Ancient DNA from Stone Age burials in Turkey has finally put to rest a decades-long debate about whether the 9,000-year-old proto-city of Çatalhöyük was a matriarchal society. The research finally confirms what experts have long suspected: Women and girls were key figures in this agricultural society.

"With Çatalhöyük, we now have the oldest genetically-inferred social organisation pattern in food-producing societies," study co-author Mehmet Somel, an evolutionary geneticist at Middle East Technical University in Turkey, told Live Science in an email. "Which turns out to be female-centered."

The new research was published Thursday (June 26) in the journal Science.

Located in south-central Turkey, Çatalhöyük was built around 7100 B.C. and was occupied for nearly 1,000 years. The vast settlement — spread over 32.5 acres (13.2 hectares) — is known for its houses that were entered from the roofs, burials beneath the house floors, and elaborate symbolism that included vivid murals and a diverse array of female figurines.

Seven giant funeral urns dating to pre-Columbian times have been found deep in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. A fisher who works in this little-known waterlogged area of the middle Solimões region, along the upper course of the Amazon River, made the discovery after a 50-foot-tall (15 meters) Paricarana tree fell over, revealing the urns buried beneath it.

The age of the urns is currently unknown; being Pre-Columbian, they're either centuries or millennia old. But their burial place — a human-made island — is extraordinary, although it's unknown if the culture that created the islands also crafted the urns, according to archaeologists at the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development (IDSM) in Brazil.

Two of the larger ceramic urns — which measure up to 35 inches (89 centimeters) in diameter — contained human bones, while the others held a mixture of seeds and the remains of fish, frogs and turtles, said Geórgea Layla Holanda, an archaeologist at the IDSM who co-led the excavation. These seed and animal remains were likely part of the funeral ritual.

Lima (AFP) – Peruvian gas workers this week found a thousand-year-old mummy while installing pipes in Lima, their company said, confirming the latest discovery of a pre-Hispanic tomb in the capital.

The workers found the trunk of a huarango tree (a species native to coastal Peru), "which served as a tomb marker in the past," at a depth of 50 centimeters (20 inches), archaeologist Jesus Bahamonde, scientific coordinator of Calidda gas company, told reporters.

The mummy of a boy aged between 10 and 15, was found at a depth of 1.2 meters, he added.

"The burial and the objects correspond to a style that developed between 1000 and 1200," he said.

The remains discovered on Monday were found "in a sitting position, with the arms and legs bent," according to Bahamonde.

They were found in a shroud which also contained calabash gourds.

Ceramic objects, including plates, bottles and jugs decorated with geometric figures and figures of fishermen, were found next to the mummy.

The tomb and artifacts belong to the pre-Inca Chancay culture, which lived in the Lima area between the 11th and 15th centuries.

They were discovered while gas workers were removing earth from an avenue in the Puente Piedra district of northern Lima.

In Peru, utility companies must hire archaeologists when drilling the earth, because of the possibility of hitting upon heritage sites.

Calidda has made more than 2,200 archaeological finds since 2004.

Lima is home to over 500 archaeological sites, including dozens of "huacas" as ancient cemeteries are known in the Indigenous Quechua language.

Archaeologists have pieced together thousands of fragments of 2,000-year-old wall plaster to reveal remarkable frescoes that decorated a luxurious Roman villa.

The shattered plaster was discovered in 2021 at a site in central London that's being redeveloped, but it's taken until now to reconstruct this colossal jigsaw puzzle.

The frescoes are from at least 20 walls of the building, with beautifully painted details of musical instruments, birds, flowers and fruit.

The art is revealing more about the affluence of the area where they were found - described by the team as the "Beverly Hills of Roman London".