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It was a trip ordained by the heavens. I arrived in Santa Fe—for the umpteenth time since I first saw the Land of Enchantment as a teenager—on the eve of the new moon, one of the darkest nights in the lunar calendar, to join a spring stargazing adventure. Destination: Chaco Culture National Historical Park, a vast Ancestral Puebloan complex located in the state’s northwestern quadrant, a region noted for its dark skies. Taos-based tour company Heritage Inspirations organized the trip in collaboration with Santa Fe’s storied Inn of the Five Graces. It promised archaeology by day and deluxe tented accommodations...

According to a statement released by The Swiss School of Archaeology in Greece, renewed investigation into the Antikythera shipwreck has provided several new details about the ship and its cargo. The ship sank around 65 b.c. and was first discovered in 1900. On repeated dives over the past 120 years, underwater archaeologists have retrieved hundreds of artifacts, dozens of statues, and most famously the Antikythera Mechanism, sometimes referred to as the world's first analog computer. Recent recovery of fragments of the hull yielded new information about the vessel's design and ancient shipbuilding. Archaeologists found three outer planks still joined to...

The southern coast of the French region of Brittany is home to one of Europe's highest concentrations of mysterious megalithic standing stones. More than 10,000 are strewn around a six-mile stretch in the Carnac region, from La Trinité-sur-Mer to Erdeven. Unlike other megalithic monuments, such as Stonehenge, these do not typically form a circle, but are linear or curvilinear in nature. In the past, it has been difficult for archaeologists to accurately ascertain their age. According to a statement released by the University of Gothenburg, new research suggests that that not only are they even older than expected, but they...

German researchers have reconstructed the ancient manufacturing process of the Nebra Sky Disc, one of Europe's best-known archaeological finds, and discovered the impressive metallurgical skills of Early Bronze Age craftsmen.Discovered in 1999 on Mittelberg Hill near Nebra, Germany, the Nebra Sky Disc is a 30-centimeter-diameter bronze artifact. The disc holds gold inlays that represent celestial elements: the full moon or sun, crescent moon, and stars. The disc dates to between 1800 and 1600 BCE and is associated with the Únětice culture. It is, in general, regarded as the oldest representation of the cosmos in the world.Researchers at Otto von Guericke...

A new study suggests that ancient Egyptians may have captured the Milky Way in their artwork more than 3,000 years ago, potentially offering our galaxy’s earliest-known visual representation. Astrophysicist Or Graur, an associate professor at the University of Portsmouth, identified a striking visual detail of the Milky Way while examining depictions of the sky goddess Nut. His findings, published in the Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage, point to a black, wavy line on Nut’s body in certain funerary artwork. Nut frequently appears in Egyptian tomb art and religious texts as a naked woman covered in stars, her arched figure...

SNIP To understand the text, we need to know a little about the obelisk’s history. Before it was gifted to Paris, the monument used to be one of two that stood outside the Luxor Temple in Upper Egypt. Both pillars were built around the 13th century BCE, at the time of Ramses II’s reign. But at this time, the obelisk that is now in Paris would have had a face that could be seen by passengers traveling along the Nile River, and it is from this angle (around 45°) that the secret message is visible.“When I calculated where to stand...

Stonehenge is a big seller. Which is crazy, because there is sooo much more out there for us to see, explore and learn about. This is just one of many examples. Oh and it has the plus point of being the oldest that we know of! The Original Stonehenge - You've Not Heard Of | 8:21 Paul Whitewick | 172K subscribers | 27,971 views | March 30, 2025

...Flagstones was unearthed in the 1980s during the construction of the Dorchester bypass, where excavations revealed a circular ditch with a diameter of 100 meters, formed by intersecting pits and likely accompanied by an earthwork bank. Currently, half of the site is situated beneath the bypass, while the other half lies under Max Gate, the former residence of Thomas Hardy, which is now managed by the National Trust. Flagstones is recognized as a scheduled monument, with artifacts and excavation records housed at the Dorset Museum.Excavations uncovered at least four burials within the enclosure pits, including a cremated adult and three...

Chile's Atacama Desert, home to the world-renowned ALMA telescope, offers breathtaking sights both above and below. One such marvel is the ancient stone fortress of Pukará de Quitor, a relic of the Licán Antai people that has stood for over 900 years...One such marvel is Pukará de Quitor, an ancient stone fortress built centuries ago by the Licán Antai people, also known as the Atacameños. Located near San Pedro de Atacama, it stands close to the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), a world-renowned radio telescope operated by ESO and its international partners.In this striking image, the fortress's arch perfectly frames...

A new study by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University reveals that geodynamic shifts over millions of years reoriented the ancient Rujm el-Hiri site, challenging its long-held identification as an astronomical observatory. Using advanced geophysical methods and remote sensing, the team uncovered the site’s original alignment and provided new insights into its potential purpose and the surrounding archaeological landscape. Credit: Abraham Graicer, Wikimedia Commons. CC 4.0 A scientific discovery challenges the common perception of Rujm el-Hiri in the Golan Heights. A new study by Tel Aviv University and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev has unveiled groundbreaking insights into...

