Articles by

Tom Metcalfe

Venus has a massive lava tube

Shrouded from astronomers’ view by dense clouds, Earth’s “sister planet” Venus is slowly giving up some of...

Iron Age mass grave may hold unusual victims: mostly women and children

A mass grave from roughly 3,000 years ago in what is now Serbia is filled with the...

AI helps archaeologists solve a Roman gaming mystery

An old, flattened piece of limestone inscribed with a crisscross of grooves looks like the board for...

The world’s oldest piece of clothing might be an Ice Age–era hide from Oregon

Two small scraps of elk hide, joined by a cord of twisted fibers and preserved for...

This ancient stick may be the world’s oldest handheld wooden tool

A digging stick and a tiny tool of unknown purpose are among the oldest handheld wooden tools...

This hand stencil in Indonesia is now the oldest known rock art

A stencil made on a cave wall about 67,800 years ago is the oldest rock art ever...

This ancient pottery holds the earliest evidence of humans doing math

Plantlike designs on pottery made almost 8,000 years ago may be the earliest evidence yet of mathematical...

60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans’ skillful hunting

A new analysis of ancient arrowheads from South Africa pushes back prehistoric humans’ earliest use of poisoned...