The Bavarian State Office for the Preservation of Historical Monuments (BLfD) has sent a rare artefact from the Middle Bronze Age to Berlin for examination using cutting-edge, non-destructive methods. It is a 3,400-year-old bronze sword, unearthed during archaeological excavations in Nördlingen, Swabia, in 2023. Experts have been able to determine how the hilt and blade are connected, as well as how the rare and well-preserved decorations on the pommel were made. This has provided valuable insight into the craft techniques employed in southern Germany during the Bronze Age. The BLfD used 3D computed tomography and X-ray diffraction to analyse internal stresses at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), as well as X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy at a BESSY II beamline supervised by the Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung (BAM).

New archaeological evidence reveals that seabird guano – nutrient-rich bird droppings – was not only essential to boosting corn yields and supercharging agriculture in ancient Peru but may have been a driving force behind the rise of the Chincha Kingdom as one of the most prosperous and influential pre‑Inca societies. 

More than 1,000 years ago, bison hunters on the Great Plains of North America left behind a small hunting site despite the continued presence of bison. Their abrupt departure could not be explained until researchers dug deeper and found that it wasn’t bison depletion that drove hunters elsewhere. Instead, they may have responded to decade-long droughts and moved to sites with a more reliable supply of water and had features that better lent themselves to an emerging and more coordinated way of hunting. This pattern shows bison presence alone wasn’t enough to keep hunters at a site. Rather, climate variability favored select sites and different ways of hunting that weren’t always reversed when environmental conditions improved.

A new interdisciplinary study published in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology introduces an innovative framework for translating biomolecular data from archaeological materials into scent recreations, offering museums and heritage institutions powerful new tools for storytelling, education, and immersive interpretation.

A team of archaeologists from the Universitat Jaume I, the University of Barcelona, and the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies (ICREA) has developed a new methodology that allows for a much more detailed, precise and objective analysis of Late Paleolithic portable art pieces. Thanks to this study, the research team was able to review several previously published pieces from Matutano Cave (Vilafamés), a reference site in the Iberian Mediterranean, with greater accuracy and demonstrate that some of the marks previously interpreted as artistic motifs are not anthropic engravings but natural surface reliefs.

Late Paleolithic art is usually characterized by very fine engravings, barely visible to the naked eye, often affected by taphonomic alterations, surface irregularities, and unclear morphologies, which complicates their identification and interpretation. This new methodology allows for a more precise analysis of the remains using photogrammetry and microtopographic analysis techniques. The results were recently published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

The high-precision recording protocol integrates close-range photogrammetry, digital elevation models (DEM), and surface analysis based on geographic information systems (GIS) to detect and quantify extremely fine engravings at a submillimetric scale. This enables a detailed characterization of groove morphology, variations in depth and width, and cross-sectional profiles. The application of this low-cost methodology provides a more objective record of the trajectories, shapes and volumes of the engravings, supporting researchers’ interpretation work and reducing reliance on subjective assessments.

To validate the methodology, the team carried out a recording programme. This programme served as a reference framework for interpreting archaeological marks with greater reliability. Once it was verified that the new method provided reliable data, it was applied to three pieces from Matutano Cave, one of the most extensive Late Paleolithic portable art assemblages on the Iberian Peninsula, and used as a reference for the relative dating of other rock art manifestations. As a result, updated and more precise tracings were made for two of the pieces, and it was confirmed that the third does not contain anthropic engravings, as the observed marks correspond to natural rock reliefs.

A new genetic study has revealed that the people of Deep Mani, who inhabit one of the remotest regions of mainland Greece, represent one of the most genetically distinctive populations in Europe, shaped by more than a millennium of isolation. The findings, published today (4 February) in Communications Biology, reveal that many lineages can be traced back to the Bronze Age, Iron Age and Roman period of Greece.