Archaeologists at a remote lake in Chiapas search for clues to what life was like for the unconquered Maya 500 years ago and how it has, or hasn't, changed for their descendants.

Pouring grape juice and other liquids on 3,000-year-old Olmec sculptures in Mexico, people performing a ritual badly damaged the treasures.

Some assumptions about the evolution of jawed vertebrates are "completely wrong," according to a new analysis of a 415-million-year-old fish-like animal.

A skull, pelvis, legs, and pieces of a torso found inside a granite sarcophagus likely belonged to Queen Seshseshet, mother the first pharaoh of Egypt's 6th dynasty.

Within the last decade, the Chubut province in Argentina has become a paradise for paleontologists seeking fossilized clues about the flora and fauna from millions of years hence.

Confiscated from a smuggler in Egypt, an ancient bronze statuette—perhaps of a goddess—has been returned to Iraq.

Some 93 million years ago, dinosaur-era "sea monsters" swam the seas above what is now Utah. Thanks to paleontologists, more evidence of the ancient beasts is now surfacing.

A piglet nuzzles a chicken as Ebola threatens, a Chinese mummy has a surprisingly good hair day, and more in the week's best news photos.

Using "Schwarzenegger" strength, the ancient flying reptiles could make a leaping launch from flat ground in less than a second, a new study says.

The discovery of microscopic diamonds in 12,900-year-old soil supports the controversial idea that comet swarms caused a die-off of ice age mammals, a new study says.

Complete with canons and jars of olive oil, an 18th-century Spanish ship has been found at a Buenos Aires, Argentina, construction site.

The big cats originated in Africa or Asia, not North America as previously thought, according to a new study on a two-million-year-old skull.

Lost cities, baffling pyramids, and ancient graveyards are just some of the mysteries covered in National Geographic News's most viewed archaeology stories of 2008.

Bizarre prehistoric creatures--sea monsters, gargantuan rodents, a redheaded Neanderthal--are among the stars of the most read stories on dinosaurs and fossils by National Geographic News in 2008.

A farmer in Italy uncovered hundreds of ancient artifacts—some perhaps 2,500 years old—but ran into trouble with police when he tried to sell some of them.