History

Tel Kabri is the only site in Israel where wall paintings similar in style to those found in the Aegean 3,600 years ago have been found; researchers say this was a conscious decision made by the city rulers to lean toward Mediterranean culture.
The remains of a Minoan-style wall painting, recognizable by a blue background, the [...]

Archaeologists at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum of Natural History have discovered unprecedented evidence that helps map Hernando de Soto’s journey through the Southeast in 1540. No evidence of De Soto’s path between Tallahassee and North Carolina has been found until now, and few sites have been located anywhere.
Fernbank’s Curator of Native American Archaeology, Dennis Blanton, has [...]

Irethorrou, an Egyptian priest entombed for thousands of years in the Middle Egyptian city of Akhmim, can now be seen like never before. Using state of the art High Definition Volume Rendering technology developed by Fovia, Inc., in conjunction with high resolution computed tomography (CT) scans provided by the Stanford Medical School’s Department of Radiology, [...]

For pulmonary ailments, certain mediaeval physicians had a useful medical textbook on hand offering detailed information remarkably similar to those a modern doctor might use today. One of the fathers of medicine, the great Persian scholar Avicenna left a wealth of information in his many works. Iranian academics dust off one of these in an [...]

Just in time for Halloween, researchers have announced the discovery of a new, real-world “monster” — what they are calling a “unicorn” fly that lived about 100 million years ago and is being described as a new family, genus and species of fly never before observed.
A single, incredibly well-preserved specimen of the tiny but scary-looking [...]

Recent archaeological discoveries from far-flung corners of China are forcing scientists to reconsider the origins of ancient Chinese civilization — and a new crop of young archaeologists are delving into the modern nation’s roots. In the August 21 issue of the journal Science, a group of articles by Science news writer Andrew Lawler explore how, [...]

London’s oldest timber structure has been unearthed by archaeologists from Archaeology South-East (part of the Institute of Archaeology at UCL). It was found during the excavation of a prehistoric peat bog adjacent to Belmarsh Prison in Plumstead, Greenwich, in advance of the construction of a new prison building. Radiocarbon dating has shown the structure to [...]

Excavations led by a University of Toronto archaeologist at the site of a recently discovered temple in southeastern Turkey have uncovered a cache of cuneiform tablets dating back to the Iron Age period between 1200 and 600 BCE. Found in the temple’s cella, or ‘holy of holies,’ the tablets are part of a possible archive [...]

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have discovered that the Amazon river, and its transcontinental drainage, is around 11 million years old and took its present shape about 2.4 million years ago.
University of Liverpool researchers, in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam and Petrobras, the national oil company of Brazil, analysed sedimentary material taken from [...]

The restoration of a 2,000-year-old bronze sculpture of the famed ancient Greek athlete Apoxyomenos may help modern scientists understand how to prevent metal corrosion, discover the safest ways to permanently store nuclear waste, and understand other perplexing problems. That’s the conclusion of a new study on the so-called “biomineralization” of Apoxyomenos appearing in the current [...]

Scientists have performed the first DNA-based reconstruction of the giant extinct moa bird, using prehistoric feathers recovered from caves and rock shelters in New Zealand.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide and Landcare Research in New Zealand have identified four different moa species after retrieving ancient DNA from moa feathers believed to be at least 2500 [...]

More than 100 feet deep in Lake Huron, on a wide stoney ridge that 9,000 years ago was a land bridge, University of Michigan researchers have found the first archeological evidence of human activity preserved beneath the Great Lakes.
The researchers located what they believe to be caribou-hunting structures and camps used by the early hunters [...]

Increasing population density, rather than boosts in human brain power, appears to have catalysed the emergence of modern human behaviour, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) scientists published in the journal Science. High population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It [...]

The secret of a successful sandcastle could aid the revival of an ancient eco-friendly building technique, according to research led by Durham University.
Researchers, led by experts at Durham’s School of Engineering, have carried out a study into the strength of rammed earth, which is growing in popularity as a sustainable building method.
Just as a sandcastle [...]

A previously unknown giant volcanic eruption that led to global mass extinction 260 million years ago has been uncovered by scientists at the University of Leeds.
The eruption in the Emeishan province of south-west China unleashed around half a million cubic kilometres of lava, covering an area 5 times the size of Wales, and wiping out [...]

Ciguatera poisoning, the food-borne disease that can come from eating large, carnivorous reef fish, causes vomiting, headaches, and a burning sensation upon contact with cold surfaces. An early morning walk on cool beach sand can become a painful stroll on fiery coals to a ciguatera victim. But is this common toxin poisoning also the key [...]

A detailed analysis of the feet of Homo floresiensis — the miniature hominins who lived on a remote island in eastern Indonesia until 18,000 years ago — may help settle a question hotly debated among paleontologists: how similar was this population to modern humans? A new research paper, featured on the cover of the current [...]

Having worked for 25 years at fragile archaeological sites in Peru, UCLA archaeologist Charles “Chip” Stanish held his breath when the online auction house eBay launched more than a decade ago.
“My greatest fear was that the Internet would democratize antiquities trafficking, which previously had been a wealthy person’s vice, and lead to widespread looting,” said [...]

The mysterious disappearance of Everett Ruess, a 20-year-old artist, writer, and footloose explorer who wandered the Southwest in the early 1930s on a burro and who has become a folk hero to many, has been solved with the help of University of Colorado at Boulder researchers and the National Geographic Society.
The short, compelling life of [...]

Ancient protein dating back 80 million years to the Cretaceous geologic period has been preserved in bone fragments and soft tissues of a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur, according to a study in the May 1 issue of Science. Led by scientists at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and North Carolina State University (NCSU), the [...]