10,900-year-old stone tools found in Utah contain the earliest known evidence of potato use in North America, archaeologists say.
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anthropology
Rock Art in Chaco Canyon May Depict Ancient Solar Eclipse, Experts Say
Experts say a petroglyph in New Mexico’s Chaco Canyon may depict a solar eclipse from 920 years ago.
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Mastodon Site in San Diego Said to Be Earliest Sign of Humans in America, Riling Skeptics
A new study claims that humans were hunting in California 130,000 years ago, but skeptics abound.
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Centuries Old Pemmican-Making Camp Uncovered in Montana
The camp, used by Blackfoot peoples from to the 14th to 17th centuries, sheds light on a key commodity of the pre-contact Northern Plains.
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Giant Skull Found in Alaska May Be Evidence of Elusive ‘King’ Polar Bear, Experts Say
A giant skull discovered in Alaska may belong to a subspecies of polar bear that’s new to scientists but familiar to indigenous people in the Arctic.
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Elite ‘Dynasty’ at Chaco Canyon Got Its Power From One Woman, DNA Shows
New DNA evidence shows that elite leaders at Chaco Canyon weren’t just members of the same class — they were members of the same extended family, a “dynasty” that traced its ancestry to a single woman.
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Chaco’s Elites Were Natives of Chaco Canyon, Not Migrants, Their Remains Show
The elites of Chaco Canyon were born and raised there, and weren’t migrants from distant regions, as many thought, new research finds.
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Clovis Culture, Ice Age Fauna Weren’t Wiped Out by Cosmic Impact, Study Finds
A new study may finally put to rest one of the most vexing theories about America’s natural history: that the giant fauna of the Ice Age — and the culture of humans who hunted them — were wiped out by a cosmic impact.
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Mesa Verde’s Sun Temple Reveals Geometrical ‘Genius,’ Physicist Says
An 800-year-old structure in Mesa Verde National Park was built using the same basic geometry found in ancient monuments around the world, a new study reports.
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Wyoming Wildfire Reveals ‘Massive’ Shoshone Camp, Thousands of Artifacts
A wildfire high in the mountains of Wyoming has revealed a vast, centuries-old Shoshone campsite, with artifacts numbering in the hundreds of thousands.
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Bones in Yukon Cave Show Humans in North America 24,000 Years Ago, Study Says
A close look at bones found in a Yukon cave may confirm a controversial finding made decades ago: that humans arrived in North America 10,000 years earlier than many experts believe.
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How Did People of Chaco Canyon Grow Their Food? Expert Says, They Didn’t
Recently, researchers have been at odds over a simple, central question in Southwestern archaeology: How did the people of Chaco Canyon manage to grow their food? According to new research: They didn’t.
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Top 5 Archaeology Discoveries in the American West of 2016
Glass blades, unusual crescent-shaped tools, and a “shadow dagger” were some of the more striking finds reported this year by archaeologists around the American West.
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New Evidence Reveals Violent Final Days at Arizona’s Montezuma Castle
The final days at one of Arizona’s most famous ancient landmarks were fraught with violence and death, new research shows.
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Earliest Known Clay Figurines in the Southwest May Be Fertility Symbols, Study Says
Curious clay figurines found in Arizona may be fertility symbols used by farmers as much as 3,000 years ago.
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Mummified Bird, Baby Found in Cave Shed Light on Earliest Desert Farmers
Archaeologists investigating a cave have discovered an unusual burial that’s providing new insights into the ways of some of the earliest farmers of the Chihuahuan Desert.
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