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Long before anyone built a house meant to last a lifetime, people were building for eternity. The earliest large stone structures humans left behind were not homes or halls but tombs, raised to carry the dead into whatever came next. It is a strange twist of history that the buildings meant for the afterlife are the ones that taught the living how to build.

The instinct might be to treat ancient tomb construction as a curiosity, something for museums rather than modern job sites. Yet the methods worked out by those early builders (how to stack stone so it holds, how to bind it, how to keep water out) are the same problems every mason still solves today. The tools have changed far more than the principles.

What Ancient Tomb Construction Actually Involved

Before the arch, before the cathedral, the tomb was the proving ground. When early civilisations decided a burial deserved something permanent, they were forced to answer questions no one had answered at scale before: how to move heavy stone, how to make it stand, and how to make it endure for centuries rather than seasons.

Why were tombs the first great test of masonry?

A tomb had one demanding requirement that an ordinary dwelling did not: it had to outlast everyone who built it. That single goal pushed early masons toward heavier materials, more careful joints, and structures designed around permanence rather than convenience. The result was a range of forms that still define what people picture when they imagine ancient building:

• Mastabas, the flat-roofed, sloping-walled tombs of early Egypt, built first in mud brick and later in stone.
• Pyramids, which scaled the mastaba idea into vast stepped and smooth-sided monuments.
• Rock-cut tombs, carved directly into cliff faces rather than assembled from blocks.
• Mausoleums, above-ground tombs that turned burial into architecture.
• Catacombs, underground networks lined and reinforced with masonry.

The earliest of these, such as the ancient Egyptian mastaba, show masonry already being used with intent rather than guesswork, with sloping walls to shed load and shaped stone laid in deliberate courses. These were experiments in permanence, and the ones still standing are the experiments that worked.

Why Those Early Builders Still Matter to Masonry Today

It would be easy to assume that thousands of years of progress left ancient methods behind. In practice, the opposite is closer to the truth. The fundamentals settled in the age of the tomb were so sound that they became the baseline the trade never really moved away from.

What did tomb construction prove that still holds true?

Three ideas, above all, carried forward. First, that weight must be distributed, not simply piled, which is why courses are laid level and load is spread across a base. Second, that a structure is only as durable as the material between the stones, which made mortar and jointing a craft in itself. Third, that shaped, well-fitted units outlast rough ones, because tight joints leave water and weather less to work with.

These are not historical footnotes; they are the daily logic the trade still runs on. Picture the earliest builders arguing over how to set a single stone so it would hold for a thousand years, then picture a reputable masonry contractor today weighing the same call before laying the first course of a wall, and the distance between them all but disappears. A modern wall and an ancient tomb are separated by millennia and united by the same rules, which is part of why the craft rewards patience and precision over shortcuts.

Ancient Techniques Compared With Modern Masonry Methods

Setting the two eras side by side is the clearest way to see what endured and what evolved. The comparison is less a story of replacement than of refinement, with old principles carried forward inside better tools and materials.

How much has actually changed in thousands of years?

Run through the core elements of the craft, and each one shows the same trend: the idea stayed, the execution improved.

• Main materials. Ancient builders worked in mud brick and quarried, dressed stone; modern masons use fired brick, concrete block, and cut or manufactured stone.
• Binder. Early mortars were lime, gypsum, or mud-based; today’s are engineered cement and lime mixes matched to the specific job.
• Tools. Copper and stone tools, ramps, and levers have given way to powered saws, mixers, and precision measuring tools.
• Load handling. Both eras spread weight through mass and careful stacking, though modern work adds engineered supports and reinforcement.
• Finishing. Hand-dressed faces and fitted joints have become machine-cut units with hand-finished detailing.
• Goal. The ancient aim was permanence for a single monument; the modern one adds safety, function, and appearance to that same durability.

Tomb-Era Techniques Modern Masons Still Rely On

Some methods have survived not because of tradition but because nothing better replaced them. A handful of techniques worked out in the age of monumental tombs remain in daily use, often unchanged in principle.

Which ancient methods never went out of use?

• Coursed, level stacking. Laying units in even horizontal rows to distribute load is as standard now as it was on the first stone tomb.
• Dressed, fitted stone. Shaping a stone so it sits tightly against its neighbours reduces the gaps water can exploit, a lesson learned early and never unlearned.
• Mortar and repointing. Filling and later refilling the joints between units keeps water out and structures sound, and it remains one of the most common repair jobs in the trade.
• Corbelling and the arch. Bridging a gap by stepping stones inward, and later by turning an arch, both trace back to early monumental building.
• Weather and water management. Sloping surfaces and drainage to keep moisture moving away from the structure are ancient ideas that still decide how long masonry lasts.

That fourth point, in particular, explains why old structures need ongoing care. Mortar is designed to weather before the stone or brick does, which is why understanding how chimney repair works and handles failing joints echoes the very oldest maintenance problem in the craft, which is to renew the material between the units before the units themselves are lost 

Where That Ancient Craft Shows Up in Homes Now

The line from tomb to modern home is not as long as it looks. The same techniques that raised burial monuments now sit, quietly and unremarked, in ordinary properties.

How does tomb-era masonry reach an everyday backyard?

