News from the ancient world
A study of 243 people who lived between the 1st and 8th centuries AD puts the Germanic newcomers' genetic share at 12 to 22 percent, depending on region and social context.
The ancient Roman theatre of Mérida, Spain, once the Roman provincial capital Augusta Emerita. Photo: Lmbuga (Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez), CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
Bronze Age · 17th century BC · Hala Sultan Tekke, Larnaca, Cyprus
Swedish archaeologists have found the first buildings at Hala Sultan Tekke from the 17th to the 15th century BC.
Greece & Rome · c. AD 28 · Velsen, North Holland, Netherlands
Leiden archaeologists reopened a 1977 find and think the man's own comrades most likely killed him.
Iron Age · c. 500 BC · Korskro, Jutland, Denmark
A belt of post pits from around 500 BC blocked the old Drivvej in western Denmark.
The top 10 discoveries of 2026 so far, chosen by our desks
Bronze Age · c. 2280 BC · Saqqara, Giza Governorate, Egypt
The Old Kingdom official was buried beside King Merenre's pyramid, and although his tomb held the instruments, no inscription in his burial chamber calls him a doctor.
Stone Age · Neolithic, c. 7000 BC · Diyarbakır province, South-eastern Anatolia, Turkey
The roughly 9,000-year-old work area had a stone-paved floor and six postholes, and Turkey's culture minister says local mining continued for about 2,000 years.
Stone Age · c. 3000 BC · Fanshan, Liangzhu, Zhejiang, China
Post holes at Fanshan outline three wooden buildings next to China's highest-ranking Neolithic graves, built about 5,000 years ago.
Bronze Age · c. 2700–2400 BC · Kekova Island, Antalya, Turkey
At least 30 storage jars, some probably made in the Jordan Valley, lie about 30 metres down near Kekova Island, though the wooden hull has not survived.
Bronze Age · c. 1400 BC · Kayalıpınar (Šamuḫa), Sivas province, Turkey
Excavators at Kayalıpınar, ancient Šamuḫa, recovered 131 tablets and fragments from the reign of Tudhaliya II in 2026, bringing the archive to 184 pieces.
Bronze Age · c. 1259 BC · Hattusa (Boğazkale), Çorum province, Turkey
The clay piece, part of an Akkadian copy of the pact between Ramesses II and Hattusili III, preserves clauses on people fleeing between the two kingdoms.
Stone Age · c. 9000 BC · Karahan Tepe, Şanlıurfa, Turkey
The 70-centimetre sculpture, about 11,000 years old, reverses a known motif at the site, where earlier statues show humans carrying live leopards on their backs.
Byzantium · Late 7th to early 8th century AD · Polače, Mljet, Dubrovnik-Neretva County, Croatia
The 7th or 8th-century ship that sank near Mljet carried more than 600 grams of gold, jewelled belt sets and a signet ring showing a Heraclian emperor.
Iron Age · 10th–8th century BC · Ashur, Iraq
Yale and Münster researchers argue that three short-lived Neo-Assyrian rulers of the 10th and 8th centuries BC were later removed from the official Assyrian King List.
Iron Age · c. 900–200 BC · Issyk, Almaty Region, Kazakhstan
Genomes from 85 Iron Age steppe nomads show that high-status people were related across cemeteries more than 100 km apart, and nearly half of them were women.
Byzantium · 4th century AD · Ain el-Sabil, Dakhla Oasis, New Valley Governorate, Egypt
The 4th-century AD mudbrick settlement at Ain el-Sabil had a street grid, a central church, a fortress and an earlier house that may have served as a church.
Greece & Rome · 2nd century BC · Herculaneum, Campania, Italy
Nearly 1.5 metres of text from PHerc. 1667, a Greek philosophical work of around the 2nd century BC that may be Stoic, were recovered with X-ray scans and AI.
Iron Age · 5th century BC · Casas del Turuñuelo, Guareña, Extremadura, Spain
Half of the 5th-century BC cart, decorated with a horned river god sticking out its tongue, has been recovered at Casas del Turuñuelo in Extremadura.
Bronze Age · c. 2600–1900 BC · Mohenjo-daro, Sindh, Pakistan
University of York researchers analysed house sizes from old excavation records and found the gap between large and small homes narrowed as the city matured.
Bronze Age · 13th to 10th century BC · Aghios Vasileios, Xirokambi, Laconia, Greece
A Linear B archive at Aghios Vasileios and a hilltop sanctuary at Amyklai suggest the Spartans joined an older Lacedaemonian community rather than replacing it.
Stone Age · c. 4500–2500 BC · Atbai Desert, Eastern Sudan
Only about 20 of the circular tombs in the Atbai Desert were known before; they were built between about 4500 and 2500 BC as the Sahara dried.
Stone Age · 4th millennium BC · Eurasian steppe, Eastern Europe and Central Asia
A Science Advances study argues that people rode, milked and managed horses in the 4th millennium BC, long before the spread of the DOM2 lineage around 2200 BC.
Stone Age · c. 4300–2300 BC · Valdelasilla, Illescas, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain
Dates on human bones show the planned cemetery, with a central tomb inside a 36-metre ditch, was laid out in the late fifth millennium BC.
Stone Age · Neolithic, before 3000 BC · Loch Bhorgastail, Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland, United Kingdom
Archaeologists recorded the Neolithic island above and below the waterline as one structure, using a new shallow-water camera method described in Advances in Archaeological Practice.
Greece & Rome · Late Ptolemaic to Byzantine · Muharram Bey, Alexandria, Alexandria Governorate, Egypt
Rescue excavations in central Alexandria found a site occupied from the Ptolemaic to the Byzantine period, with marble statues of Bacchus, Asclepius and possibly Minerva.
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