Tag Archaeology
3,000-year-old canoe recovered from Lake Mendota
On a brisk and breezy first day of fall, divers recovered an ancient Ho-Chunk canoe from the depths of Lake Mendota, an effort coordinated by the Wisconsin State Historical Society and members of the Ho-Chunk Nation.
Lost since 1943 crash, WWII pilot returned to Alabama family
The rest of "Buster" Stone's World War II bomber-escort mission never saw him again, but in August 2018 a team from UW–Madison unearthed the wreckage of his plane and his remains from a crash site in France. And the Stone family had Buster back.
Ancient poop helps show climate change contributed to fall of Cahokia
A study provides a direct link between changes in Cahokia’s population size as measured through a unique fecal record and environmental data showing evidence of drought and flood.
Today’s middle school students study yesterday’s people of Aztalan
Every few summers, the park becomes an active archaeological site when Sissel Schroeder leads a field school there, to better understand those who lived at Aztalan nearly 1,000 years ago.
Homo naledi had a tiny brain but it looked a lot like ours
Scientists and nonscientists alike have often associated larger brains with greater intelligence, but a new study may challenge that notion. “Maybe brain size isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” says John Hawks, one of the study’s corresponding authors.
UW–Madison archaeologist elected to National Academy of Sciences
T. Douglas Price is an emeritus professor of anthropology, an expert on prehistoric agriculture in Europe, and a pioneer in the use of chemical isotopes to assess mobility in ancient peoples.
‘Origins’ scientists to take your questions Thursday during Reddit AMA
Ever wondered what it’s like to unearth a long-buried human ancestor? Or to peer into the night sky to discover the mysteries of galaxy evolution? Find out Thursday.
In ‘Origins,’ UW–Madison and South African scientists tackle mysteries of our shared beginnings
The quest to understand our beginnings — of our universe, of life on Earth, of our species — inspires people all over the world. At UW–Madison, researchers have forged partnerships with colleagues in South Africa and are uncovering answers and opening new scientific frontiers.
UW search team recovers remains of airman missing since WWII
It has been more than 70 years since 1st Lt. Frank Fazekas’ P-47 Thunderbolt crashed in northern France, just over a week before the D-Day invasion in 1944.
South African cave yields yet more fossils of a newfound relative
The discovery of the new Homo naledi fossils, representing the remains of at least three juvenile and adult specimens, includes a “wonderfully complete skull,” says UW–Madison anthropologist John Hawks.
UW search team finds downed WWII plane
This summer, in a unique collaboration, a team from the University of Wisconsin–Madison recovered wreckage and possible human remains from a site in France where an American pilot crashed during World War II.
Old technology provides modern lessons to archaeology students
Students in anthropology Professor Mark Kenoyer's Ancient Technology and Invention course were working recently under a beating hot sun at the outdoor UW–Madison Experimental Archaeology Lab near Picnic Point.
Explorations at Aztalan yield enthusiasm and excitement for visitors, students
Excavations are underway to better understand the daily lives of the ancient peoples who called Aztalan home a millennium ago.
UW-Madison graduate named Gates Cambridge Scholar
Joanna Lawrence received her bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UW–Madison and completed her master’s degree in archaeology at Cambridge last year.
As the river rises: Cahokia’s emergence and decline linked to Mississippi River flooding
As with rivers, civilizations across the world rise and fall. Sometimes, the rise and fall of rivers has something to do with it. At Cahokia, the largest prehistoric settlement in the Americas north of Mexico, new evidence suggests that major flood events in the Mississippi River valley are tied to the cultural center’s emergence and ultimately, to its decline.
Excavation exposes Roman imperial outpost at its bitter end
Like Pompeii, the ancient ruins of Zeugma, a frontier city of the Roman Empire on the banks of the Euphrates River in what is now modern Turkey, stood frozen in time.
Town meets gown to explore Wisconsin’s Trempealeau mounds
Why did migrants from Cahokia, the large mound city near St. Louis, move to the present-day village of Trempealeau in western Wisconsin to build flat-topped mounds about 1,000 years ago? That question has intrigued Danielle Benden, senior curator in the University of Wisconsin–Madison Department of Anthropology, for more than a decade.
Sardis dig yields enigmatic trove: ritual egg in a pot
Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.
Anthropologist, ‘underground astronaut’ strike fossil gold in South Africa dig
Squeezing through a gap called the International Postbox and climbing the jagged Dragon's Back were not in Alia Gurtov's plans for the fall semester, but she made an exception in order to participate in a wildly successful archaeological expedition into a South African cave.