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

Our stories from this past week of Archaeologica report on new information revealing how Moche potters in Peru lived and worked, how sugars may have fueled the evolutionary growth of the human brain, DNA evidence that Ice Age hunters took female mammoths more often than males, and scattered human bones at a Roman villa in Britain that suggest an episode of extreme violence.

Thanks to everyone for supporting our subscription platform, Heritage Broadcasting Service, available at heritagetac.org.  We have hundreds of titles you can binge upon, including our recent video series 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 January 2027 with our tour of Maya cities in the Yucatán.  Registration is still open for that!  The link to our tour program is at archaeologychannel.org/tours.

Send us feedback on The Archaeology Channel Facebook page or post a message on our social networking site, ArchaeoSeek!

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 August 2 through August 8, 2026

Our first story this week takes us to northern Peru, where archaeologists are learning more about how Moche potters lived and worked more than 1000 years ago.

As reported by Heritage Daily, researchers have returned to Cerro Mayal, an ancient settlement in the Chicama [chee-KAH-mah] Valley.  The site lies in the La Libertad region near Peru’s northern coast.  The Moche [MOH-cheh] culture flourished along the northern coast of Peru during AD the first millennium and became well known for its distinctive ceramics.

The Chicama Archaeological Program, managed by the National University of San Marcos, resumed excavations at Cerro Mayal in late July.  Archaeologist Henry Tantaleán [tahn-tah-leh-AHN], a co-director of the program, said that earlier excavations had already identified Cerro Mayal as an important center of Moche pottery production.  The new work aims to show how the potters organized their work and daily lives.

The team has uncovered large amounts of pottery-making waste, along with ceramic molds and plates that potters used.  Archaeologists also identified adobe and stone walls alongside areas where potters prepared clay vessels.  Many of the molds helped potters make figurines.

According to Tantaleán, the team has also determined that people lived in the same places where they made pottery.  Researchers describe these spaces as workshop-houses.  The discovery may help archaeologists understand how Moche potters organized their homes and workplaces.

Cerro Mayal dates to the Late Moche period, around AD the seventh century.  Researchers believe that its workshops may have produced more pottery than the local community needed.  If so, Cerro Mayal may have supplied ceramics to other Moche settlements in the region.

Researchers are also investigating a possible connection with Licapa [lee-KAH-pah] II, another Late Moche settlement in the Chicama Valley.  Archaeologists have investigated Licapa II for the past six years.  They are now examining whether potters at Cerro Mayal made some of the ceramics that people used there.

The team has sent new samples to a laboratory in the United States for radiocarbon dating.  More precise dates may help archaeologists determine when people produced pottery at Cerro Mayal.  The results may also help them trace connections between Cerro Mayal and Moche settlements in neighboring valleys.

The renewed excavations could give archaeologists a clearer picture of the people who made Moche ceramics, including how they lived, worked, and supplied pottery to other communities.

Our second story examines how naturally sweet foods may have helped fuel the evolution of the human brain.  New research suggests that fruit, honey, and other carbohydrate-rich foods provided a crucial source of energy for our ancestors.

As reported by ConnectSci, researchers developed a model to estimate how much glucose humans and their ancestors needed at different stages of evolution.  Their model covers about 4 million years of human evolution, a period when brain size increased greatly, mostly before the development of cooking.  Early human ancestors had brains weighing about 300 grams.  Modern human brains can weigh about 1500 grams.

Lead author Jennie Brand-Miller of the University of Sydney explains that the human brain needs a lot of energy.  Glucose, a type of sugar, is the brain’s main source of energy.  Brand-Miller says that fruit and honey may have been important sources of energy for our ancestors.  These foods contain carbohydrates, which the body uses to supply glucose to the brain.

The researchers looked at several clues to understand where our ancestors may have gotten the glucose they needed.  They used information from fossils and teeth, archaeology, and research on human metabolism and diet.  Their findings suggest that naturally sweet foods were an important source of glucose.  Later, cooking made starchy foods such as tubers and grains easier to digest.  This allowed the body to get more glucose from those foods.

The researchers also considered pregnancy and breastfeeding.  Co-author David Raubenheimer, also of the University of Sydney, explains that a developing fetus and placenta require additional glucose.  This would have increased the need for foods rich in carbohydrates.

