Welcome to our show, everybody!  I’m Rick Pettigrew. 

Our stories from this past week of Archaeologica are about archaeologists documenting the genocide inflicted on Namibia by Germany, very ancient human beds in South African caves, a pre-Inca migration on the Peruvian coast, and DNA studies showing very different consequences from different migrations to Britain.  We’ll get to those in a few seconds.

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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 May 24th through May 30th, 2026.

We head first to Namibia, where forensic archaeologists are documenting possible burial sites from a devastating colonial-led genocide during the early twentieth century.

As reported by the news source Phys.org, between 1904 and 1908, many thousands of Ovaherero (oh-vu-HEHR-air-oh) and Nama people lost their lives in brutal concentration camps at Swakopmund (SWAH-kop-moond) and Lüderitz (LOO-duh-rits).  Under German colonial rule, camp administrators forced prisoners into hard labor under horrific conditions to construct local railway tracks and a harbor extension.

The most notorious of these locations was Shark Island, where historical sources indicate up to 4,000 prisoners died.  Tragically, records suggest that camp authorities threw many of the dead into the Atlantic Ocean rather than granting them proper burials.

Now, researchers from the Center for Archaeology at the University of Huddersfield have joined forces with local community representatives, the research groups Forensic Architecture and Forensis, and the Swakopmund Genocide Museum.  Together, these groups hope to locate, document, and protect any remaining burial sites.

The team conducted extensive fieldwork between 2025 and 2026, focusing on the two sites connected with the atrocities.  Field workers utilized advanced technologies, including geographic information systems mapping for spatial analysis, ground-penetrating radar, global positioning systems, and drones.  In addition, researchers conducted a thorough walkover survey to search the landscape for surface signs of potential graves.

The project's main goal is to use forensic archaeology to provide physical evidence of these historic atrocities, paving the way for future commemoration and reparations.  Their findings so far indicate at least one mass grave at Radford Bay, where several sand mounds may serve as burial markers.  At Swakopmund, another burial site has emerged containing shallow graves.

The team decided to excavate at only one specific location, where recent erosion had exposed a coffin.  After carefully identifying and documenting the human remains, workers refilled the grave and added a protective mound above it.  Vehicles, housing developments, and pedestrians continually threaten to disturb these fragile sites, so archaeologists are working closely with Ovaherero and Nama communities to outline a permanent protection plan.

Now we turn to South Africa, where an incredible discovery inside a mountain cave has yielded evidence of human bedding dating from 43,000 to 200,000 years ago.

Peter Morrisey, a geoarchaeologist with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, led the research team.  The investigators located and micro-analyzed six distinct types of bedding deposits inside Border Cave, which sits near the border between South Africa and Eswatini.

The team's detailed analyses showed that early humans consistently refreshed their sleeping quarters by layering fresh grass over older bedding.  In addition, before adding the new plant material, the cave inhabitants spread ash across the floor, which likely repelled biting insects.  The occupants also maintained their sleeping area by occasionally burning away portions of the old bedding.  Furthermore, older cave deposits showed evidence of significantly heavier and more concentrated use by the ancient residents.

To achieve these fascinating results, Morrisey’s team used a specialized scientific technique called micromorphology.  This process involves slicing delicate sediment deposits into razor-thin pieces and observing them under a high-powered microscope.  Three of the identified bedding deposits have no known connection to any previous archaeological findings.

The remaining three samples closely resembled bedding evidence previously found at Sibhudu (si-BOO-du) Cave and Diepkloof (DEEP-kloof) Rock Shelter, which are also located in South Africa.  However, the Border Cave samples showed unique contrasts in how the inhabitants constructed the beds, maintained the site, and selected specific types of grasses.

Morrisey explained that additional laboratory testing of the Border Cave artifacts could greatly expand our understanding of how human behavior at this prehistoric site changed over thousands of years.  The research team published this remarkable study in the professional journal, the Journal of Archaeological Science, as detailed by the news source Greek Reporter.

Next, we travel to the coast of Peru, where a new genetic study has revealed a major migration that took place prior to the rise of the Inca Empire, which ruled the area between AD 1400 and 1532.

