Tartaria Tablets: Writing Before Writing
In a burial pit in Transylvania in 1961, a Romanian archaeologist named Nicolae Vlassa found something he could not quite account for. Three small clay tablets, unbaked and fragile. Two…
archaeology
Nan Madol: Pacific Ruins on the Water
The Pacific Ocean, east of Pohnpei island in Micronesia, holds something that should not be possible. Ninety-two artificial islets, each one constructed from basalt and coral, connected by a network…
Göbekli Tepe: The Temple Before Civilization
For most of the 20th century, archaeologists thought they understood the sequence. Agriculture came first. Surplus food enabled permanent settlement. Settlement enabled specialization, which enabled monumental construction. Then, finally, civilization.…