Trusted Writing on History, Travel, and American Culture Since 1949
Archeaology
The archaeologist who discovered the real Jamestown debunks myths and answers long-puzzling mysteries about North America's first successful English colony
Elaborate earthworks engineered two thousand years ago by an impenetrably mysterious people still stand in astonishing abundance throughout the Ohio River Valley
Robert Maslowski and I made our way carefully across the tobacco field, trying not to disturb the neat rows of freshly plowed furrows. Read more >>
In the underpinnings of our cities, in desolate swampland, beneath coastal waters—wherever the early settlers left traces of their lives—a new generation of archaeologists is uncovering a lost world
CROUCHED IN an L-shaped pit, a foot below the surface of the forest floor, John Ehrenhard, an archaeologist with the National Park Service, is contemplating a piece of charred wood. Read more >>
A seasoned campaigner’s look at the never-ending war between archaeological fact and archaeological fraud
In 1961 three rockhounds found an unusual nodule near Olancha, California. It contained ceramic, copper, and iron components and seemed obviously man-made. Read more >>
Arkansas saves fragments of the rich but distant past.
There is something almost atavistic in the appeal of an archeological dig. Read more >>
Peale’s Greatest Triumph
During the spring of 1801 Charles Willson Peale learned of a remarkable discovery—the huge bones of an “animal of uncommon magnitude” had been found in Orange and Ulster counties north of New York City. Read more >>
IT’S A PETRIFIED MAN!
IT’S A SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY IDOL!
IT’S A HOAX!
ITS THE CARDIFF GIANT!
One morning in early November of the year 1868 three men appeared at the railroad depot in Union, New York, just outside Binghamton. Read more >>
A bitter feud among the bones
In the early 1870’s two American scientists began a vicious personal contest for position and eminence in the world of science. Read more >>
An eminent scholar argues that its inscription is only a hoax.
Magnificent Central American ruins, overgrown by the thickening jungle, testify to a sophisticated culture already ancient when Columbus sailed