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The structure of these ancient ballcourts varies a bit, but at each site there's a consistent pattern: a playfield framed by two embankments.
ancient

An Ancient Ballcourt in Oaxaca Expands a Sport’s Footprint

3,000 years before the Aztecs, Mesoamericans were already playing ball.
Isaac Schultz March 25, 2020
Tokyo, Japan

Omori Shell Mound

The site of Japan’s first archaeological excavation is also the birthplace of fingerprint forensics.
Jobbe Wijnen, a contemporary archaeologist in the Netherlands, is a pull-tab connoisseur.
archaeology

The Archaeology of Those Weird Metal Things That Open Your Soda Can

Meet the man building the world's biggest—and probably only—reference collection of pull tabs.
Jessica Leigh Hester March 17, 2020
When a church becomes a laboratory.
saints

Has the Case of the Missing Princess-Saint Been Solved?

Scientific evidence suggests that her bones had been hidden behind a church wall for a millennium.
Matthew Taub March 11, 2020
The Grottoes of Catullus over Lake Garda
Sirmione, Italy

Grotte di Catullo (Grottoes of Catullus)

On the shores of Lake Garda, the ruins of a Roman villa that allegedly belonged to the poet Catullus.
A U-2 spy plane takes off on from RAF Fairford, UK, in 2014. While the exterior looks the same as it did decades ago, the interior has been modernized.
archaeology

U-2 Spy Plane Photos Are Windows Onto Ancient Civilizations

Traces from the ancient past are hidden in photographs from the Cold War.
Emily Hammer March 2, 2020
Seymour Tower at high tide, surrounded by the English Channel (La Manche).
beaches

The Daily Race to Find Jersey Artifacts Before the Tide Comes In

In a place that comes and goes, slow archaeological work has to be done fast.
Isaac Schultz February 27, 2020
According to the origin story of the Tseshaht people, retold by the archaeologist Denis St. Claire, “Kwatyaat was the creator of the world we can see around us. He had a son called Kapkimyis, and in this story Kapkimyis is here with a shaman. Standing here, they cut with a mussel shell knife the thigh of Kapkimyis. The blood was scooped up and blown into. One version says the first woman emerges, the other says the first man...."
national parks

A First Nation, a Fight for Ancestral Lands, and an Unlikely Alliance

The Tseshaht people are working with archaeologists to write a new chapter in a fraught history.
Lorraine Boissoneault May 8, 2025
Inzá, Colombia

Tierradentro National Archaeological Park

This collection of ancient, mountaintop, underground tombs was once hidden by decades of bloodshed.
Colombian conservator Clemencia Vernaza peers up at her work in Colombia's Parque Arqueológico Nacional de Tierradentro.
mountains

The Effort to Save Colombia's Underground Mountaintop Tombs

Scientists and conservators are finally able to return to what was once an Andean war zone.
Megan Janetsky February 24, 2020
Amphitheatre of Italica
Santiponce, Spain

Amphitheatre of Italica

The Roman city was the birthplace of various emperors and is home to one of the empire's most impressive architectural feats.
Bananas are still a staple of Vanuatu residents' diets. These are for sale at a busy market in Port Vila.
landscapes

How Ancient Tooth Plaque Solved the Mystery of the Banana's Trans-Pacific Journey

3,000-year-old microparticles prove the fruit traveled across the ocean with early Pacific Islanders.
Reina Gattuso February 17, 2020
Mural of Tlālōcān
San Francisco Mazapa, Mexico

Palacio de Tepantitla

This archeological site hidden behind Teotihuacán's pyramids shelters 1600-year-old murals.
The picturesque Bath Abbey sits in the center of town. Just next to it, a king of England may have been crowned.
ruins

Found: The First Anglo-Saxon Building in Bath

The discovery, in a city famed for its Roman ruins, may mark the site of England’s first coronation.
Isaac Schultz February 11, 2020
The former ball court and church.
San Martín Huamelúlpam, Mexico

Huamelulpan Archaeological Zone

At this hillside site that was once home to a Mixtec community, you'll find ruins with a view.
Surprise, surprise: It didn't smell great down there.
infrastructure

Centuries of Crap and Some Historical Treasures in an Old London Cesspit

An art museum found a very old toilet—right under where its new bathroom was being built.
Jessica Leigh Hester February 6, 2020
Gunditjmara people started building this elaborate aquaculture system before the construction of Egypt's oldest pyramids.
landscapes

Australian Wildfires Uncovered Hidden Sections of a Huge, Ancient Aquaculture System

The Gunditjmara have been building an eel-farming system at the Budj Bim Cultural Landscape for more than 6,000 years.
Reina Gattuso February 6, 2020
Ruins of the Temple of Mixcoac
Mexico City, Mexico

Mixcoac Archaeological Site

The ruins of the "place of the cloud snake" sit in the middle of an urban environment.