Science magazine reveals the secret to cellular survival for a chunk of human brain that didn’t rot for more than two and half millennia after its owner was beheaded:
… Read the rest “A piece of human brain survived 2,600 years.”Using several
The Guardian (among other sources) reports on cave paintings on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi that push back the earliest known art made by Homo sapiens to a date about 15,000 years before… Read the rest “Our oldest art is a picture of a pig.”
LiveScience brings together sordid incestuous subtext, capital punishment, judicial critique, scripture, Oscar Wilde, and of course archaeology in a single story of an excavation … Read the rest “Salome’s dance floor – where John the Baptist was condemned to death – has been uncovered. We think.”
National Geographic shares new clues to an age-old puzzle, deciphering what exactly the cone-shaped objects on some people’s heads really were in ancient Egyptian paintings –… Read the rest “The mystery of ancient Egyptian head cones has been solved.”
Science News reports on a twisty debate on human origins in North America, with a new analysis of stones embedded with microscopic bits of mastodon, apparently used by prehistoric chefs… Read the rest “Mastodon tenderizers shift human history in North America wayyy back… again.”
These are prehistoric bone tools used by prehistoric humans, or “Cultural additions from the double grave of Oberkasssel,” as the title reads in German.… Read the rest “Science Art: Kulturbeigaben des Doppelgrabes von Oberkasssel, 1919.”
Scientific Reports has some really remarkable 3D images (and printed replicas) of snakes, birds, and cats that were mummified by ancient Egyptians more than 2,000 years ago:
… Read the rest “New X-rays give an unprecedented look inside mummies.”Abstract:
Archaeology wonders about the original purpose of a pair of snub-nosed figurines excavated from a Bronze Age hillfort in northern Europe. Were they religious relics or children’s… Read the rest “Puzzling pair of Polish pigs from 3,500 years ago.”
Science reveals the results of a massive genetic study of Viking remains across Europe, which found that people from all genetic backgrounds took up the Viking way:
… Read the rest “DNA study confirms: “Viking” was a job, not an ethnicity.”Over the course of almost
Treasure! Literally! A hoard of Roman gold and silver, including jewelry, figurines, and a lot of these votive “leaf” plaques.
A votive plaque like these… Read the rest “Science Art: Gold plaques (items 9-14 in catalogue), by Ian Richardson, The British Museum, 2012”
Science Daily reports on radioactivity research that has found evidence that at least one mass extinction event in Earth’s history was caused not by an asteroid crash, but by cosmic… Read the rest “Supernovas have caused mass extinctions. (As if asteroids weren’t bad enough.)”
Nature produces one more clue that if any prehistoric “cave men” were the tough, insensitive brutes, it was our ancestors. Neanderthals, a new gene study has determined, … Read the rest “Neanderthals were more sensitive to pain.”
CNN covers an odd project, using Svante Paabo’s reconstructed Neanderthal genome and European stem-cell banks to recreate mini-brain cell-clusters that are up to 20% Neanderthal… Read the rest “Growing Neanderthal brains in the lab (using European stem cells).”
The Guardian has another radar-archaeology victory, looking underground with Cambridge University scientists mapping Falerii Novi, the first ancient Roman city to be surveyed by ground-penetrating… Read the rest “Mapping an invisible Roman city”
National Geographic gets physical clues about the parchment the Dead Sea Scrolls were written on – by DNA testing the fragmentary animal skins that these scriptures were written… Read the rest “DNA testing the Dead Sea Scrolls”
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