Every fireplace, garden wall, stone façade, and outdoor oven is a descendant of that early work. A hearth built to hold heat relies on the same instincts as an ancient kiln or a stone-lined chamber. A patio or a retaining wall borrows the coursing and drainage logic first tested on monuments. Even the decision to face a structure in stone for both strength and appearance is an inheritance from tombs that were meant to impress as much as endure. The craft did not trickle down so much as continue, passed from one generation of hands to the next with the core methods intact.

FAQs

Did ancient tombs really use techniques still used today?

Yes. Coursed stacking, dressed stone, mortar joints, and drainage were all in use on early tombs and remain standard in modern masonry, refined by better tools and materials.

What was the earliest form of monumental tomb?

The mastaba, a flat-roofed tomb with sloping walls, is among the earliest, and its ideas later scaled up into the pyramid.

Why has masonry changed so little in principle?

Because the core problems, spreading load, binding units, and keeping water out, were solved early and solved well. Later progress improved the materials and tools rather than the underlying logic.

What is the most common ancient technique still used in repairs?

Repointing, the renewal of mortar between units, is a direct continuation of an ancient maintenance practice and one of the most frequent masonry repairs today.

Is old masonry stronger than modern masonry?

Not necessarily. Ancient work that survives is often the best of its era, while modern methods add engineering, safety, and consistency that ancient builders lacked.

Final Thoughts

The story of masonry is, in large part, the story of the tomb. The drive to build something that would outlast its makers forced early civilisations to work out how stone holds, how mortar binds, and how weather is kept at bay, and those answers proved so durable that the trade still runs on them. Modern materials and tools have sharpened the craft without rewriting its rules. Looked at that way, every wall, hearth, and chimney standing today carries a little of the same logic first tested on structures built for eternity.

Cover Image, Top: Ancient Egyptian Mastaba.  Djehouty, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimdia Commons

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Every time a website sends a code to a phone and asks for it back, it is solving a problem that is far older than writing. The problem is simple to state and hard to solve: how does someone who cannot see you confirm that a message, an order or a claim really comes from you?

The archaeological record is full of answers to that question. Looking at them side by side shows that the modern verification code is not a new invention so much as the latest version of a very old idea.

The seal: identity pressed into clay

The earliest widespread solution was the seal. In Mesopotamia, cylinder seals appear in the fourth millennium BCE: small carved stone cylinders that left a continuous impression when rolled across wet clay. Each design was distinctive, and the impression it left worked as a signature that could not easily be copied without the object itself.

Seals were used less for letters than for control. A jar, a basket or a storeroom door would be closed with a lump of clay, and the clay would be impressed with a seal. If the sealing was intact, the contents had not been touched since the person responsible closed it. If it was broken, everyone could see that access had taken place.

Excavations have recovered these sealings in large numbers. At Arslantepe in eastern Anatolia, archaeologists found thousands of discarded clay sealings in the public buildings of the late fourth millennium BCE, many of them impressed by different seals. Read together, they document an administration keeping track of who opened what, and when. It is, in effect, an access log.

The seal established two principles that still hold. Identity can be proved by possession of a unique object, and a record of that proof is as important as the proof itself.

Tokens, envelopes and tamper evidence

Around the same period, administrators in the Near East used small clay tokens to represent quantities of goods. For transactions that had to be verified later, tokens could be sealed inside hollow clay balls, often called envelopes or bullae, whose outer surface carried seal impressions and sometimes marks showing what was inside.

The design is clever. The outside tells the recipient what the sender claims; the inside proves it. To check the claim, you break the envelope, which also makes it obvious that it has been checked. Many scholars have argued that these marked envelopes sit close to the origins of writing itself, a reminder of how closely record-keeping and verification have always been bound together.

The watchword: identity as shared knowledge

A second family of solutions relied not on objects but on knowledge. The Greek historian Polybius, describing the Roman army of the second century BCE, explains how the nightly watchword was distributed. It was written on a wooden tablet, the tessera, which was passed from unit to unit and returned to the tribune. If a tablet failed to come back, the officers could trace exactly where the chain had broken.

The watchword solved a different problem from the seal. A seal proves that a particular person handled something. A watchword proves that someone belongs to a group entitled to pass. Its weakness is also familiar: once the word leaks, anyone can use it. The Roman procedure dealt with this by changing the word every night, which is precisely the logic behind modern codes that expire after a few minutes.

The split stick and the matching half

Medieval Europe added an elegant object-based method: the split tally. A stick was notched to record a sum, then split lengthways so that each party kept one half. Because the notches ran across both halves and the grain of the wood was unique, the two pieces fitted only each other. Anyone presenting a forged half would be caught when it failed to match.

The English Exchequer relied on tallies for centuries, until they were formally abolished in the early nineteenth century. Their end was dramatic. In October 1834, officials burned a large accumulation of old tallies in a furnace beneath the House of Lords; the fire spread, and much of the old Palace of Westminster was destroyed.

The same idea appears in parchment. A chirograph was a document written out two or more times on a single sheet, with a word or pattern written across the gap between the copies. The sheet was then cut through that word, often along a wavy line, and each party took a copy. Authenticity was proved by fitting the edges back together. The indented cut survives in the legal word “indenture”.

The telegraph and the secret test

Long-distance communication sharpened the problem again. A telegram carried no seal, no handwriting and no physical token; it was simply text, transmitted by strangers. Banks that began moving money by telegraph in the nineteenth century needed a way to confirm that an instruction to pay really came from a correspondent bank.

