EurekAlert! News by Subject: Archaeology - News by Subject: Archaeology

Archaeology

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Jul-2025 00:10 ET (1-Jul-2025 04:10 GMT/UTC)

15-Apr-2025

Coastal heritage threatened by climate change

Natural and cultural resource management are conducted separately, despite the fact that climate change, sea level rise, and extreme weather threaten them both. Jayur Mehta and colleagues argue a synergy of both approaches is required to protect coastal archaeological landscapes.

Journal: PNAS Nexus

14-Apr-2025

New analysis of archaeological data reveals how agriculture and governance have shaped wealth inequality

University of Oxford
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new study led by Amy Bogaard, Professor of European Archaeology, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford, reveals that high wealth inequality in human societies over the past 10,000 years was encouraged by land-hungry farming practices. Where land became scarce, wealth inequality often grew among households, but where land was abundant, wealth was more equally distributed.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

14-Apr-2025

Archaeologists discover historical link between inequality and sustainability

Durham University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Inequality has been linked to human sustainability for over 10,000 years, according to new findings by archaeologists.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: National Science Foundation, Coalition for Archaeological Synthesis, Centre for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology, Horizon 2020 Framework Programme

14-Apr-2025

New study reveals wealth inequality’s deep roots in human prehistory

Washington State University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Wealth inequality began shaping human societies more than 10,000 years ago, long before the rise of ancient empires or the invention of writing. That’s according to a new study led by Washington State University archaeologist Tim Kohler that challenges traditional views that disparities in wealth emerged suddenly with large civilizations like Egypt or Mesopotamia. The research is part of a special issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, co-edited by Kohler and Amy Bogaard, an archaeologist at Oxford University in England.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

14-Apr-2025

New archaeological database reveals links between housing and inequality in ancient world

University of Colorado at Boulder
Peer-Reviewed Publication

A new project collects more than 55,000 measurements of housing floor area across thousands of years of human history around the globe.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

14-Apr-2025

Archaeologists measured and compared the size of 50,000 ancient houses to learn about the history of inequality -- they found that it’s not inevitable

Field Museum
Peer-Reviewed Publication

We’re living in a period where the gap between rich and poor is dramatic, and it’s continuing to widen. But inequality is nothing new. In a new study published in the journal PNAS, researchers compared house size distributions from more than 1,000 sites around the world, covering the last 10,000 years. They found that while inequality is widespread throughout human history, it’s not inevitable, nor is it expressed to the same degree at every place and time.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

14-Apr-2025

A revisit to continental collision between India and Asia

Science China Press
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The India-Asia continental collision and the uplift of the Tibetan Plateau have long been attributed to continuous Cenozoic convergence with two generic assumptions: the ongoing India-Asia collision and the underthrusting of the Indian continent beneath the Tibet hinterland. This study presents a challenge to the two assumptions through an integrative analysis of geological, geophysical and geochemical data, concluding that the two generic assumptions do not stand under close scrutiny and thus are essentially specious in previous studies. The conclusions have great bearing on the formation and evolution of the Himalaya-Tibet tectonic collage.

Journal: Earth-Science Reviews