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

Our stories from this past week of Archaeologica report on the discovery of an entire new civilization in the Amazon, a medieval Byzantine shipwreck with a cargo including lots of gold artifacts, a DNA study that identifies two previously unknown human ancestors, and three Assyrian kings that are not on the official list of kings. 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 July 26th through August 1st, 2026.

We begin this week in the southwestern Amazon, where an international team of researchers has uncovered hundreds of monumental earthworks revealing the remains of a previously unknown ancient civilization.  As reported by Phys.org, this discovery suggests that millions of people once lived across a vast, carefully managed landscape during the first millennium AD, challenging old ideas of the Amazon rainforest being sparsely populated before European contact.

The research team used LiDAR, an airborne laser-scanning technology capable of mapping the ground beneath dense forest canopies, to identify nearly 400 previously unknown ceremonial earthworks, along with later settlements.  Based on those findings, the team cautiously estimates that more than 20,000 ceremonial and political centers once existed across the civilization’s full territory.  They published their study in the journal Nature.

The researchers identified this society as the Aquiry [uh-KWEE-ree] civilization, which occupied an area of over 180,000 square kilometers between 600 BC and AD 850.  Rather than a single state, it was a network of many communities connected by large urban centers used for gatherings, political decision-making, and ritual events.  At its peak, the human population was between 1.25 and 3 million people, just a fraction of the total population of Amazonia.

The study also shows that the Aquiry actively shaped the rainforest around them.  They cleared bamboo forests to grow crops like maize and squash, managed valuable tree species, and built broad roads linking ceremonial centers.  According to lead archaeologist Martti Pärssinen, a professor of regional studies at the University of Helsinki, the civilization’s impact on the Amazon landscape was far greater than previously believed.

Although no stone ruins remain, the civilization’s massive geometric earthworks reveal the scale of its achievements.  Researchers still do not know what languages the Aquiry spoke or what caused the civilization to collapse around AD 850.  But the discoveries are transforming our understanding of how people lived, organized their communities, and reshaped the ancient Amazon.  Thousands of additional earthworks may still remain undiscovered beneath the forest canopy, promising an even more detailed picture of these complex societies.

Our next story takes us to the Adriatic Sea, where archaeologists have recovered an extraordinary collection of gold artifacts from a Byzantine-era shipwreck.  Dating to the seventh or eighth century AD, the vessel provides rare insight into a poorly understood period of Byzantine history.

As reported by Smithsonian Magazine, the wreck lies near the Croatian island of Mljet [muhl-YET] in the Adriatic Sea.  Archaeologists from the Croatian Conservation Institute have investigated the site for more than a decade, carefully excavating artifacts preserved beneath the seabed.

The excavation has uncovered more than 600 grams of gold objects, including coins minted under the Heraclius dynasty, ornate belt buckles decorated with precious stones, and a gold signet ring bearing the image of an emperor.  According to the research team, the quality and quantity of these objects suggest that the ship carried a high-ranking passenger rather than serving as an ordinary merchant vessel.

The combined weight of the gold artifacts makes them the largest collection of gold ever recovered from a Mediterranean shipwreck.  Yet the vessel also carried everyday cargo, including pottery, game pieces, and specialized equipment like precision scales—a combination leaving researchers searching for answers about the ship’s mission.

The team has proposed several possibilities to explain the unusual cargo.  The gold objects may have been destined to be melted down and refashioned, or they may have been diplomatic gifts intended for a foreign ruler.  The presence of the imperial signet ring also raises the possibility that a high-ranking Byzantine official was traveling aboard the ship.

The ship was part of the network that connected the Byzantine Empire across the Mediterranean during a period of political instability.  According to Pavle Dugonjić [PAV-leh doo-GOHN-yich], a senior underwater archaeologist at the Croatian Conservation Institute, discoveries from the wreck help illuminate the transformation of the late Roman world into the medieval Byzantine period and demonstrate the continued importance of maritime trade and travel.  The ship’s remarkable cargo and its excellent state of preservation provide a rare opportunity to better understand commerce, craftsmanship, and elite travel.

