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9 discoveries that have fundamentally altered our understanding of human history

August 21, 20240
The city of Pompeii.

Atlantide Phototravel/Getty Images

In 79 CE, Mount Vesuvius unleashed a torrent of ash and magma, killing thousands of people and preserving the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum for over a millennia. Excavators rediscovered them in the early 1700s.

The cities were so well-preserved that they’ve given archeologists a unique look back in time at what life was like in ancient Rome for the wide range of people who lived there, from the very wealthy to those who were enslaved.

For example, excavators found a bakery’s prison in Pompeii where barred windows locked in enslaved people.

And everyday objects like lime and bricks demonstrate how some buildings were constructed, possibly through a technique for making cement created by the Romans.

Other discoveries of graffiti and shrines have also advanced our understanding of ancient Romans. Back then, kids liked to express themselves by drawing on walls, too.

The Aztec Calendar Stone holds information about astronomy, agriculture, and more.
A pair of Neanderthal skeletons at The Smithsonian Museum of Natural History show how the species’ body changed over thousands of years.

Bill O’Leary/The Washington Post via Getty Images

In 1856, scientists began studying a skeleton found in Germany’s Neander Valley. The bones resembled a human’s but differed in several key ways: the skull was longer and the limbs were thicker.

The discovery fundamentally changed our understanding of human history because it was the first proof of the existence of some of our closest relatives.

The discovery sparked an entirely new field of science: paleoanthropology, aka the study of early humans through fossils.

Since this groundbreaking discovery, our understanding of Neanderthals has evolved from seeing them as distant, less intelligent relatives to a group that fundamentally changed our own DNA.

In 2022, Svante Pääbo won a Nobel Prize for sequencing the Neanderthal genome, which showed their DNA is 99.7% identical to our own. Some Neanderthal genes remain in humans today, too.

Recent studies suggest that humans and Neanderthals interbred enough that the extinct species left traces in our genome that impact our metabolism and risk for diseases like diabetes.

Moreover, many archaeological discoveries concerning their culture, including cave art and toolmaking, have illuminated the many ways our long-lost human relatives were more intelligent and refined than we’ve given them credit for in the past.

Altamira cave paintings show that ancient humans were capable of sophisticated art.
A 1,000-year-old mummified dog found in Mexico City in 2012.

REUTERS/INAH/Handout

Experts think dogs were the first animals we domesticated, around 15,000 years ago, though some suggest it was even earlier.

These early versions of dogs were likely useful, acting as guards, helping with transportation, and sometimes serving as food.

But a 2018 study of a dog burial from 14,000 years ago showed that some humans didn’t just view the animals as helpful assistants.

They formed emotional attachments and cared for their dogs when the animals were sick. Not so different from how we treat dogs today.

“We suggest that at least some Paleolithic humans regarded some of their dogs not merely materialistically, in terms of their utilitarian value, but already had a strong emotional bond with these animals,” archaeologist Liane Giemsch told National Geographic in 2018.

The Rosetta Stone unlocked Egypt’s mysterious hieroglyphs.
Stone point tools from the Sandia site in New Mexico.

Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

How and when people first came to the Americas is a question archaeologists have long tried to answer.

One of the most significant initial discoveries on that front was found in 1929 at a site near Clovis, New Mexico.

Mammoth bones and stone tools at the site date back to 13,000 years ago. The dates matched with when glaciers started melting in northern North America, and experts believed that’s when the first Americans arrived across the Bering land bridge.

However, numerous discoveries in recent decades have pushed the timeline back even further. For example, archaeologists found older artifacts at a 14,500-year-old site in Chile.

And a 2018 genetics study suggests ancient humans may have been living in Alaska around 25,000 years ago, millennia earlier than previously thought.

Experts in the archaeological community don’t all agree on the exact dates, but general estimates for humans’ arrival in the Americas are between 20,000 to 15,000 years ago.

Sutton Hoo proved there were no “Dark Ages.”
Lidar can reveal geological and archaeological features.

John Brock/United States Geological Survey; Wayne Wright/NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility

In recent decades, LiDAR technology has transformed some aspects of archaeology. Short for Light Detection and Ranging, LiDAR uses a laser, scanner, and GPS receiver typically mounted on aircraft to collect data and create three-dimensional maps of the landscape and archaeological features. It’s especially useful in areas covered in vegetation.

LiDAR can reveal previously unknown sites. In Guatemala and Mexico, for example, archaeologists have found the remains of many Maya cities and structures. Until the new technology started uncovering tens of thousands of structures, researchers had no idea how complex and far-reaching these civilizations were.

“Everything is larger, more extensive, more deeply built and engineered than we had thought,” Brown anthropologist Stephen Houston said in a 2018 statement about 64,000 dwellings found via LiDAR in Guatemala. “In some areas, there are denser populations than previously imagined; other regions seem absolutely desolate.”

Archaeologist Chris Fisher wants to use LiDAR to make a 3D image of Earth to preserve images of glaciers, forests, and other natural features as well as these ancient settlements and monuments. Sea-level rise, melting ice, and other climate change threaten many archaeological sites, including those yet to be discovered.