Their answer was the test key: a private system, agreed in advance between two banks, for calculating a check number from details of the message such as the amount and the date. The receiving bank repeated the calculation. If the numbers matched, the instruction was accepted. The principle, a shared secret combined with the particulars of a single transaction, anticipates the way many modern authentication codes are generated.

The code on your phone

Set against this history, the text-message code looks less like a novelty and more like a synthesis. It combines three older ideas.

Like a seal or a tally half, it depends on possession: the code goes to a device or number that the account holder is expected to control. Like a Roman watchword, it is valid for only a short period and is then discarded. Like a telegraphic test, it is tied to a single transaction, one login or one sign-up, rather than being reused.

It also inherits the weaknesses of its ancestors. Seals could be stolen, watchwords overheard and tallies forged by a skilled hand. Phone numbers can be reassigned by carriers, intercepted or transferred to another SIM by fraud, which is why standards bodies such as the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have long treated text-message codes as a weaker form of authentication than dedicated hardware keys or authenticator apps.

There is one more parallel. Just as merchants in antiquity must sometimes have hesitated before pressing their personal seal onto a stranger’s jar, people today are often reluctant to hand their personal number to every service that asks for it. Some choose a temporary number for verification when signing up to something they only need once, keeping their main number for the accounts that matter. The instinct is an old one: separate the token that proves who you are from the places where it might be misused.

What the long view shows

Read across five thousand years, the history of proving identity at a distance is a history of trade-offs rather than solutions. Objects are strong but can be stolen. Shared knowledge is convenient but leaks. Every method that succeeds becomes worth attacking, and every attack produces a new method.

The clay sealings from Arslantepe and the six-digit code arriving on a phone belong to the same story. Both are attempts to leave a trace that only the right person could have left. Archaeologists read the first kind of trace to reconstruct how ancient administrations worked. Future historians will almost certainly do the same with ours.

Cover Image, Top Left: Credit: Cylinder Seal with a Seated Deity,, Walters Art Museum, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

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Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee—A remarkably preserved elephant tooth previously recovered from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY-NBA) — a prehistoric site in northern Israel, where early humans made stone tools some 700,000 years ago — has now enabled researchers to reconstruct a lush landscape of woodlands, wetlands, and waterways from the Pleistocene. The findings provide a rare glimpse into the environment shared by giant elephants and some of the region’s earliest human populations.

The elephant remains were discovered alongside basalt handaxes and cleavers, hallmark tools of the Acheulian tradition, one of the earliest and most widespread stone-tool technologies in human history. Researchers combined multiple analytical techniques to reconstruct a resource-rich environment of woodlands, grasslands, wetlands, and waterways that helped sustain both large mammals and early humans along the Levantine land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia.

Published in Quaternary Science Reviews, the study led by Hannah Farrell (a PhD candidate at Haifa University) focuses on findings from the excavation site of GBY-NBA by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and his colleagues. The research focuses on a giant elephant molar and tusk fragments discovered alongside Acheulian stone tools at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Daughters of Jacob Bridge), located in the Jordan Rift Valley, south of today’s Hula Valley in northern Israel. The remains belonged to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene. Rather than studying the elephant alone, researchers used the tooth as a biological archive to reconstruct the broader ecosystem shared by large mammals and early human toolmakers.

What an Ancient Ecosystem Reveals About Human Origins

According to Prof. Sharon, “understanding how humans and animals responded to environmental change hundreds of thousands of years ago helps us better understand the forces that shaped our species.”

Using CT scanning, 3D reconstruction, microscopic wear analysis, isotope geochemistry, and pollen studies, the team found evidence for a long-lasting landscape of woodlands, grasslands, marshes, rivers, and shallow-water habitats. Carbon isotope values suggest the elephant lived in a consistently well-watered environment, while pollen recovered from sediments revealed abundant wetland vegetation, including reeds, sedges, willow, tamarisk, and aquatic plants.

The findings indicate that the Hula Valley region formed part of a stable ecological refuge within the Levantine Corridor, the land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia. Such environments likely provided reliable water and biological resources for wildlife and human groups moving through the region during the Pleistocene.

“The availability of water, vegetation, and animal resources shaped where humans and wildlife could survive,” Sharon says. “The wetlands, rivers, and woodlands of the Hula Valley helped sustain life along one of the world’s earliest migration corridors, offering a rare opportunity to understand the ecological conditions that supported both animals and human populations nearly 700,000 years ago.”

The study was conducted by PhD candidate Hannah Farrell of the University of Haifa at a site excavated by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee, in collaboration with Cheryl A. Makarewicz (isotope studies) and Nimrod Marom (archaeozoology) from the University of Haifa, along with Minji Jin and Dafna Langgut (pollen studies) from Tel Aviv University.

About Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee 

Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee is a rapidly growing research university addressing challenges in food security, sustainable agriculture, engineering, artificial intelligence (AI), and more.

Through interdisciplinary applied research, academic excellence in a host of disciplines – including humanities, social sciences, and education – as well as close collaboration with industry and communities, Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee is tackling some of the most pressing challenges of the 21st century, while positioning the Galilee as a global hub for innovation.

