Religion And The Rise Of Cahokia
Spring 2016: By Alexandra Witze.
Some 12 miles east of St. Louis in the midst of Looking Glass Prairie stands a ridge the height of a four-story building. Known as Emerald, it is a natural...
Rethinking Shell Middens
Summer 2018: By David Malakoff
In the fall of 2005, Hurricane Wilma, a powerful storm packing 120-mile-an-hour winds, smashed into the Ten Thousand Islands, a fifty-mile-long maze of mangrove-ringed islets on the Florida’s southwestern coast....
Searching For Etzanoa
Spring 2016: By David Malakoff.
In the early summer of 1601, Juan de Oñate, a conquistador who helped establish the Spanish colony of New Mexico, set off on a search to find Quivira, a fabled...
The Mystery Of Hohokam Ballcourts
Spring 2018: By Alexandra Witze.
From the Olmec to the Maya to the Aztec, ballgames were one of the defining activities of Mesoamerican cultures. Beginning some time before 1200 B.C., competitors kicked and whacked rubber...
Sneak Peak: 15,000 Year-Old Pre-Clovis at Wakulla Springs
Fall 2018 Sneak Peek By Tamara Jager Stewart.
15,000 Year-Old Pre-Clovis Sites Cluster at Wakulla Springs, Florida Are These Evidence of Mastodon Kill Sites?
Great to see old friend and Paleo-Indian archaeologist Dr. Andy Hemmings as I...
The Serpent Mound Debate
Fall 2017: By David Malakoff.
Anyone who has tried to catch a snake knows the reptiles are elusive. So it only seems appropriate that Serpent Mound, a twisting, quarter-mile long, three-foot-high earthwork in southern Ohio,...
Stepping Into The Past
Fall 2016: By Tom Koppel.
“Footprints have raised ridges,” says Duncan McLaren, as he crouches and scrapes with his trowel at the bottom of the seaside pit. “Here, you can see what we think is...
Life In The Great Dismal Swamp
Spring 2017: By David Malakoff.
“I sometimes ask myself why I didn’t do one of those projects where the dig is right next to the parking lot.” Archaeologist Becca Peixotto wasn’t complaining, but she sounded...
Rediscovering The Alamo
Winter 2016: By Richard A. Marini.
During a month-long investigation of the old Alamo mission in downtown San Antonio this past summer a team of archaeologists found a portion of a collapsed adobe brick wall....
Discovering The Archaeology Of Tattooing
Spring 2018: By Gayle Keck.
In old Western movies, Indians were invariably depicted galloping into the scene whooping and streaked with war paint. At least one aspect of that cliché is true. Native Americans did...