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

Our stories from this past week of Archaeologica are about an ancient Maya clay figurine with a number on its head, a published argument for the gradual rather than abrupt evolution of modern humans, an Iron Age burial in Scotland revealing post-mortem manipulation of the skeleton, and Paleolithic jewelry in northern Spain that offers clues to its purposes and to long-distance connections.  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 June 7th through the 13th, 2026.

We begin this week on Guatemala's Pacific coast.  A small clay figurine is widening our understanding of ancient Mesoamerican writing and numerical systems.

As Phys.org reported, excavators uncovered the figurine at the ancient site of La Blanca, dating the artifact between 750 and 650 BC.  Dr. Julia Guernsey, an art historian at the University of Texas, led the research team.  The team published its analysis in the journal Latin American Antiquity.  The researchers suggest that these markings represent an early form of numerical notation, highlighting a deep connection among numbers, bodies, and identity in early Mesoamerica.

La Blanca once stood as a major urban center along the Pacific coast, peaking between 1000 and 900 BC.  The city directed a large regional network and maintained clear social classes.

Among the local art styles, faceless or stump-headed "tab" figurines are prominent.  Archaeologists have recovered more than 300 of these pieces at La Blanca.  However, this specific artifact stands out because the maker pressed eleven distinct dots into its tab.  The dots form three columns: one with three dots and two with four dots.  This is currently the only artifact from La Blanca that carries these numerical marks.

The artisan impressed these eleven small circles before firing the clay.  The deliberate, off-center placement indicates intentional composition rather than an accidental mark or simple decoration.

The head itself holds great meaning.  Across ancient Mesoamerica, the head and headdress served as the primary canvas to express identity, often bearing names, calendar dates, or status markers.

In the K'iche' Maya language, the word “winik” means both "person" and "twenty," drawing directly from human anatomy.  This regional language also links terms for destiny to the face, centering identity on the head.  Mesoamerican societies frequently named individuals after their birth date in the 260-day ritual calendar, tying personal identity to specific numbers and symbols.

Because this is a unique find at La Blanca, it creates many new questions.  The choice to brand this figurine with a number suggests that early societies linked identity, time, and personhood long before the famous scripts of the Maya or Zapotec emerged.

Next, we turn to a new study challenging a long-held narrative in paleoarcheology: the idea that modern humans emerged from a sudden cognitive leap.

As reported by Phys.org, archaeologist Huw S. Groucutt detailed his perspective in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.  He is currently a lecturer in prehistory at the University of Malta.  The traditional Upper Paleolithic Revolution hypothesis suggests that a rapid neurological or genetic shift occurred roughly 50,000 years ago.  Proponents argue that this shift triggered the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, giving rise to art, sophisticated tools, and complex social organization.

Groucutt argues that this narrative relies on cherry-picked evidence rather than an objective reading of the big picture.  Based on his review of the fossil record, genetic research, and archaeological findings, he concludes that human evolution followed a gradual, uneven, and regionally varied mosaic process.

His analysis reveals that many complex behaviors traditionally linked to modern cognition appeared tens of thousands of years earlier in Africa.  These innovations include shell bead ornamentation, structured hearths, and bone tool technologies.  Notably, these developments did not spread steadily.  Instead, they arose in one region, vanished, and later resurfaced elsewhere.  This pattern indicates that human behavioral development was fluid and experimental rather than an abrupt revolution.

The physical evidence reveals a similar pattern.  For instance, fossils from Jebel Irhoud in the Maghreb display modern facial features despite being over 300,000 years old.  Conversely, archaic features like elongated brain cases persisted in populations as recently as 16,000 to 12,000 years ago, long after uniformly modern anatomy supposedly became widespread.

Furthermore, Groucutt notes that the appeal of the revolution model lies in its simplicity, because a dramatic turning point makes a compelling story.  However, the archaeological data show a much messier reality.  Anatomical and behavioral changes accumulated slowly across structured populations over vast stretches of time.

To support this model, Groucutt demonstrates that tracking the dispersal of modern humans using only one category of evidence—whether archaeological, fossil, or genetic—produces a completely different narrative compared to the other categories.  He urges researchers to embrace these contradictions and analyze multiple lines of evidence together as they reconstruct humanity's earliest chapters.

