Ancient Egyptian ladies’ tattoos were meant to protect them during childbirth.
Phys.org decodes the messages left in the skin of mummies unearthed in the 1920s – ancient Egyptian women who had themselves permanently marked with signs […]
archaeology
Amputation 31,000 years ago, among the prehistoric artists of Borneo.
Science magazine recently covered the tale archaeologists uncovered about one of the earliest known settlers of Borneo, a young hunter-gatherer who had an injured foot […]
Science Art: Balkåkra Ritual Object, Olof Sörling, 1917.
This is a drum. Or a gong. Or maybe a throne. Or a model of the universe with little solar disks around the edge. It […]
Drone photos reveal ancient Mesopotamian island suburbs.
The discovery, as Science News explains, is rewriting the evolution of the first cities. Instead of gradually growing inside walled enclosures around a temple, the […]
Humans domesticated animals way earlier than we thought – about 13,000 years ago at least.
Science News reports on the discovery of charred dung in Syria that has rewritten history, pushing back the date of the oldest domesticated animals by […]
Genetic finding shows how modern humans grew more brain cells than Neanderthals.
Science magazine reveals the single gene change that gave Homo sapiens sapiens the edge in brain matter over Homo sapiens neanderthalensis: [Wieland Huttner, a Max […]
Sunken megaliths revealed by Spanish drought.
The Guardian reports on a crisis for Spanish farmers and water utilities that has turned into a boon for archaeologists – and tourists – as […]
Mammoth hunt pushes first North American settlers back by a few millennia.
PhysOrg looks at the remains of what UT Austin researchers have determined was a 37,000-year-old mammoth hunt in New Mexico, a place where scientists didn’t […]
Chicken and rice go together – all the way to the origins of domestic fowl in grain fields.
Science News discusses two new studies that place the origins of domestic chickens in one specific place – Southeast Asia – and much more recently […]
Reading the DNA from Pompeii
BBC reports on a study reassembling the genome of a man and woman preserved for centuries under the ash of Pompeii, and what the ancient […]
Inca sacrifices were given ayahuasca in their final hours.
IFL Science (among other outlets) is reporting on studies published in Nature and the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports that looked at the mummified remains […]
A 3,000-year-old skull surgery in Alabama
Science News checks out the evidence for the oldest known skull surgery in America, a forehead-opening operation that took place between 3,000 and 5,000 years […]
The earliest North Americans were hanging out hunting horses in the Yukon 24,000 years ago.
Hakai Magazine (via Smithsonian) shares some discoveries from the Bluefish Caves in the northern Yukon, where archaeologists have unearthed clues to a whole human society […]
Venus of Willendorf actually not of Willdendorf – she’s Italian!
Archaeology Today has the news – heartwrenching to Austrians, joyous to Italians – that one of the world’s most famous figurines, the round-bodied Venus of […]
Prehistoric pigment points to archaic brain trust.
Nature reports on the discovery of an unusually advanced settlement in East Asia. Around 40,000 years ago, when Denisovans, Neanderthals, and the very first Homo […]