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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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Tree rings. Source: tomeyk / Adobe Stock.

Can Tree Rings Explain the Demise of a Lost Civilization? (Video)

In the quest to uncover the mystery behind the fall of the once-vibrant Cahokia , archaeologists have turned to an unexpected source: tree ring records, aka dendrochronology. By 1150 AD, Cahokia,...
Egyptian painting of snakes near Anubis. Source: Vermeulen-Perdaen / Adobe Stock.

Scroll Reveals Ancient Egypt Had Many More Venomous Snakes Than Today

How much can the written records of ancient civilizations tell us about the animals they lived alongside? Our latest research , based on the venomous snakes described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus,...
A frigid apocalypse 1.1 million years ago led to an archaic human extinction in Europe. Source: Lazy_Bear / Adobe Stock.

Massive Climate Catastrophe Froze Europe’s Earliest Humans to Death

An interdisciplinary team of archaeologists, anthropologists and earth scientists have found evidence that a severe cooling event in the North Atlantic region approximately 1.1 million years ago...
Mummy labels under analysis sourced from the Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire (BNU) of Strasbourg (France) collection. Source: International Journal of Wood Culture / CC BY 4.0

Mummy Labels Unlock Climate Secrets of Ancient Mediterranean

To reconstruct the climate of ancient Egypt, Swiss scientists have resorted to an unexpected source - mummy labels. These labels, which were affixed to the bodies of mummies during the Roman era, are...
The Great Wall of China. Source:  Li Ding / Adobe Stock

Ancient Reeds Whisper Secrets about China’s Great Wall

Scientists analyzing microscopic plant materials trapped within building materials on The Great Wall of China have derived volumes of information about ancient environmental and climatological...
Metatarsal bones of a cave bear discovered to bear cut marks. Source: ©Volker Minkus/ University of Tübingen

Fur Coats from 300,000 Years Ago: Earliest Evidence of Bear Skin Use

Fur coats aren’t just a product of the modern industrial period, but now are seen to have a tradition stretching back some 300,000 years ago, albeit in a different setting altogether. People have...
A new study reveals the role droughts played in the development and spread of Islam. Source:  Leo Lintang / Adobe Stock

Power Vacuum Caused by Extreme Drought Led to the Spread of Islam

A power vacuum caused by an extreme drought 1,500 years ago in the Arabian Peninsula led to political unrest, war, and societal change. These were the preconditions that led to the development and...
536 was a year of climate cataclysm. Winter landscape by Caspar David Friedrich. Source: Public domain

Year of Darkness: The Climate Cataclysm of 536 You’ve Never Heard Of

During 536 the world was beset by a long winter. Dubbed “the year of darkness” in the New Scientist , temperatures plummeted and the sun was dimmed by a vast fog which blocked its rays from hitting...
Temple of Kukulcán, Chichen Itza, Mexico.	Source: Pixabay

New Research Shows Maya Civilization Could Have Survived Droughts

Did the great Maya civilization collapse because of drought-related crop failures and starvation? New research has raised significant doubts about the viability of that theory, which in recent years...
A duck effigy vessel made by mobile farmers during the period just prior to the climate catastrophe anomaly of 536 AD. Water birds hold great significance for modern Pueblo peoples, who were the descendants of ancient innovators that survived serious climate change.		Source: R. J. Sinensky / Antiquity Publications Ltd

How Ancestral Puebloans Thrived After The 536-541-AD Climate Catastrophe

A massive volcanic eruption in 536 AD resulted in dramatic climate catastrophe and the volcanic ash significantly cut the sunshine reaching Earth. As a direct result, temperatures dropped leading to...
Hothouse Earth cycles, as proven by Harvard University's latest study, are extreme in heat and in rain with one following the other. Our near future will not be so extreme, but similarities are already apparent in droughts and deluges in many regions of planet Earth. 			Source: Günter Albers / Adobe Stock

Extreme Heat Followed by Downpours Once Characterized ‘Hothouse Earth’

New research has found that the so-called hothouse Earth periods in our planet’s remote past were actually periods of extreme hot dry temperatures, hotter than today by 20-30 degrees Fahrenheit (17...
Desert landscape on planet Arrakis in the film Dune. Source: Warner Bros

Would Humans Survive the Climate on Planet Arrakis from Dune?

