Here’s a small selection of some of the hundreds of magazine stories I’ve written over the years.
National Geographic Magazine
New Visions of the Vikings. Yes, they were brutal. They also had women leaders, coveted riches and finery, and encountered more than 50 cultures from Afghanistan to Canada. (Cover story)
Untouched. Grave robbers had plundered this ancient Peruvian site for decades. But they missed one royal tomb, hidden for more than 1,000 years.
Lofty Ambitions of the Inca. Rising from obscurity to the heights of power, a succession of Andean rulers subdued kingdoms, sculpted mountains and forged a mighty empire. (Cover story)
Discover Magazine
New Women of the Ice Age: Forget the image of passive little cave-mates. They were out hunting and slaughtering and getting food on the table. (Cover story)
Gladiatrix: When London was a distant outpost of the Roman Empire 1,900 years ago, the favorite local pastime was watching slaves pair off in an arena to kill each other. Artifacts found in an ancient grave site suggest that one of the heroes of the ring was a woman
Vox Populi: Gossip in the glory days of Rome was just like ours—but written in stone
Secrets of the Alpaca Mummies: Did the ancient Inca make the finest woolen cloth the world has ever known?
Hakai Magazine
From Vilified to Vindicated, The Story of Jacques Cinq-Mars: How a toxic debate over the first Americans hobbled science for decades.
Time Travelers: Could these be the oldest human footprints in North America?
Scientific American
Why Humans Live So Long. Modern genomes and ancient mummies are yielding clues to why the lifespan of Homo sapiens exceeds that of other primates.
The Origin of Human Creativity Was Surprisingly Complex. New evidence of ancient ingenuity forces scientists to reconsider when our ancestors started thinking outside the box.
Photo: Heather in Tonga, 1992, courtesy Peter Bennett
Archaeology Magazine
Science
Troubled Waters for Ancient Shipwrecks (pdf)
In the Hands of Mummy Experts, Ancient Faces Gain New Life
NASA Dives into Its Past to Retrieve Vintage Satellite Data
Seeking Africa’s First Iron Men
Neolithic Agriculture: The Original Blended Economies
Traces of Ancient Mariners Found in Peru
Reading the Signs of Ancient Animal Domestication
New Respect for Metal’s Role in Ancient Arctic Cultures
Ice Age Communities May Be Oldest Known Net Hunters
Yale Alumni Magazine
The Lost City: A Discovery in the Desert Could Rewrite the History of Ancient Egypt
Canadian Geographic
Raiders from the Sea: Along one of the world’s greatest salmon rivers, archaeologists and First Nations elders discover clues to a turbulent past
The Messenger: The remains of a young man who died on a glacier more than 200 years ago reveal details of his life and times
Smithsonian.com
Sugar Masters in a New World: Sevilla la Nueva, the first European settlement in Jamaica, is home to the bittersweet story of the beginning of the Caribbean sugar trade
Heather Pringle 