The world’s oldest drawing was made with a red ocher crayon.
Science News goes deeper into a rock that bears a cross-hatch pattern made 73,000 years ago in a South African cave: The discovery “helps round […]
archaeology
Was Homo erectus too lazy to survive? Really?
Smithsonian seems to be blaming the (ahem) efficiency of “least-effort strategies” on the fall of Homo erectus, modern humans’ recent ancestor: In a statement, lead […]
Science Art: Hoxne Hand Axe, by Thomas Underwood and John Frere
This is a hand axe made by prehistoric humans – but the image is a historical relic in its own right. It represents the first […]
Vikings left the New World because the walrus market went bust
That is, if we’re counting Greenland as the New World. OK, maybe I’m stretching here – but anyway, AP has new findings that show the […]
Exploring a Lost World
The New Yorker leaves their modern city to plunge into a genuine wilderness on an expedition into La Mosquitia, a long-abandoned settlement in the jungles […]
Neanderthals cruised the Mediterranean
I mean, who wouldn’t, really? Science looks back at evidence that Stone Age people traveled to Naxos, Crete, and other islands across the sun-kissed Med: […]
A bit more evidence that Viking sunstones really worked.
PhysOrg returns to the sunstone – remember the sunstone? the calcite crystal that may have helped the Vikings plot courses at sea? that inspired this […]
They found Cao Cao’s grave.
South China Morning Post reports on the massive mausoleum of a legendary figure from Chinese history – the general Cao Cao, a character in the […]
15,000-year-old DNA reveals prehistoric African culture
Science magazine opens a window on the past with DNA samples from Africa’s oldest cemetery: The origins of the ancient Moroccans, known as the Iberomaurusians […]
Ancient Egyptian tattoos discovered under our noses.
Nature pulls back the veil on those smudges seen on Egyptian mummies on display for more than a century – that, it turns out, are […]
Pot of gold found in waterworks dig.
NLTimes.nl reports on Dutch public-works diggers who found a trove of treasure – not just scientific treasure, but a literal pot of 15th-century gold coins […]
Chinese tomb with sewer security.
Xinhuanet reports on an ancient civil engineering project – a tomb from 1,000 years ago that has an elaborate system to keep water – and […]
Stonehenge architects slept here.
The Guardian reports on a new discovery shedding light on the ancient mystery of Stonehenge – by showing us where the megalithic architects lived – […]
500-year-old teeth reveal an unimaginably deadly epidemic.
Popular Science checks the dental records to get to the cause of a mysterious sickness that killed up to 15 million people in only three […]
Ancient Americans came all at once – or so a baby’s DNA suggests.
Science looks at the mystery of when the first Americans arrived over the land bridge of Beringia, and have found some interesting clues in an […]