Archaeology

WSU archaeologist Colin Grier is shedding light on the capabilities of ground penetrating radar to find and identify buried features, including graves, that are many decades or even centuries old.

The researchers detected Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida) in residues taken from 14 miniature Maya ceramic vessels, originally buried more than 1,000 years ago on Mexico’s Yucatán peninsula.

Until now, the use of specific smoking plants by ancient people in the American Northwest had only been a matter of speculation.

WSU researchers have determined that Nez Perce Indians grew and smoked tobacco at least 1,200 years ago, long before the arrival of traders and settlers.

By Eric Sorensen, WSU News PULLMAN, Wash. – Researchers at Washington State University and 13 other institutions have found that the arc of prehistory bends towards economic inequality.

By Will Ferguson, College of Arts & Sciences PULLMAN, Wash. – Washington State University archaeologists are at the helm of new research using sophisticated computer technology to learn how past societies responded to climate change.

By Eric Sorensen, WSU science writer PULLMAN, Wash. – While the popular notion of the American Thanksgiving is less than 400 years old, the turkey has been part of American lives for more than 2,000 years. But for much of that time, the bird was more revered than eaten.

By Beverly Makhani, Undergraduate Education PULLMAN, Wash. – Anthropologist Jeremy A. Sabloff will discuss how archaeology can make a difference in today’s world at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, in Todd Hall 276 at Washington State University.

By Eric Sorensen, WSU science writer PULLMAN, Wash. – The heavily studied yet largely unexplained disappearance of ancestral Pueblo people from southwest Colorado is “the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology,” according to the New York Times. But it’s not all that unique, say Washington State University scientists.