Welcome back, everybody!  This is Rick Pettigrew to tell you about four fascinating news stories in today’s show from this past week of Archaeologica.  Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

A very early jewelry workshop in France highlights the cultural interactions of Neanderthals and modern humans.  Ceremonial structures and rock art in Mexico’s poorly documented Guerrero State open a window on vanished Indigenous cultures.  Organic residues on pottery vessels in Sicily push back the arrival of the horse there by nearly two millennia.  And two digitally reconstructed skulls in China provide some detail on the ancestral relationships between different groups of human ancestors.

Thanks to everyone for supporting our subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, available at heritagetac.org.  We now have hundreds of titles you can binge upon on Roku, including our recent video about searching for the lost aircraft of Amelia Earhart.  Please help us spread the word!  Again, that link is heritagetac.org.

Our tour program, TAC Tours, will continue in February 2026 with our tour of spectacular sites from the impressive civilizations of Cambodia, including Angkor Wat.  Please join us for that!  The link to our tour program is at archaeologychannel.org/tours.

And now, here’s Laura Kennedy with the Audio News from Archaeologica!  We hope you find this to be a valuable part of your day!

Welcome to the Audio News from Archaeologica!  I’m Laura Kennedy, and these are the headlines in archaeological and historical news for the week of September 21st through the 27th, 2025.

Our first story this week comes from France, where archaeologists have discovered the oldest known shell jewelry workshop in Europe. 

As reported by Phys.org, a team of researchers from the French National Center for Scientific Research unearthed a cache of shells at the Paleolithic settlement of La Roche-à-Pierrot in Saint-Césaire.  

According to their findings, shared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, many of the shells have careful piercings and show evidence of red and yellow pigments.  The collection dates to at least 42,000 years ago.

Excavations revealed both completed ornaments and unfinished pieces, which archaeologists say demonstrate that the area functioned as a jewelry-making workshop.  Analysis shows that the shells came from the Atlantic coast, which was about 100 kilometers away at the time, and the pigments came from a separate region about 40 kilometers away.  Researchers point to these discoveries as evidence of either long-distance trade networks or a high level of mobility among these prehistoric groups.

Archaeologists have linked the shells and workshop to the Châtelperronian [SHAT- al- per-OH-nee-ahn] industry, a technocomplex of stone tools used in southwestern France and northern Spain during the Paleolithic era.  Occurring between 45,000 and 40,000 years ago, this period marks the transition between the last Neanderthals and the first arrivals of modern humans on the continent.  It’s not certain whether the jewelry was the work of Neanderthals or modern humans.

The site at Saint-Césaire, where archaeologists have conducted excavations since 1976, continues to produce important insights into the overlap and exchange of cultures during this period.  In addition to the cache of shells, excavators at this dig also found various Neanderthal tools and the remains of bison and horses.   

The team suggests that the shell jewelry provides a unique look into the kind of ornamental symbolic expression that emerged in the region during this part of the Paleolithic era.  The discovery is further evidence of decorative practices, social identities and cultural differentiation.  

Researchers hope that these discoveries will help them determine whether Châtelperronian communities were influenced by, or directly linked to, the early modern humans who arrived in Europe during this period.

Next, we head to southern Mexico, where archaeologists have documented an ancient ceremonial complex carved into a hillside in the state of Guerrero.  

As detailed by GreekReporter.com, archaeologists from Mexico’s National Institute of Anthropology and History have identified stone carvings and ceremonial architecture across a number of communities on the Costa Chica coast.  Researchers date the discoveries to the Early Postclassic Period and the Late Postclassic Period, conjoining eras that spanned the period from 650 to 1521. 

The site, known locally as Piedra Letra, features large-scale architecture and rock engravings that archaeologists believe were tied to rituals honoring the sun and water.  Within the complex, researchers discovered a ceremonial center which rests at the top of a hill.  It has a broad platform, two main bases and other structural elements, all surrounding a rocky outcrop with petroglyphs.  

The stone carvings depict spirals, circular beads that archaeologists believe were used to keep track of time, drops of water, a depiction of a ballcourt, a ceremonially dressed human figure, and a jaguar.  The team also found an image of a carved sun with a face, which they attribute to a separate period.  Archaeologists say that these petroglyphs demonstrate the long span of activity at the site.

