Archaeology news headlines

The discovery is "unique" and raises more questions than answers, a major museum said.

According to auction house Osenat, Napoleon Bonaparte tried to commit suicide using the guns on April 12, 1814, after military defeat had forced him into abdication.

For the time being, experts speculate the site could have been used for a ritual or religious function.

It turns on its head the notion that Indigenous Australians hadn't developed pottery manufacturing before European settlement.

Archaeologists say they have discovered what may be the largest mass grave ever excavated in Europe at a site in southern Germany.

After 50 years of neglect Rome's "lost" imperial palace Domus Tiberiana has reopened as an open-air museum.

Police in London are investigating after a major security breach at the world famous museum.

Shifting sands have revealed artefacts from colonial-era life off the coast of South Australia.

In a remote patch of a long-closed Native American boarding school, near a canal and some railroad tracks, Nebraska’s state archeologist and two teammates filled buckets with dirt and sifted through it as if they were searching for gold.

An ancient leg bone and part of a skull found in a cave in Laos has contradicted our ideas about how humans spread across the world.

Embattled mayor of small town has insisted he broke no rules by green lighting the controversial removal of Neolithic-era stones

Three new victims have been unearthed - almost 2000 years after a catastrophic eruption buried the town, killing thousands.

Newly-discovered human remains have provided new insights into the devastating impact of Mount Vesuvius in the first century.

Rachel and her stepdaughter thought she had found an "interesting stone", but what she unearthed was "bigger than anything we've ever seen".

Submerged indigenous cultural sites and shipwrecks are at risk, MPs have warned.

Researchers have found a new moai statue in a dry lake on the Chilean island of Rapa Nui, joining the approximately 1000 other iconic monolithic sculptures on what is internationally known as Easter Island.

The homestead of Adelaide's founder Colonel William Light will be preserved as a heritage site.

Bones thought to belong to soldiers killed at the Battle of Waterloo have been discovered in an attic in Belgium.

Around the world in 2022, humans continued to unearth more of our planet's past, from the wonderful to the macabre. Here are the 12 biggest ancient finds from the past 12 months.

Pope Francis will send back to Greece the three fragments of the Parthenon Sculptures that the Vatican Museums have held for two centuries.

The lids have been lifted to the sarcophagi, and the world has been given a glimpse at the individuals within.

A historic artefact lay below a popular beach for centuries, impervious to cars that drove daily or sand castles built by generations of tourists.

Ernest Shackleton's vessel Endurance was at the centre of an epic survival feat.

Thanks to the mud that protected them, the two-dozen figurines and other bronze objects were found in a perfect state of conservation

From child sacrifice to volcanised cities, history and archaeology have never stopped proving that the real world can furnish just as many chills and creeps as any midnight horror movie.

The skin of a 67-million-year-old dinosaur has revealed bites and gashes from an ancient crocodile, and how its flesh was ripped apart may explain why it became mummified.

The "eureka moment" for Australian archaeologist Dr Tim Maloney came as he hunched over the skeletal remains of a Stone Age hunter-gatherer who lived 31,000 years ago.

In flood-stricken Pakistan where an unprecedented monsoon season has killed hundreds of people, the rains now threaten a famed archeological site dating back 4500 years, the site’s chief official said today.

Stolen artefacts from the infamous Batavia shipwreck will be returned to the Western Australian Museum, 30 years after they were taken from the sea floor.

Eighteen years after 17 bodies were found inside a centuries old medieval well, scientists have uncovered the mystery of how they got there.

A cow's femur, food storage jars, grease for hair styling and an ink well were just some of the items discovered at the site.

A collection of 88 "ghost footprints" dating back 12,000 years have been discovered on a US Air Force training range.

Special investigators in Poland say they have found two mass graves containing the ashes of at least 8,000 Poles slain by the Nazi during World War II in forest executions that the Nazis later tried to hide by incinerating the bodies and planting trees on the burial pits.

The rare hidden gems confirm Melbourne has always been Australia's coffee capital.

It's known as one of the bloodiest battles in history but surprisingly very few human remains have been unearthed from the Battle of Waterloo.

DNA analysis has pinpointed a new point of origin for the Black Death that killed more than half of the people in Europe in the 14th century.

A wealthy woman of the Bronze Age has her face back after it was recreated by scientists in the Czech Republic.

A tooth unearthed from a remote cave in Laos is helping to sketch an unknown chapter in the human story.

A dinosaur skeleton believed to be the inspiration behind the design of the velociraptor in the Jurassic Park films has sold for a whopping price.

The largest diamond of the year has been discovered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in Arkansas in the US.

The fossils belong to three ichthyosaurs, and they may have been some of the largest animals that ever lived on Earth, according to a new study.

A Palestinian farmer found a rare 4,500-year-old stone sculpture while working his land in the southern Gaza Strip, ruling Hamas authorities have announced.

Scientists also located physical evidence from the the asteroid itself - 3000 kilometres from the impact site.

Stan, the world's most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton, sold for $42.9 million (US$31.8 million) in 2020 - the highest price ever paid at auction for a fossil.

An ancient relic once thought to be the remains of an inner harbour on a Sicilian island may have actually been a way to navigate the stars.

An amateur fossil hunter hopes he has pieced together a type of sea creature never before found in Taranaki.

A UK professor has claimed the mysterious circle of Stonehenge in the UK served as a "solar calendar" for ancient peoples, following recent discoveries about the site.

Archaeologists in the United Arab Emirates have uncovered the country's oldest known buildings, dating back at least 8500 years.

Perched about 100 metres up the slopes of the Prealps in southern France, a humble rock shelter looks out over the Rhône River Valley.

Australian National Maritime Museum director and CEO Kevin Sumption said the search for the wreck had been ongoing since 1999 in Newport Harbour, Rhode Island.