Souvenirs, 500,000 years ago? Colourful pebbles in Qesem Cave and handaxes shaped around fossils may have been kept as reminders, Tel Aviv researchers propose. Photo: The Portable Antiquities, CC BY 2.0 🏺

A century on, a firm date. The Taung Child, found in South Africa in 1924, is between 2.96 and 3.03 million years old, a new study in Nature finds. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Taung Child, the fossil that put human origins in Africa, is about 3 million years old

Photo: Emőke Dénes, CC BY-SA 4.0 · A century after its discovery, a new study dates the famous skull and argues that southern Africa held several hominin species at once.

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Red paint, poisoned water. Maya cinnabar left mercury in two Yucatán lakes above modern safety limits for centuries, and algae and tiny crustaceans declined. Photo: Nessa Eull, CC0 🏺

8,000 frogs in one Roman ditch. A new study says owls or hen harriers ate them about 1,700 years ago, most in the winter of their first year, near Bar Hill in Cambridgeshire. Read the full article on ancientherald.com #roman 🏺

Owls ate the 8,000 frogs found in a Roman ditch in Cambridgeshire, study finds

Photo: Stephan Sprinz, CC BY 4.0 · Damage on the bones points to short-eared owls or hen harriers, and most of the frogs were caught in the winter of their first year.

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The hunt for the Altar Stone's origin is open again. Geologists tested about 70 rock samples from north-east Scotland, the source proposed in 2024. None matched. Photo: DeFacto, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

Two human relatives, one South African cave. At Drimolen, a 2-million-year-old skull fragment is the first adult Homo erectus there, found alongside Paranthropus robustus. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

First adult Homo erectus fossil from South Africa's Drimolen cave backs a 2-million-year date for the species

Photo: DrHerries, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Eighteen newly described fossils also show that its neighbour Paranthropus robustus, which outnumbered it ten to one, was evolving ever bigger teeth.

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A building unlike any other in Bronze Age northern Germany. At Seddin, near Berlin, archaeologists found a nearly square structure from about 850 BC by a burial mound. Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, CC0 🏺

Shanidar Cave, Iraqi Kurdistan. A Neanderthal shoulder blade from 75,000 years ago has a round 15mm hole, likely the earliest known kill with a wooden spear. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

A 75,000-year-old Neanderthal from Shanidar Cave was killed by a wooden spear, and had been cared for after an earlier injury

Photo: Hardscarf, CC BY-SA 4.0 · A round 15mm hole through a shoulder blade may be the earliest known sign of a deadly wooden-spear attack on a human ancestor.

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An ordinary urn at Jauranga, in Peru's Nazca Lines valley. Inside lay a 1,600-year-old baby girl with one central eye socket. Her genome shows trisomy 13, a cause of cyclopia. Photo: Diego Delso, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

Simple graves ring Egypt's first royal tombs at Abydos. Of 46 skulls from them, 18 show fractures from around the time of death, backing the old idea of sacrifice. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Skulls from Abydos show people buried around Egypt's first kings were killed with blows to the head

Photo: PLstrom, CC0 · A century after Flinders Petrie suspected human sacrifice at the First Dynasty royal tombs, a forensic re-examination finds the fractures he missed.

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New Roman and Early Byzantine mosaic floors have been found at Örenşehir near Kayseri, the ancient Caesarea, in a complex that was built and used in several phases. Photo: Dosseman, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

Without digging, archaeologists mapped a 48-metre Roman building near Mellaria in southern Spain that may be an official stopping place for travellers. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Magnetic survey finds probable Roman roadside station in southern Spain

Photo: Bs0u10e01, CC BY 3.0 · The 48-metre building, close to the Roman road from Córdoba to Mérida, has what appear to be eight similar rooms and may have housed travellers and animals.

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A 700,000-year-old straight-tusked elephant tooth, found beside handaxes at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov in Israel, points to wetlands, rivers and woodland. Photo: Daderot, CC0 🏺

Archaeologists at Gródek in eastern Poland found a 6,000-year-old flint cache, perhaps once stored in a bag, at a site known for Goths and early Slavs. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

6,000-year-old flint cache and Iron Age cremation found in eastern Poland

Photo: unknown, CC0 · Excavations at Gródek near the Ukrainian border also found a large defensive ditch of unknown date, at a site known mainly for Goths and early Slavs.

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Volunteers hunting for 1939 war relics in eastern Poland found something far older: three-edged bronze arrowheads of a type tied to Scythian archers. Photo: Chudilovski ph, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

Greek and Chinese archaeologists dug further into a square building with a columned courtyard at ancient Arsinoe, western Greece. Its walls show signs of rebuilding. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Greek-Chinese dig finds columned courtyard building at ancient Arsinoe in Greece

Photo: Gary Todd from Xinzheng, China, CC0 · The first season of a five-year project at Angelokastro in western Greece also yielded bronze coins, decorated roof tiles, pottery and animal bones.