The findings may also help explain why humans naturally prefer sweet foods.  According to Brand-Miller, children’s developing brains require especially large amounts of energy.  For much of human evolution, fruit and honey would have been the chief sources of that energy.

The researchers do not argue that meat was unimportant.  Instead, their findings suggest that carbohydrates also played an important role in human evolution.  Naturally occurring sugars and starches may have provided much of the energy that helped support the evolution of the human brain.

Next, we turn to the Ice Age, where ancient DNA reveals new clues about how humans hunted woolly mammoths.  Mammoths provided Ice Age communities with meat, fat, and hides.  People used mammoth bones to build sturdy shelters and carved tusks to make tools, ornaments, and works of art.  The new genetic evidence helps researchers better understand how Ice Age populations interacted with these giant beasts.  Crucially, the findings suggest that people bagged female mammoths far more often than males.

As reported by Heritage Daily, an international team analyzed DNA from 521 woolly mammoths across Eurasia and North America.  These mammoth remains date to between 30,000 and 20,000 years ago.  The researchers determined the biological sex of each animal.  They then compared 100 mammoths found at archaeological sites with 421 mammoths whose remains came from natural bone deposits.

Natural bone deposits typically form when animals die from natural hazards, such as sudden sinkholes or landslides.  In these accidental deposits, males made up about two-thirds of the mammoth remains.  The researchers believe that solitary male mammoths traveled alone and fell into these deadly traps more frequently.

However, at archaeological sites showing clear human activity, the sex ratio reversed completely.  Females comprised about 70 percent of the mammoth remains, while males accounted for only 30 percent.  The team states that this stark difference offers clear clues about how Ice Age hunters obtained their game.

Study co-author Jarosław Wilczyński, an archaeologist at the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals at the Polish Academy of Sciences, explains that Ice Age groups sometimes hunted mammoths directly.  Archaeologists have recovered weapon projectile points embedded deeply into mammoth bones.  However, humans may also have scavenged meat and bones from animals that had already died.

The team considered several reasons for the high number of females at human sites.  Female mammoths stood smaller than adult males, making them easier to bring down.  Additionally, lead author Hannah M. Moots, a researcher at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, suggests that female mammoths lived in highly predictable matriarchal herds.  These tight family groups made them much easier for human hunters to locate and target than solitary, wandering males.

For our final story, we travel to Brading Roman Villa on the Isle of Wight, just off the southern coast of England.  Human bones scattered across the property may point to a wave of violence during Roman rule in Britain.  Researchers are currently investigating whether a brutal political purge explains the grisly discovery.

As reported by Phys.org, archaeologists have uncovered human remains at Brading since excavations began in 1880.  The bones represent at least four adults, one adolescent, and a newborn baby.  Excavators recovered these bones from several distinct areas inside and around the villa.  They found the adolescent buried in a well alongside the remains of three young dogs.  Some human bones bear sharp cut marks, and one shows signs that a scavenging animal gnawed on it.

Michael Fulford, a professor of archaeology at the University of Reading [RED-ing], and Derek Hamilton, a researcher at the University of Glasgow, analyzed the remains.  They selected five bones for radiocarbon dating.  One sample failed, but the other four yielded consistent timelines.  The results place those four bones roughly between AD 250 and 400.

Roman coins from Brading provide another vital clue.  The team examined roughly 90 coins recovered from the villa grounds.  Coins dating from AD 330 to 348 regularly appear at other Roman sites in Britain, but they are completely absent from Brading.  The researchers believe this chronological gap points to a severe disruption at the villa during those specific years.  We note that Saxon and Frankish pirates actively raided the coast during this era, though coin evidence proves that residents used the villa until at least AD 395.

The researchers offer a compelling political explanation for the tragedy.  After the Roman usurper Magnentius lost his bid for power in the 350s, Emperor Constantius viciously punished local supporters.  The Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote that authorities tortured, imprisoned, and executed individuals across Britain.  The purge swept up innocent victims and resulted in widespread property confiscation.  

The authors published their complete findings in the professional journal Britannia, suggesting that this imperial purge tore through Brading Villa.  However, they acknowledge that they cannot prove that a massacre took place at that time.

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!