We now travel to northern Scotland, where a pair of 2,000-year-old burials are shedding new light on funeral customs and long-distance connections among prehistoric communities in Britain.

As reported by Live Science, archaeologists first encountered this site in 2000, when residents near Loch Borralie [BORE-uh-lee] reported human bones that burrowing rabbits had brought to the surface.  As they excavated a small stone cairn at the site, the team recovered the partial remains of two individuals: an adult woman and a teenager.  Both likely died between 50 BC and AD 70.

Original assessments attributed damage to the bones as the result of scavenging by rats or dogs.  A new study published in the journal Antiquity tells a different story, however.  Working as part of the COMMIOS project, an initiative funded by the European Research Council to examine the demography and funerary archaeology of Iron Age Britain, the research team conducted radiocarbon dating, ancient DNA analysis, and multi-isotope analysis of the remains.

Based on their findings, the team concluded that at least one of the individuals had been subject to deliberate, purposeful treatment of her remains after death — treatment that may point to ritual veneration, and possibly to cannibalism.

The woman, estimated to have been older than 30 at the time of her death, showed evidence of a carefully inflicted break at the base of her skull, along with cut marks on its interior surface.  The research team interpreted these as signs that her brain had been intentionally extracted shortly after she died.  Whether it was removed for preservation, study, or consumption remains an open question.

Four of her limb bones had also been shaped into pointed implements with sharpened edges.  While it’s possible that they were used as tools, someone subsequently returned each one to its proper place within her skeleton.  According to study lead author Laura Castells Navarro of the University of York, this indicates that the woman held a position of significance or esteem within her community.

The second individual, a teenage boy of about fifteen, showed no such post-mortem treatment.  Genetic analysis indicated the two were likely second cousins.  That same analysis pointed to biological links between the Loch Borralie pair and individuals interred at other prehistoric sites across northern Scotland, including the Orkney Islands.

The researchers concluded that ancient communities along Scotland's northern coastline were more mobile and more interconnected than the region's remoteness might suggest—maintaining ties across considerable distances even two millennia ago.

Finally, we take a look at a 22,000-year-old collection of ancient jewelry that is offering clues into the ways Ice Age hunter-gatherers expressed identity and maintained connections across vast distances.

As described by the Greek Reporter, Daniel Pérez-García de los Salmones of the University of Cantabria led the research team comprising archaeologists from a number of Spanish universities.  According to their publication in the journal PLOS One, their analysis centered on 271 ornaments that were unearthed in the Llonín [yoh-NEEN] Cave.  Located in northern Spain, this site was in use from roughly 23,500 to 11,000 years ago, spanning multiple major cultural periods during the late Ice Age.

Among the items were red deer teeth, fish vertebrae, and marine shells, most of which had been modified to wear as pendants or beads.  At the microscopic level, the team was able to see that these showed wear from use over long periods of time.  Polish marks, grooves, and rounded edges pointed to friction from clothing, cords, and skin.  They noted these signs of use on more than 90% of the items.

The team also found unfinished deer tooth pendants and partially shaped animal teeth, indicating that individuals crafted jewelry inside the cave.

Not all of the items were locally made, however.  Shells of the species Tritia mutabilis came to light.  As this species does not naturally occur along the Cantabrian coast of northern Spain, these people were exchanging objects and maintaining contact networks that stretched hundreds of kilometers across the Iberian Peninsula.

In its heyday, the cave occupied a strategic position connecting the Atlantic coast, the Ebro Valley, and routes leading toward the Pyrenees.  Researchers argue that these pathways helped facilitate the movement of materials, ornaments, and cultural traditions between distant groups.

As with any extended period of time, fashions changed and ornamentation styles shifted.  During the Upper Solutrean period, some 23,500 to 22,000 years ago, jewelry showed great diversity in materials, manufacturing methods, and designs, likely serving as markers of individual identity.  Later, during the Middle Magdalenian period, 17,700 to 16,400 years ago, ornament production became more standardized, with shell beads more uniform in size and style.  The team believes that this shift may reflect a progression to larger social gatherings, where ornaments may have been used to signal group membership or to strengthen alliances.

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!