Climate change is rapidly destroying cultural heritage sites across the Arctic, as exemplified in a 17^th century “whalers’ graveyard” which provides invaluable insights into early whalers’ way of life, according to a study published May 20, 2026 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Lise Loktu of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and Elin Therese Brødholt of Oslo University Hospital, Norway.

New research identifies pre-agricultural intensification of plant use in Pleistocene Sri Lankan rainforests

Research on Roman-Byzantine villages in Syria has revealed sophisticated construction techniques and carefully organized domestic layouts, providing deeper insight into the subtle aspects of daily life in Late Antiquity. Remarkably, these architectural remains have endured in an exceptionally well-preserved state since the sixth century AD, despite the passage of time and centuries of environmental exposure.

Writing in Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology, researchers in Norway and Canada recently investigated the evolution of butchering technology using newly analyzed zooarchaeological data from Bronze Age Tell Aphek, an archaeological site in north Israel. They showed that stone tools dominated during the Early Bronze Age (3000–2500 BCE) followed by a dramatic and sudden shift towards metal tools with the onset of Middle Bronze Age occupation (2000–1550 BCE). By the end of the Late Bronze Age (1550–1200 BCE), metal tools had almost completely replaced stone tools as the main butchering tools.

A millennium-old dingo deliberately buried by Barkindji ancestors in Australia, is offering rare insight into the depth of relationships between First Nations people and dingoes. The dingo appears to have been buried with great care in a purpose‑built midden, which continued to be tended and “fed” with river mussel shells for centuries, suggesting an ongoing relationship between the buried dingo and local people. This is believed to be the first time this “feeding” practice has been observed archaeologically anywhere in the world.  

The climate of the ancient Eastern Mediterranean was far more turbulent than previously thought — and a new study suggests that people adapted anyway.

Analysis of Historic St. Mary’s City highlights the power of combining ancient DNA, archaeology, and genealogy to restore lost identities and track the migrations of America's earliest  English colonists and their descendants.