History is full of stories that will grip you like a modern page-turner novel, but only a few can do it as easily as the tale of the Normans. Proud and fearsome, these Viking descendants were key...
In the modern judicial system, the innocence or guilt of an accused may be established based on the evidence brought against him or her. In ancient and medieval societies, however, a different way of...
In today’s society, chocolate is a popular treat, and comes in many forms, including blocks, paste and powder. Several centuries ago, however, chocolate was considered a luxury item, and came only in...
13th century Europe was under attack by the Mongols and the Kingdom of Hungary was right in the sights of the invaders. Something had to be done, and the creation of great fortified castles was seen...
In Italy, researchers have found what they believe to be the oldest living tree in Europe, having calculated its age to be approximately 1230 years old, according to a report from Discovery. The tree...
An international team of scientists led by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Kiel has successfully reconstructed genomes from Stone Age...
Scientists once could reconstruct humanity's distant past only from the mute testimony of ancient settlements, bones, and artifacts. No longer. Now there's a powerful new approach for illuminating...
A team of archaeologists investigating a cave in Israel, claims to have found evidence that prehistoric tools and artwork from Western Europe could possibly owe their existence to an earlier culture...
The last place one would expect to see an image of a woman flashing her genitals is a church wall, but across Europe, most notably Ireland and Britain, there are dozens of them. Most are old women...
Ashby Kinch / The Conversation In the Halloween season , American culture briefly participates in an ancient tradition of making the world of the dead visible to the living: Children dress as...
Archaeologists have made a discovery so sensational that they have waited 1 year to announce it as they had to be sure they had the dating correct. A set of teeth belonging to an early hominin...
The wild man is a creature found in various pagan traditions across Europe. Generally speaking, a wild man is a man dressed up in a beast-like costume for certain pagan rituals, which were normally...
Lane Eagles / The Conversation One could say the consequences of the planet’s warming climate can be seen on fashion week runways and the shelves of Anthropologie and H&M. Silhouettes shrink as...
There has been a lot of interest in our discovery of nearly-6m-year-old footprints on Crete, first reported by the The Conversation – suggesting that human ancestors could have roamed Europe at the...
Sean’s Bar is a pub (abbreviated from ‘public house’) located in Athlone, in Ireland’s County Westmeath. This bar holds the Guinness World Record for being the oldest public house in Ireland. In...
Just as human culture has changed over the centuries, supernatural creatures also change with time. For example, elves were originally a type of nature spirit similar to Nymphs in Greek mythology...
A primary female occupation in the early modern period (AD 1500-1800) was that of medicine. Though there were formal doctors—known by various titles and with various tasks detailed by their...
A force of disciplined, elite royal guards of the 15th and 16th century Ottoman Empire grew in size by seizing Christian children and raising them as civil servants and dangerous soldiers. The...
The Janissaries ( yeni-cheri , or “new troops”) were a small elite branch established by the Ottoman military sometime around the 14th century by Orhan Ghazi, second bey (chieftain), of the Ottoman...
Scientists have officially verified that copper used to make Otzi the Iceman’s axe blade did not come from the Alpine region as was initially suggested, but instead it came from southern Tuscany in...
Phys Org reports that in 1937, a 124,000-year-old Neanderthal thigh bone was discovered during excavations near the entrance of Hohlenstein-Stadel cave in southwestern Germany. After 80 years its...
It is tempting to regard the history of Europe as a tale of gradually closer union, an evolution now imperilled by the forces of nationalistic populism that have brought Brexit and the growth of far-...
An amazing technological innovation in the study of DNA has been called a ‘game changer’ in the research into ancient humans and hominids. It may solve many of the mysteries that exist in relation to...
‘The witches are carried sometimes in their bodies and clothes, at other times without, and the examiner thinks their bodies are sometimes left behind. Even when their spirits only are present, yet...
