Antiquity Journal
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Antiquity Journal
@antiquity.ac.uk
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Antiquity is a bimonthly review of world archaeology edited by Professor Robin Skeates. Please be aware that we sometimes share relevant images of human remains. https://antiquity.ac.uk/
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antiquity.ac.uk
China's last emperor, Puyi, was crowned #OnThisDay in AD 1908, aged just 2

The first emperor, Qin Shihuang, is buried at Xi'an. His mausoleum is best-known for the terracotta warriors, but even the wood in its construction likely held symbolic importance

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
A view, looking south, of the current vegetation of Mount Li. The mausoleum is located at the northern foot of the mountain, but the wood for its construction was not sourced here, indicating the sophisticated logistical planning and resource mobilisation of the Qin Dynasty as well as the symbolic importance of using specific wood in the emperor's tomb (photograph by Q.W. Zhang).
December 2, 2025 at 3:03 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Playing 6000-year-old conch shell trumpets for the first time reveals they were effective tools for long-distance communication and may have also been used as musical instruments 🐚

Read the research 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
December 2, 2025 at 1:16 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Our December issue is out now! Featuring great #archaeology such as:

🔵 The oldest blue mineral pigment use in Europe
⛰️ Mesoamerican mountain monuments and water worship
🐚 Playing the shell trumpets of Neolithic Catalonia

& much more! 🏺
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Cover of the December 2025 issue of Antiquity, featuring a photogrammetric image of an ancient quarry, with evidence for the quarrying of stone and a partially complete humanoid statue lying on its back.
December 2, 2025 at 10:22 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
In Elizabethan England, 'bear baiting' pitted bears against dogs in arenas. Unthinkable today, it was popular entertainment on par with Shakespeare's plays, showing profound changes in human-animal relationships over the past 500 years #NationalMuttDay

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Several dog remains (a rib, a fibula and two crania) with arrows pointing out trauma sustained fighting bears.
December 2, 2025 at 8:15 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
In ancient hilly landscapes, agricultural terraces were a necessity for farming. In #BronzeAge north-east England, their construction coincides with that of roundhouse settlements and field systems, possibly indicating a population boom.

🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Shaded relief map of topographic features overlaid onto a satellite image of the hilly landscape of the Cheviot Hills. Annotations indicate the locations of prehistoric terraces, as well as an Iron Age hillfort, medieval ridge and furrow, a modern plantation and more.
December 1, 2025 at 5:15 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
NEW Is this West Africa's first 'multi-tool'?
Use-wear analysis of Ground Stone Axes from Later #StoneAge (c.13000–12000 years ago) Nigeria indicates they were used for many different tasks, such as wood working, butchery/bone working and digging.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Six stone axes, some roughly curvilinear, some long, thick triangular and flattened with sharp edges.
December 1, 2025 at 2:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
By the medieval period, Norse was the dominant language of Scotland's Northern Isles #MedievalMonday
How Scandinavian culture, technology and lifeways took hold is obscure, but new radiocarbon dates from Orkney show the transition was long and complex.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Plans of rectilinear structures from across Pictish Scotland. First thought to be Norse, the new dates indicate they were built prior to Scandinavian settlement.
December 1, 2025 at 10:15 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
What makes Antarctica so useful to archaeologists? #AntarcticaDay
It was never occupied by primates, so may be the perfect 'natural laboratory' for comparing human (or other primate)-made #lithic tools with naturally fractured stones.

🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Examples of Antarctic rock samples that bear resemblance to proposed human- or non-human primate-made stone tools.
December 1, 2025 at 8:13 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
One of countless unexploded bombs in north-eastern Laos, left by the US during the Secret War (1964–1973). Their presence creates 'exclusion zones' where the land is still unsafe for agriculture or habitation, showing the lasting impact of conflict.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Circular metal object on the ground, obscured by long grass.
November 30, 2025 at 11:00 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Monument from the mountain of Cerro Patlachique, south of Teotihuacan, depicting a jaguar clutching a bleeding heart #JaguarDay
A common depiction throughout Teotihuacan, it suggests the mountain was sacred to the powerful Mesoamerican city-state.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
3D model of a 0.62m-tall piece of stone, engraved with a depiction of a spotted jaguar clutching a bleeding heart in its claws (model by A. Texis Muñoz; © Project Plaza of the Columns Complex).
November 29, 2025 at 2:12 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
8000 years ago in the remote, boreal landscape of the Siberian taiga, hunter-gatherers built the earliest fortified sites. The development of territoriality and social conflict was not necessarily tied to agriculture.

🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology

📷 N. Golovanov
Aerial photograph of the Amnya river and promontory, on which the oldest promontory fort in the world was discovered.
November 28, 2025 at 3:02 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Detached head of a figurine from #Viking Age Aska, Sweden. Microwear traces indicate the head was decapitated intentionally. A similar practice has been observed on human remains from this period, indicating connections between human and metal bodies.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Silver miniature head with a loop on top, likely to string it onto a pendant. Microscopic images show traces of wear at the base, suggesting the head was intentionally separated from the body (figure by C. Tsoraki; Aska photograph by O. Myrin, Swedish Historical Museums, CC BY 4.0).
November 28, 2025 at 1:45 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
#FindsFriday Pots, tools and weapons from the Aketala sites in the western Tarim Basin. Similarities with examples from Central Asia's Andronovo culture indicate they had reached the region by 1800 BC, bringing agropastoralism and bronze manufacturing.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Two pottery jars, a grinding stone, a stone sickle, a stone knife, a stone pestle, bronze arrowheads and a bone arrowhead.
November 28, 2025 at 10:22 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Ferdinand Magellan's expedition to circumnavigate the globe first passed through the Strait of Magellan #OnThisDay in AD 1520.
The southernmost archaeological site in the world (an Indigenous hunting camp) is nearby, on the island of Isla Hornos.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Map showing the location of Isla Hornos in relation to Tierra del Fuego and, in an insert, wider South America. A large arrow points to the approximate location of the archaeological site, in the south of the island.
November 28, 2025 at 8:13 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Occupied by the #Romans from the 2nd century AD, Khirbet al-Khalde, Jordan featured a fort, caravanserai & more #RomanFortThursday

Thought abandoned when Roman occupation ended in the 4th century, new research indicates activity continued into the 8th

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Aerial photo of the outlines of rectilinear buildings in a desert at the foot of a mountain. A train track runs through the buildings.
November 27, 2025 at 7:45 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Happy #Thanksgiving 🦃
Before the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for the New World, there was Jamestown. Learn about family history at the first permanent English settlement in North America, and a genealogical secret kept hidden for centuries, in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Excavation at Jamestown of James fort’s 1608 Church, showing structural posts and four chancel burial outlines (credit: Michael Lavin, Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia).ructural posts and four chancel burial outlines (credit: Michael Lavin, Jamestown Rediscovery (Preservation Virginia).
November 27, 2025 at 5:30 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
It wasn't all wretched though. These documents record a religious festival (possibly the oldest written evidence for a midsummer celebration in England) at the fort, where beer, wine, pork, fish sauce and more was consumed!

Learn how Roman fish sauce was made in Antiquity 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Four wooden tablets with writing on them.
November 27, 2025 at 4:02 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
A possible outfit worn in 1200–450 BC Central Europe. Over 550 bronze artefacts associated with human remains at a dried-out lake site in Poland allowed researchers to recreate this hypothetical costume of the Bronze-Iron Age Lusatian culture.

🔗 from 2024 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Person lying on the floor as if dead, with their head to one side and hands on their hips. They are wearing a cloth tunic with a blanket or skirt layered on top from the waist down and a loosely-woven hat with two gold-coloured pins on the headband. On their torso lie several large pieces of bronze jewellery, such as necklaces and brooches.
November 27, 2025 at 1:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
"It is now time to explore new comparisons, relationships and interactions which—if pursued in contexts free from hierarchical boundaries—can revitalise our ways of thinking about ancient Egypt and Antiquity as a whole." 2/2

✍️ Reviewed by Rennan Lemos
Title of the Review Article (Decolonising ancient Egypt?), citations of the two books reviewed, and name of the reviewer.
November 27, 2025 at 10:45 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
📕 How has colonialism shaped #Egyptology?

Our latest #ReviewArticle explores how viewing Egypt through a colonial European lens defined our views of ancient Egypt, and asks whether contemporary art could be the key to decolonising Egyptology 1/2

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Covers of the two books reviewed with the text 'Review Article'.
November 27, 2025 at 10:45 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Hairpins and needles made of bone from Neolithic China for #PinsAndNeedlesDay 🪡
Bone-working was important in prehistoric China, used to make many tools. Initially a household industry, it became more specialised and standardised over time.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Ten pointed pieces of bone, some broken off partway along.
November 27, 2025 at 8:45 AM
antiquity.ac.uk
Birch tar was commonly used to relieve toothache and as an adhesive. It could have also functioned as early waterproofing. This bone point attached to a wooden shaft from Mesolithic Poland is coated with birch tar, supporting its use for fishing.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...
Pointed piece of bone fixed to a piece of wood, all coated in black tar.
November 26, 2025 at 9:35 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
At late Yangshao culture (5300–4800 BP) settlements in Neolithic China, people built settlements surrounded by circular, often extensive ditch systems. New research suggests they were an intelligent way to collect, store and transport rainwater #WednesdayWisdom

(£) doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺
Stratigraphic section from one of the ditch systems at the Shuanghuaishu site, Henan Province. Much of the sediment was likely deposited during flooding and from flowing water in the ditch.
November 26, 2025 at 5:35 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Fancy a dung cake this #NationalCakeDay? Not the most appetising, they are an efficient fuel source for cooking, producing a slow, steady heat. Still used in parts of South Asia, their use may date all the way back to the Indus Valley civilisation.

🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy...

🏺 #Archaeology
Map showing the major sites and interaction networks of the Indus Tradition (reproduced with permission from Kenoyer & Meadow 2016).
November 26, 2025 at 2:25 PM
antiquity.ac.uk
Howard Carter first entered #Tutankhamun's tomb #OnThisDay in 1922. He took detailed notes, allowing the tomb to be recreated.

🔗 from 2011 (£) doi.org/10.1017/S000...

🏺 #Archaeology
A recreation of part of Tutankhamun's tomb from Howard Carter's notes, depicting a series of walls around the sarcophagus with objects around or inside them.
November 26, 2025 at 1:45 PM