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The study was conducted by PhD candidate Hannah Farrell of the University of Haifa at a site excavated by Prof. Gonen Sharon of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee.  Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

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The elephant remains were discovered alongside basalt handaxes and cleavers, hallmark tools of the Acheulian tradition, one of the earliest and most widespread stone-tool technologies in human history. Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

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A remarkably preserved elephant tooth previously recovered from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY-NBA) — a prehistoric site in northern Israel, where early humans made stone tools some 700,000 years ago — has now enabled researchers to reconstruct a lush landscape of woodlands, wetlands, and waterways from the Pleistocene. The findings provide a rare glimpse into the environment shared by giant elephants and some of the region’s earliest human populations.  Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

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The research focuses on a giant elephant molar and tusk fragments discovered alongside Acheulian stone tools at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in northern Israel. The remains belonged to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene.  Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

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The remains belong to Palaeoloxodon antiquus, the straight-tusked elephant, one of the largest land mammals of the Pleistocene.  Credit: Photos and illustrations courtesy of Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee and Hannah Farrell, University of Haifa

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Article Source: Tel-Hai University of Kiryat Shmona in the Galilee news release.

*Elephant dental remains from the Acheulian site at North Bridge Acheulian–Gesher Benot Ya’aqov: hominin behavior and environmental implications, Quaternary Science Reviews, 10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.110277

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American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)—Wood imprints and charred remains of spears, trays, tripods, and an unusually shaped club uncovered at the Middle Paleolithic site of Abric Romaní in Spain suggest that woodworking may have been a key part of Neanderthal technology that paralleled the elaboration of stone tools, but is seldom preserved in the archaeological record. Palmira Saladié and colleagues describe the evidence of woodworking recovered from 16 layers of the site, dated between 62,000 and 40,000 years ago*. Much of the evidence comes from wooden imprints preserved by travertine incrustation, where calcium carbonate surrounds a wooden artifact that slowly decays and leaves an impression in the rock – which can preserve details down to the cellular level in some cases. Among wood imprints, charred wood imprints, and charred wooden remains, Saladié et al. documented tools and weapons such as spears and pointed sticks, domestic objects including a wooden tray, structural objects such as a tripod, and a club-like tool that appears unique within the prehistoric record. “Though relatively small, this collection of artefacts is notable for the varied morphology and functionality of the items that comprise it, demonstrating a remarkable technological versatility and the diversified exploitation of wood as a raw material,” the authors write.

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Drawing and recording work during the excavation of the wooden object at Abric Romaní.  Credit: Gerard Campeny / IPHES-CERCA.

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General view of the archaeological excavation at Abric Romaní, Capellades (Barcelona).  Credit: Gerard Campeny / IPHES-CERCA

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Drawing and recording work during the excavation of the wooden object from Abric Romaní interpreted as a wooden club. Credit: Gerard Campeny / IPHES-CERCA

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Drawing and recording work during the excavation of the wooden object from Abric Romaní interpreted as a digging stick. Credit: Gerard Campeny / IPHES-CERCA

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Prof. Dr. Eudald Carbonell with the wooden object from Abric Romaní interpreted as a wooden club. Credit: Gerard Campeny / IPHES-CERCA

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Article Source: AAAS news release.

*Neanderthal woodworking at Abric Romaní: Insights into the role of wood in a Middle Palaeolithic domestic context, Science Advances, 7-Oct-2026. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aeh2287

Frontiers—Scientists have confirmed that numerous burials clustered around First Dynasty tombs in Abydos, Egypt, reveal the sacrifice of royal household members after the death of kings. These graves were excavated in the 1920s by Flinders Petrie, who suspected that so many people couldn’t have died of natural causes simultaneously — but found no corroborating evidence of fatal wounds. Now reassessment of a sample of skulls from the site, using modern forensic methods, indicates that at least 39% of these individuals may have been deliberately killed by blows to the head.  

“I was drawn to these retainers partly because, even though they were buried around royalty, they are mostly relegated to footnotes in the grander narrative,” said Dr Roselyn Campbell of Purdue University, author of the article in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology and of a forthcoming book, State-sanctioned Violence and Human Sacrifice in Early Dynastic Egypt (Routledge Press). “Who were these people and how did they view the ruler and their own role in his or her life and death?” 

A cold case 

The funerary complexes at Abydos were built around 3000 BCE by the first kings of a unified Egypt. In addition to the royal tombs themselves, the complexes consisted of chamber tombs and enclosures probably used for funerary rituals, as well as subsidiary burials surrounding the tombs and enclosures.  

“Each subsidiary burial was a simple chamber in a row of dozens of others,” said Campbell. “Some people had a simple coffin. Most people had a few grave goods, like ceramic vessels, and many graves also included small objects like copper tools, projectile points, or small ivory figurines. Petrie found a few grave markers that had names and sometimes official titles on them. The titles seem to mostly refer to lower- or mid-level officials as well as artisans.” 

The sheer number of these subsidiary graves — some burials are surrounded by hundreds — made Petrie suspect that the burials reflected retainer sacrifice.  

“Retainer sacrifice is a type of human sacrifice where those close to a ruler are killed when the ruler dies,” explained Campbell. “In many cultures, retainer sacrifice is practiced because of beliefs that the sacrificed individuals will continue to serve the ruler in some kind of afterlife, but retainer sacrifice can also be a visceral display of the ruler’s power. Some retainers might have volunteered to die to achieve eternal life or honor, others may have been chosen or even forced.” 