Why the mighty Stonehenge was built around 5,000 years ago has long been one of the great mysteries.But according to a new study, we may finally have an answer.Scientists say Wiltshire's famous stone circle was built as a symbol of unification between three distinct corners of Britain.We know that Stonehenge's rocky slabs were transported as far afield from southwest Wales and northeast Scotland.So the scientists, from University College London and Aberystwyth University, theorise that Scottish and Welsh people brought their own local stones down to Wiltshire as a well-meaning contribution to assembling the structure.In that sense, it represented a powerful...

An extremely rare example of megalithic rock art was recently identified in northern Israel's Yehudiya Nature Reserve inside a 4,200-year-old stone burial chamber. The unique discovery of a clearly composed, artistic rendering of a herd of animals is shifting the way archaeologists think about the little-understood peoples who created the thousands of massive stone burial chambers, or dolmens, that dot northern Israel's Golan and Galilee... "These megalithic structures were built more than 4,000 years ago. They are ancient burials and they were built by a group of people of whom the only thing we know is that they built their...

The emergence of agriculture during the Neolithization brought about one of the most profound lifestyle changes in the history of modern humans. The shift in subsistence strategy from hunting, fishing and gathering to farming paved the way for a marked increase in population density and the establishment of larger and more permanent settlements. However, the flourishing economy of the Neolithic came to a sudden halt in many regions of Northern Europe around 5300–4900 calibrated years before present (cal. bp), in which a marked reduction in the number of human remains radiocarbon-dated to this period suggests a population decline. Coined the...

Stone pillars, moon’s 18.6-year cycle and ancient structures tell a story.. The major lunar standstill northern moonrise is visible between Chimney and Companion rocks once per month for a period of about 24 months, every 18.6 years.. To archaeo-astronomers, the stone pillars that give Chimney Rock National Monument its name and the structures there built by ancestral Puebloan people send a message. .... And something did happen at the monument Tuesday night: The moon rose between Chimney Rock and Companion Rock, demonstrating a rare celestial occurrence called the major lunar standstill. The event occurs monthly over the course of about...

Despite the fact that it’s over 5,000 years old, Maeshowe, Orkney's answer to Stonehenge, is in amazing shape. But why did Neolithic Britons go to such great lengths to build it?This 5,000-Year-Old Tomb Is Spectacularly Preserved | 2:54Smithsonian Magazine | 35.3K subscribers | 29,963 views | October 15, 2024https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D026QAAuIwU

Nabta Playa in Egypt is an ancient stone circle that researchers suspect was used to determine the summer solstice, which signaled rain was on the way.Today, its main stones are in a museum in Aswan to protect them from vandalism. But originally, Nabta Playa consisted of dozens of upright stones, each a few feet high, in the desert about 60 miles (100 km) west of the Nile.In addition to a pile of stones above a central tomb, many of the stones seemed to have been deliberately placed in a circle to align with the rising of certain stars.The circle's six...

The necropolis of Panoría is located at the easternmost end of Sierra Harana, in the town of Darro (Granada). It consists of at least 19 graves, 9 of which have been excavated between 2015 and 2019. They are collective burials from which more than 55,000 human skeletal remains were recovered. The dating of these remains shows that the first burials took place 5600 years ago with a discontinuous funerary use until 4100 years ago.Bioarchaeological AdvancesIn a recent study published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports, the use of new bioarchaeological methods has allowed the identification of chromosomal sex from the...

A newly discovered geoglyph on the Nazca Pama. Image credit: Sakai et al. Advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has helped identify over 300 previously unknown ‘Nazca Lines’ geoglyphs, according to newly published findings. Discovered over a six-month period, the total number of images located using the new process nearly matches the 430 previously known Nazca Lines geoglyphs found more than 80 years ago. The discoveries, reported by a research team led by Masato Sakai from Yamagata University in Japan, are helping unravel the possible meaning of these ancient artworks, some of which are 2,000 years old, and point to the likely...

Until now, experts wondered how it was possible that in the middle of the Neolithic period, more than a thousand years before the first pyramids of Egypt were built, these enormous stones could be moved and placed with millimetric precision, orienting them towards the sunrise for astronomical purposes. The 32 stones that make it up weigh about 1,140 tons. Of these, the largest — and the one that covers the back of the chamber — weighs 150 tons. This is the largest slab that was moved during the megalithic phenomenon in the Iberian Peninsula and the second-largest in Europe.

According to a Phys.org report, a team of archaeologists, historians, geologists, and physicists led by José Antonio Lozano Rodríguez of the Canary Islands Oceanographic Center and the University of Alcalá examined the Menga dolmen, a megalithic monument built in what is now southern Spain some 6,000 years ago, to learn more about how it was constructed. The structure consists of stone walls topped with a stone ceiling supported by stone pillars. Some of these stones weigh more than 160 tons. The researchers suggest that the stones were quarried about one-half mile away and transported to the site on sledges dragged...