Archaeology

The pyramid, which predates the Great Pyramid of Giza, is one of seven for which its function remains a mystery

Long unnoticed, the skull may represent a new species of extinct sperm whale

Researchers may have found the remains of King Alfred the Great in museum storage

In 1967 the fossilized remains of a strange new shark species were discovered in Will County, Ill., an area known for its marine fossils dating back more than 300 million years.

Cavities are associated with the carbohydrate-rich diet made possible by farming. But an archaeological site shows that hunter–gatherers were also plagued by cavities. Cynthia Graber reports

The editors of Nature picked these feature stories as the best among the magazine's longer journalistic reports of the year

See which science blog posts were most-read on Nature's Web site this year

A carbon threshold breached, commitments to brain science made, mystery neutrinos found and human evolution revised—these and other events highlight the year in science and technology as picked by the editors of Scientific American

Physicists prefer Roman-era lead ingots to recently mined metal for shielding particle experiments, but archaeologists want them preserved

The existence of the Higgs boson particle was confirmed, a strong case for human-caused climate change was released and scientists analyzed the oldest-known human DNA

Archaeologists found evidence of cat domestication in China dating back some 5,300 years. Cynthia Graber reports

This past summer, at a 3700-year-old Canaanite city called Tel Kabri in northern Israel, archaeologists found what appears to be the oldest known wine cellar. Cynthia Graber reports.