Archaeologists have found the remains of bed bugs dating back 11,000 years — the oldest ever — in an Oregon cave thought to be among the earliest known sites of human habitation in the West.
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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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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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Ice Age Cave Dwellers in Oregon Lived Among Extinct ‘Stout-Legged’ Horses, Fossils Show
Some of the earliest known inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest lived alongside a now-extinct species of ‘stout-legged’ horse, scientists say.
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1,200-Year-Old Pouches Found in Arizona Cave Contain Prehistoric ‘Chewing Tobacco,’ Study Finds
Dozens of small, fiber-wrapped bundles discovered in a cave in Arizona have been found to contain wild tobacco, the first scientific evidence suggesting that Ancestral Puebloans of the prehistoric Southwest…
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Cave Discovered in South Dakota Contains Thousands of Ice Age Fossils
Once protected by thickets of poison ivy and riddled with rattlesnakes, a cave discovered in South Dakota’s Wind Cave National Park has, for the scientists exploring it, certainly lived up…
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Hundreds of Dice, Game Pieces Found in Utah Cave Shed Light on Prehistoric Gambling
A cave on the shore of Utah’s Great Salt Lake is giving archaeologists a rare glimpse into a seldom-studied aspect of life in the ancient West — prehistoric gambling. Researchers…
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Stone Tool Unearthed in Oregon ‘Hints’ at Oldest Human Occupation in Western U.S.
A colorful hand tool discovered in Oregon, and described as an “ancient Swiss army knife,” may be the oldest artifact yet found in western North America, archaeologists say. The simple…
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Butchered Bones Found in Yukon Cave Bear Marks of Early Americans, Study Finds
They’re probably about half as old as scientists once thought they were. But a pair of butchered bones found in a cave near the Alaska-Yukon border are “definite” evidence of…
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Western Digs’ Top 5 Paleontology Stories of 2014
A red-headed mammoth, a cave piled high with ancient animal remains, and an unusual South Dakota dinosaur are all among the discoveries that shaped Western Digs’ most popular paleontology stories of…
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Utah Cave Full of Children’s Moccasins Sheds Light on Little-Known Ancient Culture
Archaeologists on the trail of a little-known ancient culture have found a cache of clues that may help unlock its secrets: a cave containing hundreds of children’s moccasins. The cave,…
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Wyoming Cave Yields a Trove of Ice Age Fossils — and Ancient Animal DNA
A team of enterprising and adventurous scientists in Wyoming has just finished the first in a series of excavations at one of the largest deposits of Ice Age fossils in…
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Southwestern-Style Spear Throwers Identified in the Ozarks
New analysis of two spear-throwers excavated nearly a century ago in the Ozark Mountains reveals what one archaeologist calls an “uncanny” similarity to those used in the ancient Southwest and…
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Ancient Rock Art in Texas Yields ‘Surprising’ New Finds
New technology is providing unexpected insights into some of the most distinctive rock art in the American West, archaeologists say. The canyonlands of Texas’ Lower Pecos River are home to…
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Ancient Feces From Oregon Cave Aren’t Human, Study Says, Adding to Debate on First Americans
New findings about some ancient feces are the latest rejoinder in a five-year-long debate over one of the most important — and controversial — recent archaeological finds in the U.S….
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Long-Hidden Sites Discovered in the Southwest May Change Views of Ancient Migrations
A type of site never before described by archaeologists is shedding new light on the prehistory of the American Southwest and may change conventional thinking about the ancient migrations that…
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