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Excavated stone structures in dry grassland

ARCHAEOLOGY TEAHOUSE

Excavating the Past, One Story at a Time

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Three stories the regulars keep coming back to
Beyond BordersNº 2026·087 min readBird Brained: How Scientists Proved the Dodo Was Never That DumbResearchers CT-Scanned the Skulls of 57 Columbiform Birds, Including the Dodo and SolitaireEuropeNº 2026·087 minThe Mystery of Brading Roman Villa: Evidence of a Late Roman Massacre?AfricaNº 2026·077 minDivine Light: What do an Ibis, Baboon and the God of the Moon Have in Common?
Sandee Oster

Every story here is written by Sandee Oster, an archaeologist and researcher who translates real published papers into stories you can enjoy over a cup of tea — no jargon, no assumed background.

THE LATEST FROM THE DIG SITE

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AfricaNº 2026·093 September 2026Copper from Everywhere, Tin from One Valley: What Metal Fingerprints Reveal About Iron Age TradeNew study traces copper and tin from three Botswanan Iron Age sites, revealing a trade network that ran hundreds of kilometres across southern Africa's interior9 min readNº 2026·0831 August 2026Tea Break August: Skinning Tigers, Geometric Reed, and a Grim Collection of Human BonesNew Studies Suggest Extinct Palawan Tiger Populationm Document a Unique Middle Bronze Age Decorated Reed and Uncover a Grim Collection of Human Bones Beneath the University College London12 min readBeyond BordersNº 2026·0831 August 2026The Pelvic Problem: How Neanderthal Hips Challenge Why We Think Childbirth is so DifficultVirtual reconstructions of Neanderthal pelvises suggest birth canal size was a compromise between delivering big-headed babies and keeping the pelvic floor stable9 min readOceaniaNº 2026·0828 August 2026Wearing Wallabies: Twelve Wallaby Teeth That Turned Out to Be JewelryNew study identifies twelve resin-mounted wallaby incisors in a Cape York rockshelter, the first ornaments of their kind found outside a burial in northeast Australia9 min readOceaniaNº 2026·0827 August 2026Painting Giants: Why Did Australia's Rock Art Suddenly Get So Big in the 1800s?Study finds Aboriginal artists in Arnhem Land painted increasingly massive rainbow serpents, whales, and giants after European contact as a way of reasserting cultural authority amid colonial upheaval.8 min read