The team believes that the pre-Hispanic carvings and structures were in use for nearly eight centuries.  They also claim that these discoveries suggest that Piedra Letra served as a key ritual location for the indigenous communities that once inhabited the region.

Examining nearby sites, the team located mounds, polished granite slabs standing over six feet tall, more stone engravings with spirals and concentric circles, and remnants of monumental platforms.  Researchers say that, together, these discoveries highlight the architectural and artistic traditions that flourished across Guerrero’s Costa Chica.

Long regarded as a cultural crossroads, the region was home to Amuzgo and Mixtec [MISH-tek] peoples, as well as groups that no longer exist today.  Archaeologists hope that the newly recorded sites will shed light on these overlapping traditions and help them trace the origins of the Amuzgo community, whose history remains largely undocumented.

Our third story takes us to Sicily, where archaeologists have identified the earliest evidence of horses on the island, shedding new light on their role in the diets of Bronze Age communities.

As reported by the University of South Florida, history professor Davide Tanasi [DAH-vee-day tah-NAH-see] led a team of archaeologists that took a second look at a cache of early Bronze Age vessels, pitchers and cups.  

As described in the journal PLOS One, this new study challenges the long-held belief that horses did not arrive in Sicily until the first millennium BC.  Instead, Tanasi’s team documented horse consumption dating back to the third millennium BC, over a thousand years earlier than previously thought.

The evidence came from pottery fragments Tanasi excavated near Polizzello Mountain in 2005.  

He pulled these items out of storage in 2024, hoping to learn more about what the vessels were used for in their heydey.  Using advanced proteomic analysis, his team found organic residues on the samples.  These included equine serum albumin, a major blood protein found in horses, confirming that the vessels once held horse-meat-based foods.  

Tanasi speculates that one of the vessels, a large basin, was used as the centerpiece of a communal ritual.  He claims that it may have contained a horse meat stew that was then distributed into smaller bowls for participants.  Additionally, among the collection that researchers analyzed are pitchers, cups and a terracotta phallus, which the team says suggests ritual practices connected to fertility, prayer and communal feasting.  

These discoveries not only shift our understanding of horse domestication and diet in prehistoric Sicily, but also shed light on intercultural exchanges, ritual traditions and economic strategies in the central Mediterranean.  According to Tanasi, in light of this new information, much of the interpretation around horses in Sicily will need to undergo significant revision.

We end this week in China, where researchers have digitally reconstructed the Yunxian [YOON-SHYAHN] 2 cranium, offering new insights into human evolution.

As reported by Cosmos, the research team corrected distortions and fractures in the fossil of Yunxian 2, which dates to around one million years ago, and concluded that it belongs to the Homo longi [LON-gee] clade, a sister lineage to modern humans.  

The skull belongs to one of two sets of remains that were first discovered in 1990.  Located in Hubei province’s Hanjiang River [hahn-JYANG] basin, archaeologists originally believed it to belong to Homo erectus.  

According to the team’s recent reconstruction, which they described in the journal Science, several of its traits help link the fossil to the Homo longi clade, which they believe includes the Denisovans.  

Since Yunxian 1 is badly crushed, displaying plastic deformation caused by geological pressure over time, the research team focused on Yunxian 2, which is better preserved despite its damage.  Using CT scanning and advanced digital reconstruction, scientists corrected the fractures and missing sections that obscured its features, filling in gaps with data from Yunxian 1 to create a more complete picture.

Among the reconstructed features, researchers identified a broad braincase, a narrower spacing between the eyes, a marked depression above the nose, and a lower, elongated forehead.  The team then compared the skull to twenty-six other hominin fossils and 153 modern human skulls, and found that Yunxian 2 showed the closest similarity to Asian representatives of Homo longi, a transitional form between Homo erectus and later groups.

The discovery highlights the breadth of early human diversity, although debate continues as to whether these fossils represent multiple evolutionary branches or transitional forms on the path toward modern Homo sapiens.  The study concludes that both Homo longi and Homo sapiens lineages likely have deep roots extending beyond the Middle Pleistocene, and that Yunxian 2 indicates features close to the moment when the two clades began to diverge.

That wraps up the news for this week!

For more stories and daily news updates, visit Archaeologica on the World Wide Web at www.archaeologica.org where all the news is history! Also, be sure to check out our growing subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, at heritagetac.org!

I’m Laura Kennedy and I’ll see you next week!