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Satellite Images Reveal a 6,500-Year-Old Irrigation System Beside Ancient Eridu
For the first time, researchers have directly dated irrigation features surrounding Eridu, one of southern Mesopotamia’s earliest major settlements. The results show that people were managing water in this part of present-day Iraq as early as the fifth millennium BC. Published in the journal Iraq, the study examined channels extending from an abandoned course of…
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New AI Identifies 7,000-Year-Old Seeds to Reconstruct Ancient Farming
A new AI system designed to identify ancient plant remains is giving archaeologists a faster way to study charred seeds that preserve evidence of what people cultivated, stored and ate thousands of years ago. Identifying such remains is often slow and difficult. Ancient seeds may be burned, broken or distorted, forcing specialists to examine large…
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Seabird Guano Fueled the Rise of the Chincha Kingdom, New Isotopic Study Reveals
Gold and silver often dominate narratives of ancient South American wealth. But new scientific research suggests that the real engine of power behind the Chincha Kingdom was far less glamorous: seabird droppings. A multidisciplinary study published in PLOS One presents compelling isotopic evidence that marine bird guano transformed Peru’s arid Pacific coast into an agricultural…
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The Scorpion That Tracked the Sun: Mexico’s 1,000-Year-Old Mound Reveals a Cosmic Connection Between Farmers and the Sky
Beneath the dry winds of Mexico’s Tehuacán Valley, archaeologists have uncovered something extraordinary — a 200-foot-long scorpion etched into the earth. For a millennium it lay silent, its curved tail and claws almost swallowed by dust, until researchers realized the creature was not a myth, but a message: a cosmic instrument built by farmers who…
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Mesopotamia’s Hidden Waterways: Millennia-Old Irrigation System Discovered in Eridu
An international team of archaeologists and geologists has discovered a remarkably well-preserved ancient irrigation network in the Eridu region of southern Iraq, dating from the 6th to the 1st millennium BCE. This extraordinary find offers unique insights into the early agricultural practices of Mesopotamia. Led by geoarchaeologist Jaafar Jotheri from Durham University, researchers revealed that…