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    The weekly dispatch · 28 Sep 2026

    The week in history, 28 Sep 2026

    A Norse church in Greenland, intact burials at Göbekli Tepe and 934 Roman silver coins from a German field.

    Here is what moved in the study of the past this week: new finds, open questions and fresh reading, each one linked to its source.

    01 · From the field

    Discoveries & digs

    Discovery

    Medieval Norse Church Discovered in Greenland

    A Christian burial found this August at Qinngua, near Erik the Red's Brattahlíð, confirms an unknown Norse church in southern Greenland, the first identified there in over 60 years. Its size suggests about 1100 to 1300.
    Medievalists.netRead more →
    02 · Claims, checked

    Debates & controversies

    03 · Place spotlight

    From the atlas

    Map of Hattusha
    Place spotlight

    Hattusha

    The Hittite capital for most of the Late Bronze Age, abandoned around 1180 BCE. Its walls, gates and temples lie beside the village of Boğazkale in central Turkey.

    In the news this week: Fragment of the world's oldest known peace treaty found at Hattusha

    Open on the map →
    04 · Research

    New papers

    05 · Listen

    Podcasts worth your time

    06 · Anniversaries

    This week in history

    1. 28 Sep O.S.1197
      Death of Henry VI, Holy Roman Emperor

      Holy Roman Emperor from 1191 to 1197

    2. 28 Sep1891
      Death of Herman Melville

      American writer and poet (1819–1891)

    3. 1 Oct O.S.1578
      Death of John of Austria

      Spanish military leader (1547–1578)

    4. 1 Oct1972
      Death of Louis Leakey

      Kenyan-British archaeologist and naturalist

    5. 2 Oct1803
      Death of Samuel Adams

      American statesman, political philosopher, governor of Massachusetts and Founding Father of the United States (1722–1803)

    07 · Changelog

    New on HistoryTrack

    • Chronos Atlas is now HistoryTrackA new name, a new home at historytrack.io and a new look: a navy mark, IBM Plex type and a calmer dark map.
    • Discoveries and open questionsA feed of 32 landmark discoveries and the people who made them, plus 11 open questions in archaeology with the competing answers laid side by side.
    • A living feed of finds, digs, debates and new researchThe Discovery Feed now fills itself every few hours with new finds, excavations, debates and papers about the past, each linked to its source.
    • Wars and treaties943 wars are now records of their own, with the sides that fought, the battles they include and the treaties that ended them.
    • Old maps over the atlasTen historical maps, from Ortelius's 1571 Roman Empire to Kiepert, Butler and Shepherd's classical atlases, laid over the map in the years they describe.
    • Watch languages and faiths spreadA new lens draws how 13 language families and languages and 10 faiths spread across the map, from dated, sourced records, with competing theories side by side.
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    HistoryTrack