The Magnificent Artifacts Of Key Marco

Winter 2018-19: By Tamara Jager Stewart. Hearing reports of fascinating and incredibly preserved artifacts emerging from the dredged muck on Florida’s southwest coast, Frank Hamilton Cushing with the Bureau of American Ethnology in Washington, D.C....
A petroglyph near the site of Las Crucitas, Honduras that Chris Begley believes may represent a feathered serpent. Credit Chris Begley.

A Lost City Found?

Summer 2015: By Charles C. Poling On March 2, 2015, a news story on the National Geographic website announced the discovery of an ancient “lost city” that was once inhabited by a mysterious culture in the...
Archaeologists Steve Copeland and Caitlin Sommer document features on the floor of the great kiva.

Searching For The Origins Of Pueblo Culture

Spring 2015: Searching For The Origins Of Pueblo Culture By Tamara Stewart. Dirt flies as archaeologists Caitlin Sommer and Steve Copeland, along with many volunteers, search for the hearth in the Dillard site’s great kiva. Since...
Objects from the Carroll House cache included shell discs, straight pins, buttons, two pierced coins, a tiny faceted glass bead, a smooth black stone, and large rock crystals. The collection was covered with an overturned pearlware bowl. Archaeology in Annapolis/ University of Maryland

Unearthing Magic of Slaves and Immigrants

Summer 2015: By Julian Smith In the late 17th century, Annapolis enjoyed a thriving economy as the capital of the Maryland colony. An average of at least 300 slaves were brought in every year between 1695...
Spanish glass Beads were popular trade items with Native Americans.

Searching for de Soto

Fall 2014 Searching for de Soto By Kristin Ohlson: The Atlanta high school girl was in the middle of a solitary stint at the sifting screen, while archaeologist Dennis Blanton and the rest of...
his 14,340-year-old coprolite containing ancient human DNA was recovered from a feature in Paisley Cave 5.

Is it Really Pre-Clovis?

Fall 2014 Is It Really Pre-Clovis? By Julian Smith The first prehistoric artifacts at the Meadowcroft Rockshelter site in southwestern Pennsylvania turned up in a groundhog burrow in 1955. When Jim Adovasio began his decades-long investigation...
Cliff Palace is the largest alcove habitation in Mesa Verde National Park. One of its 23 kivas has a beam that was dated to a.d. 1280, marking it as one of the last sites in the region to be abandoned.

Grappling With A Great Mystery

Summer 2015: By David Malakoff It had seemed like a good idea at the time. In the spring of A.D. 1250, you and your new spouse decided to move away from the hamlet where you were...
An extensive panel of indigenous iconography. These finger-drawn designs span the entire ceiling of this chamber in Cave 18. The motifs and designs reflect the spiritual belief systems of the indigenous population. Credit: Photos by Jago Cooper and Alice Samson.

Comity In The Caves of Mona Island

SUMMER 2017: By Julian Smith. When Christopher Columbus visited the Isla de Mona, located halfway between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, in 1494, he found its indigenous residents fishing and farming, part of a thriving Taíno...
An ancient granary is one of the region’s numerous archaeological sites. Credit: Josh Ewing.

The Bears Ears Controversy

Fall 2016: By Julian Smith. San Juan County covers almost 8,000 square miles of Utah’s southeast corner. It is the largest and the poorest county in the state, and about half of its 15,000 residents...
Field school students screen excavated dirt in search of eighteenth-century artifacts. Photo Credit: COLONIAL WILLIAMSBURG FOUNDATION

Colonial Williamsburg Uncovered

Fall 2018: By Paula Neely. Peering down into the corner of a dig site in Williamsburg, the eighteenth-century capital of Virginia, archaeologist Mark Kostro watched a field school student scrape away dark gray soil from...