But Petrie found no evidence of lethal trauma, which cast doubt on his hypothesis. To try and solve this mystery, Campbell set out to find the remaining evidence from Petrie’s excavations and assess it using modern forensic knowledge.  

Fresh evidence 

Petrie kept meticulous records, but he reburied most of the remains he excavated, retaining the skulls, some of which he sent to the UK. Campbell found 46 of these in the Duckworth Collection at Cambridge University and re-examined them, identifying crucial new evidence of violence. 18 of the 46 crania showed evidence of significant cranial trauma — linear fractures which Petrie seems to have mistaken for naturally-caused damage. Advances in forensic science allow us to recognize them as perimortem injuries.  

“The injuries on the preserved crania are generally linear fractures, which would likely cause rapid unconsciousness, internal bleeding, and death,” said Campbell, who also reported evidence of sharp-force trauma on some of the 18 skulls, including a chopping injury to one individual’s eye. 

We don’t know how these deaths happened. Egyptian kings are often depicted smiting their enemies with a mace, but these retainers weren’t their enemies, and a mace would have caused depressed fractures. Linear fractures are generally caused by a flat, wide weapon, or a fall — but falling hard enough to create a cranial fracture would probably have broken other bones, which should have been visible in Petrie’s photographs or recorded in his notes.  

We also don’t know what happened to the other retainers. Some could have died naturally. Alternatively, they may have been killed in a way that isn’t visible skeletally — like asphyxiation — or in a way that we would be able to detect if we could examine the rest of their skeleton. 

 “If I had unlimited resources, I would love to figure out where the bodies of these individuals might be and analyze them!” said Campbell. “Still, this study shows how much new information about the past can be revealed when we revisit previous data armed with updated methods and knowledge, even for datasets that are incomplete and imperfect like this one.” 

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Article Source: Frontiers news release.

*New Data from Old Bones: Using Bioarchaeology and Forensics to Reassess Legacy Data from Ancient Abydos, Egypt, Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology.  10.3389/fearc.2026.1858940

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University of Mississippi—At the end of the last Ice Age, early humans crisscrossed the Americas following seasons, rivers and game, often with a trusty spear in hand. Nearly 13,000 years later, archeologists are using those spearheads to study how America’s first inhabitants understood risk.

Stone projectile points are among the few surviving traces from the Tennessee River Valley’s earliest settlers, but the chipped stone weapons can be an indicator of how humans adapted to unfamiliar environments, according to a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory.

“We’re talking about Ice Age hunter-gatherers, people that looked and acted just like us and had the same needs that we do,” said Jesse Tune, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi and director of its Center for Archaeological Research. “But they’re living in a world that is dominated by mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths – all these animals that are totally unfamiliar to us today.

“What we’re looking at – the points – is a tiny part of their life, but we’re trying to see the rest of their behaviors through the lens of these spear points because that’s what we have.”

Tune and Shane Miller, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, studied some 500 spear points recovered from the Tennessee River Valley region to glean insights into the lives of the Clovis and Cumberland people.

The Clovis people are thought to be among the earliest inhabitants of the Tennessee River Valley region, with the earliest evidence of the group being dated to around 13,200 years ago. Being in a new landscape meant not knowing where to find resources such as chert, a type of sedimentary rock ideal for making weapons.

“How did they adapt to a place no one has ever been before?” Miller said. “We can’t interview these people, so we have to look at the things they left behind.

“There aren’t that many archeological sites for these people that we can dig, but what we have instead are lots and lots of points that people have found in this region.”

Tune and Miller found that the Clovis groups were more likely to resharpen spearheads, possibly signaling that they were concerned about managing their resources.

“We hang on to stuff today, but when we’re talking about mobile hunter-gatherers, they had a different understanding and worldview when it came to personal possessions,” Tune said. “Spear points were designed to be disposable objects, and that makes what the Clovis were doing interesting.”

By the time the Cumberland people came along several hundred years later, they inherited the knowledge of where chert deposits and other resources were located from their predecessors.

“When we look at the Cumberland points, we can see where they got the raw material, roughly the time period that they lived and that they’ve used the point multiple times,” the Ole Miss researcher said. “But (the point) was rarely completely broken to the point that it couldn’t be used anymore.

“So how did it end up in what was essentially the trash, and then in the archeological record?”

Being more knowledgeable of the landscape allowed the Cumberland people to discard points that were still useable, evidence that they had learned where to gather new resources and were more comfortable in their surroundings, the researchers said.

“When you think about a people who are moving around a lot, understand that they didn’t have any pack animals,” Miller said. “That puts limitations on what tools you discard and what you carry around.

“You really don’t want to be carrying around a bag of rocks, and so you’re going to be judicious about balancing what you need versus what you can carry.”

While the question of what to discard and what to keep from local resources may seem like a problem of the past, humans are making the same decisions today, Tune said.

“Think about space exploration,” Tune said. “There really is no difference between Ice Age hunter-gatherers and the people sending missions and rovers to Mars. We’re moving into an area, deciding what to take with us, learning the resources and slowly expanding. It’s the exact same process.

“What we learn and how we pass on that knowledge are the same things that we’re still dealing with today. The only thing that’s changed is the technology.”

