This week, our Archaeology at Home resources center on a theme of archaeology of the underworld, and particularly research in caves around the world.
In case you missed it, check out Meg Conkey's Ask an Archaeologist interview What is the Grotte Chauvet and Why is it Important?
Next, take a virtual tour of Lascaux and view archaeological artifacts found on the cave floors.
Moving over to Italy, YouTuber Stefan Milo recently released a 13-minute video about the Grotta Scaloria: The Underground Religion of Neolithic Italy.
And from Spain, here is an article from Scientific American Ancient Cave Paintings Clinch the Case for Neandertal Symbolism. The site features a 4-minute video of images from the caves that date back 65,000 years.
In a 1-hour lecture at Case Western, Oren Gutfeld (Archaeologist and Researcher at the Hebrew University’s Institute of Archaeology) talks about New Archaeological Discoveries at the Dead Sea Caves.
Also from the Middle East, the Arch 365 podcast brings us a discussion of Shuqba Cave , the site of the first documentation of the Natufian culture.
Moving over to the Americas, check out this webpage with a 15-minute video: An Underwater Cave Once Hosted the Americas’ Oldest Known Ocher Mine
Listen to this 5-minute piece on NPR about the re-discovery of a cave beneath the ancient city of Chichén Itzá in Mexico: Archaeologists Find Trove Of Maya Artifacts Dating Back 1,000 Years
From Southeast Asia, check out an article on The Conversation about rock art in the limestone cave of Leang Bulu’ Sipong 4 (Sulawesi, Indonesia). The webpage contains several short videos about this research, which was reported last December in Nature.
From much closer to home, take a 3D tour of Chumash Painted Cave brought to you by California State Parks in collaboration with CyArk and Santa Ynez Valley High School. This 3D scan provides park visitors with a closer view of the art not currently possible due to the protective grate across the cave opening. State Parks has also worked with Barbareño Chumash elder, Ernestine de Soto and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History to provide accurate interpretive information about the rock art, and its importance to modern Chumash descendants. Also check out the image gallery on the Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park.website.
Exciting news from explorations in a cave in Mexico are summarized in this article: Humans may have reached the Americas 15,000 years earlier than previously thought.
Our "underworld" theme also touched on cave art, so I'm going to throw in this tangentially-related podcast about rock art-- another hot-off-the-press podcast from three days ago, Filming Rock Art with Eran Barnea. Eran Barnea is a Hollywood cinematographer who has completed research studies worldwide on rock art depicting horned artiodactyls.