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The walls of a Norman castle, long thought demolished, survive under the plaster of a Victorian house in Dublin. A 1765 watercolour helped work out its history. Photo: William Murphy, CC BY-SA 2.0 🏺

A 1,500-km survey across Arabia's Empty Quarter found 55 ancient lake beds, but no stone tools. Water alone was not enough: there was no stone to make tools from. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

A 1,500-km expedition across Arabia's Empty Quarter found ancient lakes but not one stone tool

Photo: Srk60, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Early humans lived around the edges of the Rub' al Khali when it was green. A new study says they stayed away from its lakes because there was no stone to make tools.

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A bronze La Tène helmet, the kind worn by Celtic warrior elites, turned up crushed in a pit on a Polish dune far north of the Celtic world, on the Amber Route. Photo: Siren-Com, CC BY-SA 3.0 🏺

Local people near Chernivtsi handed a historian a tiny enamelled buckle and belt fittings. He dates them to the 2nd–3rd century AD, in Roman provincial style. Read the full article on ancientherald.com #roman 🏺

Enamelled 1,800-year-old Roman belt buckle found in a Ukrainian forest may have been a Sarmatian rider's

Photo: Attributed to Apollodorus of, Public domain · Local people near Chernivtsi handed the small buckle and belt fittings to a historian, who dates them to the 2nd–3rd century AD.

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A 7,000-year-old goat hide from a Spanish burial cave still has hair on one side and four man-made holes. Its DNA is closest to a breed still kept in northern Spain. Photo: Dorieo, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

A Nuragic votive sword fragment found ahead of a car park in Loculi, Sardinia, may mark a place of worship in a site used from the Bronze Age onwards. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Bronze Age votive sword fragment found under planned car park in Sardinia

Photo: Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0 · The Nuragic sword lay in a 700-square-metre site in the village of Loculi, with remains running from the Bronze Age to post-medieval times.

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A grape-sized stone found with a 5,300-year-old herder in southern Russia is a urinary stone. Its minerals point to a long bacterial infection, not to diet. Photo: Яцюк Денис Анатольевич, CC BY-SA 4.0 🏺

Around 2000 BC, newcomers from the Baltic reached Sweden. Ancient DNA suggests they may have brought the ancestor of English, German and the Nordic languages. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Ancient DNA dates the arrival of the Germanic languages in Scandinavia to 4,000 years ago

Photo: Ingwina, CC0 · A Nature study of more than 4,500 ancient genomes finds an unknown migration into Sweden around 2000 BC and a later wave into Denmark before the Vikings.

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Eight frozen Inca sacrifice victims from Andean volcanoes. Their hair and nails show all eight had chewed coca, and two had also been given alcohol with it. Photo: Joseph Castro, CC BY 2.0 🏺

A Scythian princely tomb in Siberia, about 800 to 760 BC. Around 1,000 cannabis seeds, and hair with traces of a THC breakdown product. People there were using the drug. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

2,800-year-old Siberian tomb holds the oldest dated evidence of cannabis use as a drug

Photo: Derzsi Elekes Andor, CC BY 3.0 · About 1,000 cannabis seeds and traces of THC breakdown products in human hair from a Scythian princely tomb in Tuva date to the early 8th century BC.

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Genomes from 4,587 ancient Europeans. They suggest Celtic spread with people moving west from eastern central Europe between about 1250 and 850 BC. Photo: Zde, CC BY-SA 4.0 #celtic 🏺

A camp on the Don River, 41,000 years ago. About 50 shell ornaments turned up at Kostenki 14, and two of the shells came from the Black Sea, far to the south of the camp. Read the full article on ancientherald.com 🏺

Black Sea shells found among 41,000-year-old jewellery at Russia's Kostenki

Photo: evatutin, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Two perforated marine shells, among about 50 ornaments from the oldest layer at Kostenki 14 near Voronezh, came from the Black Sea region, the excavators say.

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In the hills of northern Puebla, a team from Mexico's INAH has been digging at Teteles de Ávila Castillo. They think one 2,500-year-old structure was a solar observatory for the calendar. Photo: Arian Zwegers from Brussels, CC BY 2.0 🏺

At the Roman Baths of Fortuna in Murcia, a stone block sat hidden in a later wall. Its letters stand up to 23 cm tall, from a text that ran at least 4.8 metres, perhaps under Augustus. Read the full article on ancientherald.com #roman 🏺

Giant Roman inscription, possibly from Augustus' reign, found at Spanish spa baths

Photo: Carole Raddato from, CC BY-SA 2.0 · A reused stone block with letters up to 23 cm tall belongs to a text researchers estimate ran at least 4.8 metres, at the Roman Baths of Fortuna in Murcia.

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