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Jesse Tune, director of the Center for Archaeological Research, examines a replica of a Cumberland spear point, one of two types of stone projectiles he and Shane Miller, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Alabama, studied to gain insights into the lives of ancient inhabitants of the Tennessee River Valley. The Cumberland people were the second known group of humans living in the region some 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age.
Credit: Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

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The amount of resharpening and wear on 13,000-year-old spearheads, similar to these replicas, is helping archeologists understand how North America’s first inhabitants understood risk during the last Ice Age. On the right is a replica of a projectile point from the Clovis people, who were among the first people to live in the Tennessee River Valley region. On the left are two spear points from the Cumberland people, who inhabited the region after the Clovis.
Credit:  Photo by Kevin Bain/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

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Article Source: University of Mississippi news release.

*Foraging Theory and the Colonization of Unfamiliar Landscapes: Assessing Late Pleistocene Projectile Point Reduction Strategies, Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 10.1007/s10816-026-09825-w

University of Gothenburg—The findings challenge traditional assumptions about mobility and migration in prehistoric societies. Previous research has often suggested that women were more likely to move between communities, particularly through marriage in patrilineal societies.

“Our study* demonstrates that the number of non-local women to men are comparable, suggesting that several different factors might have been driving an individual’s mobility”, says Serena Sabatini, University of Gothenburg.

The Mediterranean region saw significant socio-cultural and economic transformations during the Bronze Age, varying across regions and over time. Expanding exchange networks played an important role in these developments. To what extent these exchanges were accompanied by the migration and settlement of foreign individuals within local communities is still poorly understood. 

The study: Exploring mobility in Bronze Age Greece: A Sr isotope perspective has been published in PLOS One. The study investigation determined the childhood origins of 199 Bronze Age individuals from southern and central Greece. 

The study shows that a consistent rate of 5 to 10 percent of the individuals analysed in each of the studied Bronze Age communities from modern-day Greece were ‘foreigners’. 

“Interestingly, non-local individuals were identified across different burial practices, featuring both unremarkable and richly furbished graves, revealing that individuals were mobile regardless of their wealth or status”, says Serena Sabatini, University of Gothenburg.

While no ‘foreigners’ were identified among the investigated children, young adults under the age of 30 were most likely to be non-local, suggesting that mobility and migration concerned to a considerable extent single young individuals rather than the relocation of entire families. 

Serena Sabatini and Kristian Kristiansen, both archaeologists from the University of Gothenburg have participated in the study. The study is published in PLOS One as open access: Exploring mobility in Bronze Age Greece: A Sr isotope perspective 

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A foreign childhood origin can be determined with a significant degree of certainty as an individual’s skeletal Sr isotope composition is directly linked to the surrounding environment through the consumed water and food, which are typically collected in the immediate environment. Hence, individuals with a Sr isotope composition different from that has been measured in the region (so called bioavailable baselines) surrounding their burial site are interpreted as originated elsewhere. 

The study presents Sr isotope data from 199 skeletal samples belonging to individuals excavated at six archaeological sites from central and southern Greece to explore how mobility changed throughout the Bronze Age and whether it was driven by specific factors.

The study has been published as part of The Rise II Project. Department of Historical studies, University of Gothenburg.

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Article Source: University of Gothenburg news release.

*Exploring mobility in Bronze Age Greece: A Sr isotope perspective, PLOS One, 23-Sep-2026. 10.1371/journal.pone.0357576

A hypothesis for a major paradigm shift has emerged in Paleolithic archaeology, challenging the traditional textbook depiction of Upper Paleolithic human mammoth hunting. For decades, popular culture and science championed the image of nomadic, mostly male hunters tracking woolly mammoths (Mammuthus primigenius) across vast open tundras and attacking them on land with long spears. 

Recent comparative systems analyses, however—backed by taphonomic, economic, spatial, and iconographic data—proposes a radically different framework known as the River Paradigm (RP). 

This newly articulated paradigm reshapes our understanding of Paleolithic hunting, spatial economy, and the true function of the iconic mammoth-bone settlements discovered across Central and Eastern Europe. 

The Core Shift: From Terrestrial Chases to the “River Paradigm”

The River Paradigm, heavily detailed by researchers analyzing Eastern European river basins, argues that Paleolithic mammoth hunting was not an opportunistic land pursuit, but a vertically integrated, riverine subsistence system. Instead of tracking agile herds on open steppes where humans faced immense physical disadvantages, communities used navigable river systems to safely trap and kill mammoths. The rivers solved the impossible logistics of moving a 4-to-6-ton animal. Hunters utilized river currents to transport massive carcasses downstream toward centralized riverside settlements for butchery and processing. Rather than relying entirely on flimsy hand-thrown spears, the paradigm proposes that hunters used massive, pre-positioned, lubricated, hafted composite thrusting spears embedded securely along specific river channels and bottlenecks. 

Demographics: Target Selection

This economic re-evaluation aligns seamlessly with recent demographic discoveries. Zooarchaeological analyses indicate that Paleolithic hunters deliberately targeted female mammoths and matriarchal herds rather than solitary, wandering apex males. The female herds had much more stable, predictable migratory routes through river corridors, making them easier to intercept. While adult female mammoths still weighed up to 4 tons, they were physically smaller and far less aggressive than 6-ton lone males, maximizing caloric return while mitigating injury risk to the hunting collective. 

