1 Nov 2025 · Rapa Nui, Chile
Carl Lipo and Terry Hunt combined 3D models of road moai and rope-rocking experiments. They argue the statues were “walked” upright along concave roads, matching oral tradition.
Why it matters: It is the leading answer to how the moai moved, and it echoes islanders’ accounts that the statues walked.
Site guide: Easter Island (Rapa Nui) · Source: Lipo & Hunt 2025, Journal of Archaeological Science ↗
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 ↗
18 Jun 2026 · Sacsayhuamán, Cusco, Peru
Researchers analysed 138 dispersed blocks from a dismantled sector, using geometric silhouettes and computational matching, to propose how the early Inca walls fitted together.
Site guide: Sacsayhuamán & Cusco · Brien Foerster · Source: npj Heritage Science 2026 ↗
21 May 2026 · Great Pyramid, Giza, Egypt
An ambient-noise survey at 37 points inside and around Khufu’s pyramid found uniform resonance frequencies and design features that reduce seismic amplification.
Site guide: Giza & Saqqara · Source: Scientific Reports 2026 ↗