Workers made a surprising discovery in Poland when they pulled an early medieval sword from a muddy riverbed while dredging, and some researchers think the weapon could have a Viking connection.

The 1,000-year-old sword, which is thought to be older than Poland itself, was found cloaked in silt and in "near perfect" condition in the depths of the Vistula (also spelled Wisła) River, which runs through Włocławek, a city in northern Poland, according to Warsaw Point, a Polish magazine.

Hundreds of Roman-era medical instruments now being examined by scientists may come from one of the earliest known examples of a group medical practice, or at least a place where health care workers congregated to treat people.

A total of 348 artifacts linked to medicine were found at the site of Allianoi, an ancient town that also hosted a large spa-like bath in what is now Turkey. The vast number of the 1,800-year-old artifacts may indicate the site once featured an ancient medical center. The instruments were discovered during rescue excavations that were carried out between 1998 and 2006, before the construction of a dam that flooded the site. Most of the artifacts, which have been studied over the years, were found within two buildings in a larger complex.

Two trails of ancient human footprints pressed into a beach in Morocco form one of the largest and best-preserved trackways in the world.

Researchers happened upon the footprint site near the northern tip of North Africa in 2022 while studying boulders at a nearby pocket beach, according to a study published Jan. 23 in the journal Scientific Reports.

"Between tides, I said to my team that we should go north to explore another beach," study lead author Mouncef Sedrati, an associate professor of coastal dynamics and geomorphology at the University of Southern Brittany in France, told Live Science. "We were surprised to find the first print. At first, we weren't convinced it was a footprint, but then we found more of the trackway."

An enormous tsunami with gigantic waves reaching 20 meters submerged large parts of northern Europe and may have wiped out populations of people in Stone Age Britain, a new University of York study has discovered.

The research focuses on a tsunami that hit Britain and northern Europe about 8,000 years ago. The authors think the waves were so huge and the number of deaths were so high that it may have led to a massive dip in Stone Age Britain's population.

Tens of thousands of years ago, prehistoric humans in Europe adorned themselves with such a wide variety of beads that researchers have classified nine distinct cultural groups across the continent based on their location and distinctive styles.

The researchers focused on the Gravettian period, which stretched between 34,000 and 24,000 years ago and was defined by hunter-gatherers who were also adept artisans, according to a study published Monday (Jan. 29) in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.

The Gravettians' crafting skills can be seen in the variety of materials they used to make beads, such as ivory, bones, teeth (including those from bears, horses and rabbits), antlers, jet gemstones, shells and amber. These beads likely served as personal ornaments as well as cultural markers.

Last summer, archaeologists from Gothenburg University and Kiel University excavated a dolmen, a stone burial chamber, in Tiarp near Falköping in Sweden. The archaeologists judge that the grave has remained untouched since the Stone Age. First analysis results now confirm that the grave in Tiarp is one of the oldest stone burial chambers in Sweden.

"It's an early grave which dates to the Early Neolithic period, about 3500 BCE," says archaeologist Karl-Göran Sjögren. However, the odd thing is that parts of the skeletons of the people buried are missing.

Archaeologists have found hundreds of preserved artefacts within the remnants of the HMS Erebus nearly two centuries after it sank in Arctic Canada.

Pistols, sealed bottles of medicine, fishing rods and seaman’s chests were among the discoveries made by Parks Canada, the underwater team that completed the most recent exploration of the wreck.

HMS Erebus and HMS Terror went missing in 1845 during an expedition that set off from Greenhithe in Kent to find the Northwest Passage, a polar route that linked the Atlantic and Pacific. It was led by the British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin.

Archaeologists have combined DNA analysis with the study of pottery to examine the spread of broomcorn millet across Eurasia, revealing how regional culinary traditions persisted even as new crops were introduced.