As reported by the University of Sydney’s online publication, sydney.edu, an analysis of ancient DNA from local burial sites in the Chincha Valley shows that a large group of people migrated from Peru’s north coast to the southern Chincha Valley.  This movement covered a distance of more than 700 kilometers.

Once they settled in the valley, the new group eventually intermarried with the surrounding populations.  However, they also successfully maintained specific, distinct cultural traditions for generations.  One of these enduring traditions was cranial modification, which is the deliberate practice of using boards and cloth bindings to shape the skulls of infants.  Another preserved tradition was a specific burial rite that involved painting the bodies of the deceased with a vibrant red pigment.

The genetic study also describes a specific grave that contained closely related individuals.  This find points directly to the practice of endogamy, which means breeding within close-knit social or family groups.

The research team analyzed ancient DNA samples from 21 individuals to map this population shift.  They concluded that the earliest migrants arrived in the Chincha Valley by the thirteenth century.  This initial group showed absolutely no genetic traces of intermixing with other populations, but subsequent generations slowly revealed a much more mixed ancestry.

Dr.  Jacob Bongers, a digital archaeologist at the University of Sydney’s Vere Gordon Childe Center, served as the co-lead author of the study.  According to Bongers, the data show that these pre-Incan coastal communities maintained their unique cultural identity for centuries, despite choosing to marry outside their immediate group.

Bongers cites severe environmental challenges, sudden shifts in regional political power, and a strategic desire for more secure access to valuable environmental resources, such as coastal seabird guano, as the primary factors that drove the massive migration.  The team published their complete findings in the professional journal Nature Communications.

Our final story takes us to Britain, where two recent DNA studies confirm the incredible complexity of population changes during the Roman and medieval eras.

As reported by the news source Phys.org, a new study led by Marina Silva of the Francis Crick Institute of London analyzed more than 1,000 ancient genomes from various parts of Britain.  These genetic samples date generally to the first millennium AD.  The study focused specifically on major historical periods, including the Roman occupation, the Anglo-Saxon migration, the Viking Age, and the Norman Conquest, to answer long-standing questions about genetic continuity.

The biological results were highly complicated.  Surprisingly, the Roman period did not appear to leave a massive effect on the overall population’s ancestry.  In fact, eighty percent of the individuals living in Britain during that era retained a genetic makeup left over from the earlier Iron Age.

However, after Roman rule collapsed in AD 410, and during the early medieval period that lasted to AD 1066, individual DNA samples began to show a significant amount of new ancestry originating from the North Sea region.  The most significant migration, that of the Angles, Saxons and Jutes, from today’s northern Germany and Denmark, had a major, lasting impact on the genetic makeup of Britain’s population.

Within that same medieval timeframe, from about AD 700 to 1000, additional settlers arrived from central Europe, likely from modern-day France and the Rhineland, alongside a few travelers from southern Europe.  While this movement introduced additional genetic influences, it did not alter the population to the massive degree that historians previously believed.

It turns out that the Viking Age, between AD 793 and 1066, actually had far less of a genetic impact than earlier estimates suggested.  Furthermore, the famous Norman Conquest of 1066 left almost no measurable impact on the general population’s ancestry because that event primarily involved interactions among a small, isolated subgroup of ruling elites.

In a second, related study, Flavio De Angelis of Arizona State University in Tempe led a team that focused on a single rural cemetery in the county of Surrey.  The human remains there dated to the periods immediately before and after the Norman Conquest.

Much as in the first study, the researchers found no distinct genetic changes after 1066, pointing to a total lack of demographic impact on the local population.  Instead, the data show a long, steady history of interrelations with North Sea inhabitants that persisted before and after the conquest.

Together, the two studies reveal a long and highly complex intermingling between distinct populations that simply does not fit neatly into a traditional historical box.  While some groups of migrants left an enduring genealogical impact on the populations in Britain, other high-profile groups had almost no genetic effect at all.  This disconnect remained true despite the immense cultural or historical prominence of the migratory events themselves.

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!