Cultural History

After more than a decade of excavation work, the nearly complete skeleton of the Australopithecus fossil called Little Foot, so named for the diminutive size of the bones, has been convincingly dated

The Greek writing on the walls includes text about ancient drug use that references Homer's epic poem 'The Odyssey,' archaeologists said, adding that this is the first-known structure confirmed to be a school in ancient Egypt.

Researchers Lidar Sapir-Hen and Erez Ben-Yosef from Tel Aviv University have discovered what may be a discrepancy in the history laid out in the Bible.

Using carbon-dating to determine the age of the oldest-known camel bones, the researchers deter...

A 17th century Danish noblewoman had been buried with her head resting on a pillow sewn with gold threads and her maiden crown

A well-preserved Iron Age village found in Northern Denmark includes a number of houses complete with fireplaces, chalk floors and cobbled paving

IT WAS AN UGLY SHIP, AND STILL IS. The steamer Mohawk was a 387-foot workhorse on the weekly run to Havana, carrying freight and discount passengers in both...

It could be humanity's oldest story of doomed love. Archaeologists have unearthed two skeletons from the Neolithic period locked in a tender embrace and buried outside Mantua, just 25 miles south of Verona, the romantic city where Shakespeare set...

Some 1,200 years ago, a prominent Moche woman was laid to rest with great pomp and ceremony. Now archaeologists have uncovered her tomb along with clues that testify to her privileged status and the power she once wielded.

The discovery—made over the last couple of weeks at the site of San José de Moro in the Jequetepeque River valley of northern Peru—is one of several that have revolutionized ideas about the roles women played in Moche society.

In about A.D. 750 this revered woman was buried in a large chamber some 20 feet (6 meters) beneath the ground. The earthen walls of her tomb were painted red, and large niches held offerings of ceramic vessels. Two adults, presumably sacrificed female attendants, were buried with her along with five children. (See video of a Moche tomb.)

Three Inca children found mummified atop a 20,000-foot volcano in South America consumed increasing amounts of coca leaf and corn beer for up to a year before they were sacrificed, according to a new study.

Sedation by the plant and alcohol combined with the frigid, high-altitude setting may explain how the children were killed. There is no evidence for direct violence, the researchers noted.

The coca leaf and corn beer consumption rises about six months before death and then skyrockets in the final weeks, especially for the eldest, a 13-year-old girl known as the "Ice Maiden."

"She was probably heavily sedated by the point at which she succumbs to death," Andrew Wilson, an archaeologist at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom and the study's lead author, told NBC News.

Another mystery coffin has been found in a tomb next to Richard III's final resting place. Archaeologists discovered the 600-year-old casket yesterday morning.

We can't really be sure about what's happened to the grave over the past 600 years, but the lid of the coffin doesn't match the rest of it and there's some damage to the mortar so it looks like it might have been opened.'

The remains are encased in 5mm-thick lead. But the exposed feet, and some damage to the lead, suggest the corpse was dug up and reburied hundreds of years ago.

A crucifix embellished on the lid suggests religious valuables may have been placed in the coffin but removed some time later, according to lead diggers.

The team discovered the tomb containing the lead coffin last August but recovered it to concentrate on excavating Richard III.