26 Nov 2025 · Rano Raraku, Rapa Nui, Chile
A photogrammetric 3D model of Rano Raraku mapped hundreds of moai and work areas. It suggests separate clan workshops rather than central control.
Why it matters: It shows that monumental output does not require a centralised state.
ancient technologyancient society
Site guide: Easter Island (Rapa Nui) · Source: PLOS ONE 2025 ↗
6 Nov 2026 · Lago Cobá and Cenote Xcach, Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico
Matthew Waters, Mark Brenner and colleagues dated sediment cores from two lakes beside ancient Maya settlements in the northern Yucatán. Mercury, linked to the Maya use of cinnabar (red pigment) and elemental mercury, exceeded modern sediment toxicity thresholds for centuries between about 40 and 820 CE, peaking around 720 CE at Cenote Xcach. In the same layers, markers for algae, cyanobacteria, ostracods, snails and midge larvae declined or vanished, and recovered when mercury fell.
26 Oct 2026 · Sanxingdui, Guanghan, Sichuan, China
Jianbo Guo, Ruochen Ge, Lu Yang and colleagues studied textile residues on objects from the Sanxingdui sacrificial pits K2–K8, the site of the famous bronze heads and gold masks of the ancient Shu culture. They found silk on 101 objects, 94 of them bronzes, dating to the Late Shang period (1300–1046 BCE). Microscopy and infrared tests identify mulberry silk, mostly plain weave, some coloured with hematite or an organic red dye, and some cloths as finely woven as Shang silks from the Central Plains.
excavationart & symbolsancient society
Source: Guo, Ge, Cai, Tian & Yang 2026, Antiquity ↗; Archaeology Magazine (news), 28 Oct 2026 ↗
8 Oct 2026 · Eastern Polynesia, Chile
Whole-genome sequences from across Polynesia show some of the strongest founder effects known in any population. Hawaiʻi and Rapa Nui are among the most bottlenecked and, despite their distance, are each other’s closest relatives, likely settled by the same voyagers with roots in Mangareva.
Site guide: Easter Island (Rapa Nui) · Source: Shanks et al. 2026, Science ↗
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 ↗