Reinterpreting Mammoth-Bone Circles as “Smokehouses”

One of the most profound aspects of this new paradigm is the radical reimagining of Mammoth-Bone Structures (MMBS)—the famous circular structures consisting of collected mammoth bone remains found at sites like Mezhyrich, Ukraine; Eliseevichi, Russiia; Kyiv-Kirilovskaia; and Kostenki, Russia.

Heretofore labeled as winter huts or ritual spaces, the new economic model presents the Smokehouse Hypothesis, positing that these structures were highly specialized facilities designed for the mass cold-smoking of meat and the rendering of fat. The massive quantities of burnt and calcinated bone found inside these circles were not structural garbage; they were deliberately used as fire fuel to slow down combustion, creating the steady, low-temperature smoke required for cold-smoking meat.

The hypothesis solves longstanding archaeological mysteries, explaining why many bone circles completely lack formal entranceways, are packed with rows of aligned flat hearths, and feature floor spaces explicitly scaled for commercial-grade meat storage. 

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The Kostenki site, taken from the roof of the associated museum – photo from Don’s Maps

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The World’s First “Process Charts”?

This paradigm is not built solely on bone taphonomy, but also on the re-examination of Upper Paleolithic art. Engraved ivory tusks and bones from Mezhyrich, Eliseevichi, and Kyiv-Kirilovskaia are now being interpreted by scholars as the world’s oldest process charts and pictographic documents. 

Rather than abstract or map-like drawings, these artifacts act as literal instruction manuals carved by the hunters themselves. They document step-by-step industrial sequences, from carcass docking at riverbanks, primary riverside butchery, cold-smoking operations within the bone circles, to finally fat-rendering and organized multi-tier storage.

The Broad Impact on Paleo-Economics.    

By demonstrating that Upper Paleolithic communities operated an organized, vertically integrated production line using water power, the River Paradigm shifts our timeline of human socio-economic complexity. It suggests that these Ice Age populations were far more sedentary, cooperative, and managerially advanced than the simple nomadic bands previously imagined.

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See A Hunter’s Hypothesis: Ancient Mammoth-Bone Circles Were Smokehouses, published at Popular Archaeology February 12, 2025.

Cover Image, Top: Credit Kyraxys,Pixabay

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Popular Archaeology Magazine

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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences—Ground-edged sickles and knives in Neolithic North China were likely used for fiber production as well as harvesting, according to a study*. The transition from the Paleolithic Period to the Neolithic Period in North China was marked by the development of stone sickles and knives with continuous cutting edges produced by grinding and polishing. Such ground-edged tools are thought to have been used for harvesting cereal crops, but the origins of the technology are unclear. Ran Chen and colleagues analyzed 140 stone artifacts from the site of Peiligang in Henan Province, China, including Upper Paleolithic flaked stone tools and Early Neolithic flaked and ground-edged stone tools. Using experimental replicas, the authors found that, compared with stone flakes, ground-edged tools were only slightly more efficient at harvesting seed-bearing grasses but significantly more efficient at cutting thick-stemmed weeds and fiber-yielding plants. Use-wear and microfossil residue analysis indicated that Upper Paleolithic flaked tools were used to process diverse plant and animal materials, a feature also observed in Early Neolithic flaked tools. In contrast, ground-edged tools were more specialized for plant-related activities, including harvesting and processing food plants and fiber-producing plants. According to the authors, fiber production, an under-appreciated factor in the development of ground-edged stone tools in Neolithic China, provides insights into prehistoric tool use beyond subsistence functions.

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Hafted experimental sickle replica.  Credit Ran Chen.

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Researcher using experimental sickle replica to harvest velvet leaf.  Credit Ran Chen.

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Article Source: PNAS news release.

*“Plant fiber exploitation contributed to the emergence of ground-edged cutting tools in North China,” by Ran Chen, Yongqiang Li, Xingcan Chen, Wanfa Gu, and Xiaoying Wu.  https://www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2608882123

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POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY ON INSTAGRAM

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During archaeological excavations conducted on the territory of the ‘Keshikchidag’ State Historical and Cultural Reserve located in the Agstafa district, Azerbaijan, important Bronze Age artifacts were uncovered. A rare mace head, a bronze dagger, and various arrowheads indicating the burial of an individual with high social and military status were discovered in Kurgan No. 4, located in the Sariyokhush area.

The archaeological excavations are being conducted within the framework of the project ‘Scientific Archaeological Excavations and Summer School 6 in Keshikchidagh,’ organized in partnership with the Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology of the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences (ANAS), on the territory of the ‘Keshikchidagh’ State Historical and Cultural Reserve under the management of the State Service for Protection, Development and Restoration of Cultural Heritage under the Ministry of Culture. Students, master’s students, and young volunteers are also participating in the project. Under the guidance of specialists, they gain practical experience in field archaeological work.

Led by Vagif Asadov, leading researcher at the ANAS Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology and PhD in History, the archaeological excavations have brought to light material culture samples belonging to the Middle Bronze Age of the South Caucasus, dating back approximately to the 17th–16th centuries BCE.

The stone-covered kurgan has a diameter of approximately 12 meters, a height of 80 centimeters above the ground level, and a depth of 1–1.2 meters. The materials recovered from the burial chamber of the kurgan indicate that an individual with high social and military status was buried here. The finds provide new information about the military-political structure and social relations of that period.

