Archaeology’s editors reveal the year’s most compelling finds.
This year’s Top 10 Discoveries reach us from vastly different cultures and across eons. Some raise new questions about what it means to be human and what separates us from our species’ relatives. Others bring us face to face with individual people, their travels, their faith, their hold on power. Several, covering matters as diverse as slavery and the origins of art, come to us via newly applied scientific methods. Taken together, this year’s discoveries present an array of insights into endeavors, large and small, spanning millions of years.
A New Human Relative
Johannesburg, South Africa
Scientists have long searched for the transitional species between apelike australopithecines, such as Lucy (Australopithecus afarensis), and early humans, such as Homo habilis. And now, deep in the Rising Star cave system in South Africa, they may have unearthed it.
This story is from the January/February 2016 edition of Archaeology.
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This story is from the January/February 2016 edition of Archaeology.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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A Very Close Encounter
New research has shown that human figures painted in red on a rock art panel in central Montana depict individuals engaged in a life-or-death encounter during an especially fraught historical moment.
A Sword for the Ages
A zigzag pattern, now tinged with the green-blue patina of oxidized metal, adorns the octagonal hilt of a rare sword dating to the Middle Bronze Age in Germany (1600-1200 B.C.) that was recently excavated in the Bavarian town of Nördlingen.
Ancient Egyptian Astrology
For centuries, layers of soot have coated the ceilings and columns in the entrance hall of Egypt's Temple of Esna. Now, an Egyptian-German team of researchers, led by Hisham El-Leithy of the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and Christian Leitz of the University of Tübingen, is restoring the temple's vibrant painted reliefs to their original brilliance.
BRONZE AGE POWER PLAYERS
How Hittite kings forged diplomatic ties with a shadowy Greek city-state
RITES OF REBELLION
Archaeologists unearth evidence of a 500-year-old resistance movement high in the Andes
Secrets of Egypt's Golden Boy
CT scans offer researchers a virtual look deep inside a mummy's coffin
When Lions Were King
Across the ancient world, people adopted the big cats as sacred symbols of power and protection
UKRAINE'S LOST CAPITAL
In 1708, Peter the Great destroyed Baturyn, a bastion of Cossack independence and culture
LAPAKAHI VILLAGE, HAWAII
Standing beside a cove on the northwest coast of the island of Hawaii, the fishing village of Lapakahi, which is surrounded by black lava stone walls, was once home to generations of fishers and farmers known throughout the archipelago for their mastery of la'au lapa'au, or the practice of traditional Hawaiian medicine. \"
A MORE COMFORTABLE RIDE
Although the date is much debated, most scholars believe people 5,000 years ago. For thousands of years after that, they did so without saddles. \"In comparison with horse riding, the development of saddles began relatively late, when riders began to care more about comfort and safety in addition to the horse's health,\" says University of Zurich archaeologist Patrick Wertmann.