29 Sept 2023 · Cueva de los Murciélagos, Andalusia, Spain
Grass sandals and baskets were radiocarbon dated to about 9,500 years ago, the oldest in southern Europe.
Why it matters: It shows perishable hunter-gatherer technology rarely preserved.
16 Oct 2026 · Shég’ Xdaltth’í’, Tanana valley, Alaska, United States
Kelly Graf, Ted Goebel and colleagues report on Shég’ Xdaltth’í’ (formerly McDonald Creek), 55 km south-southeast of Fairbanks. It has three Late Pleistocene occupation layers dated to about 13,800, 13,000 and 12,700 years ago. The oldest layer holds more than 80,000 specimens, including a distinctive hafted biface, bone and antler tools, animal remains and well-preserved activity areas.
datingexcavationhunter-gatherers
Graham Hancock · Source: Graf et al. 2026, Science Advances ↗
16 Oct 2026 · White Sands National Park, New Mexico, United States
Kathleen Springer, Jeffrey Pigati, Jessica Tierney and colleagues expanded the excavations at White Sands and found 20 stratigraphic layers with human footprints in place, alongside megafauna trackways and drag lines made by travois. New radiocarbon dates on conifer pollen, combined with dates on aquatic seeds, put the footprint sequence between 23,500 and 21,700 years ago. Pollen, biomarker and sediment data record the lake turning into a playa during a dry spell that matches Dansgaard-Oeschger event 2, about 23,200 years ago.
datinghunter-gathererscontroversy
Graham Hancock · Source: Springer, Pigati, Tierney et al. 2026, Science Advances ↗
15 Oct 2026 · Sacsayhuamán, Cusco, Peru
A Science news feature reports that Andean archaeologists are replacing the traditional Inca chronology (empire from 1438) with radiocarbon dates. At Saqsaywaman, dated charcoal suggests the site began to be remodelled with fitted masonry around 1400, with construction peaking from about 1418; the first results are in press at Antiquity.
Site guide: Sacsayhuamán & Cusco · Brien Foerster · Source: Science news feature, 15 Oct 2026 ↗
20 Jul 2026 · Dahshur, Egypt
Xavier Landreau, Guillaume Piton and Sayed Hemeda used satellite imagery, 19th-century maps and watershed mapping. They argue that two 600–700 m structures across Wadi Dahshur, west of the Red Pyramid, long read as stone-transport ramps, are dams, one with a duckbill-shaped spillway, linked to a roughly 1 km diversion channel passing close to the pyramid.
ancient technologypyramidsremote sensing
Site guide: Giza & Saqqara · Source: Landreau, Piton & Hemeda 2026, npj Heritage Science ↗