Mystery of 17th century shipwreck holding 400 gold coins finally solved after 30 years
Popular Archaeology is a quarterly online magazine exploring the human past, from prehistoric beginnings to the present day. See About Us for more details. Regular subscriptions are FREE. Access to all premium level content (our best articles, including all back-issue premium articles) is only $9.00 annually.
Travel and learn with Far Horizons.
Cover Stories
Microbes frozen in ancient rubbish heaps help reconstruct ancient Greenlanders’ farms, seal hunts, and toilets
Microbiome of ancient middens sheds new light on the daily life of Paleo-Inuit and old Norse.
Bar-Ilan University study suggests 2,700-year-old standing stone (massebah) may provide fresh evidence for King Hezekiah’s religious reforms
Discovery at Tel 'Eton offers rare glimpse into religious change in the Kingdom of Judah during the First Temple period.
Ancient fire record rewritten: Researchers push earliest evidence of human fire use back to over a million years
Archaeologists uncover 4,000-year-old evidence of siege warfare in ancient Mesopotamia
New discoveries from a UCF-led excavation in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, near the city of Erbil, are reshaping what researchers know about how ancient cities lived, governed and fell.
The Mirror of Neolithic Art: How Çatalhöyük Confronts the Hubris of the Modernist Perspective
The Archaeology of Ancient Libraries: What Surviving Book Collections Reveal About Lost Civilizations
Study details epic transportation of Stonehenge stone across ancient Britain
Ice Age mystery: Taimering mammoth was likely butchered by hunters and gatherers
How Stone Tools, Fire, and Language Paved the Highway to Artificial Intelligence
Each leap in human communication—from vocal anatomy to writing to digital networks—followed the same pattern: faster, more complex, less individual.
See the full Cover Articles archive →
Other Stories
Research reveals ancient Maya lessons on surviving drought
Huge variety of plant foods made their starvation unlikely.
Nits on ancient mummies shed light on South American ancestry
New technique means head lice can provide clues about ancient people and migration.
Scientists digitally ‘unwrap’ mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I for the first time in 3,000 years
Study shows that 21st dynasty restorers ‘lovingly restored’ mummy, dispelling theory that they were bent on reusing old royal burial equipment.
New dates for Viking trade
Solar flare throws light on ancient trade between the Islamic Middle East and the Viking Age.
Humans Reached Remote North Atlantic Islands Centuries Earlier Than Thought
Faroes Settled Well Before Vikings Arrived, Lake Sediments Show.
Mystery solved: Footprints from site A at Laetoli, Tanzania, are from early humans, not bears
Findings provide conclusive evidence that multiple species of hominins co-existed on the landscape.
Volcanic eruptions contributed to collapse of China dynasties
Eruptions create sulfuric acid clouds in the upper atmosphere and can cool the climate.
A Child of darkness
The first partial skull of a child of Homo naledi begins to give us insight into all stages of life of this remarkable species.
More than ceremonial, ancient Chaco Canyon was home, new study says
Early puebloans impacted the ecosystem around Chaco Canyon earlier than previously believed.