We now take a look into the human past through a study identifying evidence of two previously unknown “ghost lineages” that contributed DNA to modern humans.  Using a new genetic technique, researchers found traces of extinct human populations that left no previously documented ancient DNA, revealing a more complex picture of human evolution.

As reported by Live Science and published in the journal Science, researchers analyzed more than 500 complete genomes from present-day people around the world.  Rather than relying on fossil DNA, they developed a new method to reconstruct family trees across the human genome, allowing them to identify genetic lineages that split from the ancestors of modern humans long ago.

The new technique successfully detected known contributions from Neanderthals and Denisovans, but it also revealed two previously unidentified lineages.  According to study co-author Priya Moorjani, an assistant professor of genetics and development at the University of California, Berkeley, the genomes of living people preserve traces of long-extinct ancestors, making it possible to study ancient populations even when no fossil DNA survives.

The first ghost lineage contributed between about one-half to one percent of the DNA found in all living humans.  Researchers estimate that this population interbred with modern humans in Africa more than 50,000 years ago, before modern humans dispersed from the continent.  According to study co-author Yulin Zhang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, this finding shows that the previously unknown ancestry is present in all modern humans, not only in African populations as some earlier studies had suggested.

The researchers also detected evidence of a much older “super-archaic” lineage in people from Oceania.  This population appears to have diverged from the ancestors of modern humans about 1,800,000 years ago.  Its DNA occurs within Denisovan DNA, suggesting that it first entered Denisovans before later passing into modern humans through interbreeding.

Although the study could not identify the exact populations behind these ghost lineages, outside observers suggested that the younger lineage may have belonged to Homo heidelbergensis, while the older, super-archaic lineage could trace back to Homo erectus.  The researchers caution against trusting these identifications until additional evidence becomes available.

Our last story takes us to ancient Mesopotamia, where researchers have identified evidence for three previously unrecognized Assyrian kings.  The findings challenge the long-held authority of the Assyrian King List, known from cuneiform records kept by the Assyrians themselves, suggesting that the official record may have been shaped as much by politics as by history.

As reported by Phys.org, for nearly a century historians have relied on the Assyrian King List as the standard chronology of Assyrian rulers.  However, in a new study published in the Journal of Cuneiform Studies, Alexander Johannes Edmonds, a researcher at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, and Eckart Frahm, a professor of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Yale University, argue that the list deliberately omitted certain short-lived or rival kings.

The first newly identified ruler was a king who called himself Tiglath-pileser [TIG-luhth pi-LEE-zer] after an earlier monarch.  According to the researchers, he ruled alongside the official king, Aššur-dān [AH-shur-dahn] the Third, after attempting to seize power in the aftermath of a solar eclipse.  Evidence for his brief reign comes from a clay tablet in the British Museum recording a royal grant, suggesting that he ruled for about two years before being deposed.

The second king emerged from a longstanding mystery surrounding a stone monument, or stela, discovered in Iraq in 1894.  The monument bears the name “Tiglath-pileser,” which replaced a previously inscribed name.  Edmonds and Frahm argue that the inscription instead points to a previously unrecognized king named Shalmaneser [shal-muh-NEE-zer], who ruled shortly before the accession of Tiglath-pileser the Third in 745 BC.

Evidence for the third king comes from a cuneiform tablet describing the restoration of a ceremonial vessel by a ruler named Aššur-uballit [AH-shur-oo-BAHL-lit].  Although no king by that name appears in the Assyrian King List during this period, the researchers argue for recognizing his brief reign to help explain the identity of a damaged royal statue discovered at the ancient city of Aššur [AH-shoor], the capital of the Assyrian empire.

These discoveries suggest that the Assyrian King List may have functioned less as a complete historical record than as a political document legitimizing certain rulers while excluding others.  According to Edmonds and Frahm, recognizing these overlooked kings reveals that the history of the Assyrian Empire was more complicated than previously thought.

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!