mesoamerica’s influence on Indigenous peoples to its south
Letter from Rome January/February 2024
Secrets of the Catacombs
A subterranean necropolis offers archaeologists a rare glimpse of the city’s early Jewish community
MORE Letters From
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Letter from El Salvador November/December 2023
Uneasy Allies
Archaeologists discover a long-forgotten capital where Indigenous peoples and Spanish colonists arrived at a fraught coexistence
(Courtesy Roger Atwood) -
Letter from Vesuvius September/October 2023
Digging on the Dark Side of the Volcano
Survivors of the infamous disaster rebuilt their lives on the ashes of the A.D. 79 eruption
(Courtesy Girolamo Ferdinando De Simone) -
Letter from Patagonia July/August 2023
Surviving a Windswept Land
For 13,000 years, hunter-gatherers thrived in some of the world’s harshest environments
(Courtesy Raven Garvey) -
Letter from the American Southeast May/June 2023
Spartans of the Lower Mississippi
Unearthing evidence of defiance and resilience in the homeland of the Chickasaw
(Kimberly Wescott and Brad Lieb, Chickasaw Native Explorers Program 2015) -
Letter from the Faroes March/April 2023
Lost History of the Sheep Islands
New evidence shows that the remote North Atlantic archipelago was settled hundreds of years before the Vikings reached its shores
(Polhansen/Adobe Stock) -
Letter from Ethiopia January/February 2023
Exploring a Forgotten Jewish Land
Using oral history, texts, and survey, archaeologists search for traces of a once-vibrant religious community
(Courtesy JewsEast Research Project)