Top 10 Archaeology Discoveries of 2023

Archaeology Magazine creates a list each year of the Top 10 Archaeology Discoveries. This year’s choices reflect a dramatically wide range of dates and geography.

From Predating Modern Humans to Revolts against Romans

On the seriously ancient side, there’s “the world’s earliest known wooden architecture,” in Zambia, dating to half a million years ago and probably built by an “archaic human species, Homo heidelbergensis.” Other finds land on the A.D. side of the timeline. In a cave above the Dead Sea, a cache of Roman swords were probably stashed during the Bar Kokhba Revolt. A gold coin found near the swords dates to A.D. 134.

A Sign from the Gods

Sometime around the first century A.D. in Italy lightning struck a sanctuary and triggered a process of burying hundreds of votive offerings. The offerings, including bronze statues, are extraordinary, but the undisturbed state of this find is even more remarkable and useful. Archaeologist Jacopo Taboli notes, “The exceptional discovery here is the fact that we can unlock the site’s sacred context and landscape by analyzing all elements from the mud to the bronze.”

Admirable Range of Top 10 Archaeology Discoveries

Aztec layers and Incan genetics figure in the list. The selection stretches from a medieval Nubian kingdom in Sudan to a buried imperial menagerie with a giant panda in China, to Nero’s “Fiddler’s Theater” in Rome. From the notorious to the forgotten. The breadth and diversity of the list reflects on the state of archaeology today. I’m impressed at the work being done.

You can read the full article, Top 10 Discoveries of 2023 in Archaeology Magazine.

Further Reading

For a discussion of the Top 10 discoveries in 2020, you may enjoy this post.

(Top of post photo credits, Homo heidelbegensis, Emőke Dénes, wiki and Nero, public domain)