Dune has been all over the news, as the first instalment of Frank Herbert’s novel series has been made into a blockbuster film (for the second time), by the acclaimed Denis Villeneuve. Set in the far...
A modern-day giant hippo (Hippopotamus amphibious) in water. Source: jwjarrett / Adobe Stock

Discovery of Tooth Reveals When Giant Hippos Roamed Britain

Hippopotamus antiquus , or the European hippopotamus, is a now extinct species of giant hippo that once roamed Europe much before the last glacial period. In the much explored Westbury Cave, in...
Representation of how the ice would have covered the landscape of Dundee as it would have been during last Ice Age in Scotland.       Source: YouTube Screenshot

Ice Age Scotland Recreated In “Incredible” New Film

A new 3D visualization is revealing what the Scottish city of Dundee looked like during the Ice Age of 20,000 years ago. At this time, the location of the east coast city was packed flat beneath a 0...
Study analyzed genus Homo fossils, some of which are shown in this image. Source: Dr. Manuel Will / Nature

New Findings On How Climate Affected Body and Brain Size in Genus Homo

A new study of fossils from the genus Homo from all over the world has concluded that human body size is linked to differences in climate and temperature. In essence they have found that cold...
New Evidence Suggests Early Humans HIBERNATED In Caves, Like Bears

New Evidence Suggests Early Humans HIBERNATED In Caves, Like Bears

Did Stone Age Neanderthals wait out the coldest days of winter snuggled up safely beneath furs deep inside caves, in a state of suspended animation for months while the winds raged, and the snow...
Window looking into the Iceman's refrigerated cell. A new study explores the environment in which the Tyrolean Iceman (Otzi) died. Source: South Tyrol Museum of Archaeology/Ochsenreiter

New Study Raises Questions about the Tyrolean Iceman’s Murder Scene

A new study of ice cores at a previously unexplored ice dome in the Ötztal Alps on the border of Austria and Italy has examined the environment in which the Tyrolean Iceman, popularly known as Otzi,...
Several past human species went extinct due to climate change. Source: regis allouet /Adobe Stock

Scientists Warn That What Killed Past Human Species Could End Us Too

One of the greatest mysteries in science is why there is only one species of humans in the world today. In the past, there were several and they often co-existed for considerable periods. These past...
Experts have examined the long-term environmental impact of prolonged warfare and regime change during the Baltic Crusades, revealing clues to a model for rewilding. Pictured: the iconic European bison who were brought back from the brink of extinction through rewilding in Poland.          Source: szczepank / Adobe stock

Can the Baltic Crusades Teach Us About Bringing Nature Back to Life?

By Aleks Pluskowski, Alex Brown & Rowena Banerjea / The Conversation The Forest of Białowieża, which straddles the border of Poland and Belarus, is unique in Europe: it is incredibly ancient...
Reconstruction of the West Antarctic Turonian–Santonian temperate rainforest. The painting is based on palaeofloral and environmental information inferred from palynological, geochemical, sedimentological and organic biomarker data obtained from cores 9R and 10R at site PS104_20-2. T            Source: Alfred-Wegener-Institut/J. McKay / CC BY 4.0

Traces of Rainforest in Antarctica Point to a Warmer Prehistoric World

Researchers have found evidence of rainforests near the South Pole 90 million years ago, suggesting the climate was exceptionally warm at the time. A team from the UK and Germany discovered forest...
Left: representation of an alpine glacier. (ryszard filipowicz / Adobe stock). Right: 19th-century depiction of St Thomas Becket, showing a sword piercing his head. St Peter’s Church, Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire, UK. (Cnbrb / CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alpine Glacier Reveals Unlikely Insights Into Murder of Thomas Becket

Laser scans of an alpine glacier reveal a climate catastrophe in the shadow of England’s Archbishop Thomas Becket’s murder. A team of researchers using lasers to read the levels of lead pollution in...
What happened to the Maya? This mysterious civilization dominated parts of Central America for over a 1000 years, but then, seemingly fell quite dramatically.     Source: PeekCC / Adobe stock

What Happened to the Maya?

The Maya civilization was a Mesoamerican civilization that was located in Central America. The beginnings of the Maya civilization have been dated to the 2 nd millennium BC. Around the 9 th century...
Written in stone by Vikings – the Rok runestone from the 9th century features the longest known runic inscription and is considered the first piece of Swedish literature. Credit: rolf_52 / Adobe Stock

Decoded Viking Runestone Reveals Fears of Climate Change Apocalypse

Scholars have long been baffled by the coded runic message of the ‘Rök Runestone’ but a new interpretation claims it spells out a chilling Armageddon prophecy. One of the world's most famous Norse...
Study shows human migration could have followed monsoons to the Levant.	Source: mdesigner125 / Adobe Stock

Human Migration Route Out of Africa Tracked Monsoons

By Kelly April Tyrrell /University of Wisconsin-Madison Last year, scientists announced that a human jawbone and prehistoric tools found in 2002 in Misliya Cave, on the western edge of Israel, were...

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