Among the discovered artifacts, the bronze dagger is of particular significance. As a close-combat weapon, this dagger is considered one of the key indicators that the deceased held the status of a warrior or military commander.

One of the most notable artifacts of the excavation is a mace head made of diorite stone with a hole drilled from both sides through its center. Weighing approximately 400–500 grams, this artifact was crafted and polished from special stone. It is assumed that a wooden or bone handle was fitted through the central hole.

Archaeologists state that such mace heads were not used merely for practical purposes. These artifacts could also serve as symbolic and ceremonial objects denoting the high status of the military aristocracy, tribal leader, or commander. The smooth, symmetrical, and balanced form of the mace head also demonstrates the level of development of stonemasonry art in the South Caucasus during the Bronze Age.

Various arrowheads were also found in the kurgan. The rare winged arrowheads evoke special interest among Middle Bronze Age weaponry due to their material and shape. Two black obsidian arrowheads indicate the use of obsidian deposits in the region and the existence of raw material exchange.

In addition, nine flint arrowheads were discovered during the excavations. Distinguished by their dark oak-red shades, quality of craftsmanship, and delicate shape, these specimens provide detailed information about the high military and social status of the deceased.

The discovered artifacts, particularly the ceramic samples, are undergoing preliminary restoration and laboratory processing under special conditions by reserve staff. Subsequently, the samples will be properly accessioned into the reserve’s fund.

To determine the absolute age of the artifacts obtained from the archaeological excavations, relevant samples will be sent for radiocarbon analysis to the Tokyo University Museum Center at the University of Tokyo in Japan, TİKA in Turkiye, and the Woods laboratories at the University of Miami in the USA.

Systematic research conducted in the Keshikchidagh Valley of Kurgans makes an important contribution to the study of the Bronze Age history of Azerbaijan and the South Caucasus as a whole. Implemented with the participation of young volunteers, this project also serves to promote the cultural and archaeological tourism potential of the region and Azerbaijan overall.

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The excavation in progress.Keshikchidag DTMQ

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The Bronze dagger, in situ. Keshikchidag DTMQ

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The human burial remains with associated artifacts. Keshikchidag DTMQ

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Winged Arrowheads. Keshikchidag DTMQ

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POPULAR ARCHAEOLOGY ON INSTAGRAM

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Taman, Russia, 31 August 2026, — Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo Foundation has announced a major new discovery by the Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition: a winemaking district dating from the early centuries AD. It produced thousands of tonnes of wine a year, making Phanagoria the largest winemaking centre in the ancient Black Sea region.

The district uncovered by archaeologists consists of several blocks containing the remains of five wineries. Located in the heart of the city beside the seaport, it was likely one of the busiest and most crowded parts of ancient Phanagoria, where wineries stood alongside shops and warehouses. The largest winery could produce up to 30 tonnes of wine a year. Archaeologists believe there may have been more than a hundred winemaking sites across Phanagoria.

The discoveries give a detailed picture of the winemaking process. Grapes were crushed underfoot on platforms coated with a water-resistant mixture of sand, lime, shells and crushed ceramics. The juice was then poured into large clay vessels known as pithoi and left to ferment. Archaeologists have uncovered around 60 pithoi, each holding 600–800 litres. Some have survived almost intact, while others are preserved only as outlines in the ground.

The finished wine was poured into amphorae for sale. Before filling, the vessels were disinfected by burning sulphur, traces of which can still be seen on the bottoms of some of them. Phanagoria produced both red and white wine, sold locally and exported to Greek colonies across the northern Black Sea region. Hundreds of gold and copper coins found in the winemaking district attest to the scale of this trade.

Along with bread and olive oil, wine was a staple of the diet in Phanagoria and held an important place in religious practice. It featured prominently in the mysteries of Dionysus, one of the city’s most revered gods. Images of Dionysus and his companions, satyrs and maenads, as well as grape motifs associated with his cult, appear frequently on coins, amphorae and figurines found at the site.

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Photo from Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo foundation.

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Photo from Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo foundation.

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About the Phanagoria Archaeological Expedition

The ancient city of Phanagoria, studied with the support of Oleg Deripaska’s Volnoe Delo Foundation, existed for over 1,500 years, and served as the capital of the Asian part of the Bosporan Kingdom, the oldest state formation on the territory of modern-day Russia. Today, it is the largest ancient monument in the country.

Among the most remarkable discoveries of the Phanagoria Expedition are the palace of King Mithridates VI, two ancient Greek temples, and a sunken ancient ship. Artifacts from Phanagoria are preserved in the Hermitage, the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, and museums in the United Kingdom, Germany, and other countries.

About the Volnoe Delo Foundation

Volnoe Delo, a foundation supporting social innovation, was founded by industrialist Oleg Deripaska. Today it is one of the largest organisations in Russia operating in the field of charity, philanthropy and volunteering. The foundation helps solve socially significant problems, supports education and science and contributes to the preservation of Russia’s cultural and historical heritage. The foundation has supported 500 projects in 50 Russian regions, benefiting 90,000 pupils, 4,000 teachers, 8,000 university and school students, 4,000 scientists, and 1,200 educational, scientific, cultural, healthcare, sports and other organisations.

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Article Source: News release of the Volnoe Delo Foundation.

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