17 May 2023 · Jordan & Saudi Arabia, Jordan
Engraved stones match the layout of nearby desert-kite hunting traps to scale. They are the oldest known scaled plans.
Why it matters: It shows abstract spatial thinking and planning in the early Neolithic.
Source: Crassard et al. 2023, PLOS ONE ↗
26 Oct 2026 · Sanxingdui, Guanghan, Sichuan, China
Jianbo Guo, Ruochen Ge, Lu Yang and colleagues studied textile residues on objects from the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits K2–K8, the site of the famous bronze heads and gold masks of the ancient Shu culture. They found silk on 101 objects, 94 of them bronzes, dating to the Late Shang period (1300–1046 BCE). Microscopy and infrared tests identify mulberry silk, mostly plain weave, some coloured with hematite or an organic red dye, and some cloths as finely woven as Shang silks from the Central Plains.
excavationart & symbolsancient society
Source: Guo, Ge, Cai, Tian & Yang 2026, Antiquity ↗; Archaeology Magazine (news), 28 Oct 2026 ↗
16 Oct 2026 · Shég’ Xdaltth’í’, Tanana valley, Alaska, United States
Kelly Graf, Ted Goebel and colleagues report on Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ (formerly McDonald Creek), 55 km south-southeast of Fairbanks. It has three Late Pleistocene occupation layers dated to about 13,800, 13,000 and 12,700 years ago. The oldest layer holds more than 80,000 specimens, including a distinctive hafted biface, bone and antler tools, animal remains and well-preserved activity areas.
datingexcavationhunter-gatherers
Graham Hancock · Source: Graf et al. 2026, Science Advances ↗
16 Oct 2026 · Kikai caldera & southern Kyushu, Japan
Enrico Crema and colleagues used statistical models of radiocarbon and site data to track Jomon forager populations around the Kikai-Akahoya eruption about 7,300 years ago, one of the largest of the Holocene (VEI 7). They find a major population collapse in regions next to the volcano, but some nearby populations grew after the disaster, and some distant communities were hit by environmental effects that had been overlooked.
16 Oct 2026 · White Sands National Park, New Mexico, United States
Kathleen Springer, Jeffrey Pigati, Jessica Tierney and colleagues expanded the excavations at White Sands and found 20 stratigraphic layers with human footprints in place, alongside megafauna trackways and drag lines made by travois. New radiocarbon dates on conifer pollen, combined with dates on aquatic seeds, put the footprint sequence between 23,500 and 21,700 years ago. Pollen, biomarker and sediment data record the lake turning into a playa during a dry spell that matches Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, about 23,200 years ago.
datinghunter-gathererscontroversy
Graham Hancock · Source: Springer, Pigati, Tierney et al. 2026, Science Advances ↗