We bring you all the latest historical news and archaeological discoveries relating to ancient human history. Read more history news from around the world here at Ancient Origins.
Rapa Nui, the original name for Easter Island, is most famous for its giant monolithic moai statues. Located 3,512 km (2,182 mi) off the coast of Chile, Rapa Nui has suffered a history of constant...
When nations go to war, the most tragic aspect is the disruption and annihilation of civilian lives. International media has been reporting the robust resistance put up by Ukrainian citizens in many...
Sir Ernest Shackleton's lost Endurance shipwreck has been discovered at the bottom of Antarctica's Weddell Sea. And while this isn’t a discovery from the ancient world, it packs such a historically...
In 117 AD, at the time of Caesar Trajan’s death, the Roman Empire had reached its territorial peak, stretching across the Mediterranean Sea to North Africa and Western Asia. And the Romans used ships...
Nothing recalls the medieval era in Europe better than the image of a gallant knight in shining armor mounted on a fully barded—or armored—steed. But how effective was such mail horse armor in...
Archaeologists in Scotland have unearthed a carved Pictish stone which might be associated with the formation of the nation in what has been dubbed “the find of a lifetime.” When describing the...
The United States government has just returned a collection of historically significant artifacts stolen by fortune hunters to the French government, to whom the artifacts rightfully belong according...
In March, 2022, media accounced the discovery of the oldest pearl bead in Qatar, which has a rich history of pearl diving and trade. As reported on by I Love Qatar (ILQ), the archaeological mission,...
A topographic scan of emerald mines in Egypt’s Eastern Desert has revealed scores of time locked chambers, tunnels and sacred spaces dating to the Graeco-Roman and Byzantine periods. Emerald mines...
How old is the art of embalming the dead and where did it originate? This is one of those eternal archaeological questions that is constantly reinforced and altered with the arrival of new evidence...
A new study published in the journal Nature by an international team of archaeologists has provided fascinating new insights into hunter-gatherer lifestyles 40,000 years ago in north China, and Homo...
Many scholars have suspected that the monuments of Stonehenge were carefully arranged to function as some type of calendar. Proof of this concept has been hard to come by, however, as even the most...
During an archaeological dig near the village of Willendorf in Lower (Eastern) Austria in 1908, a laborer dug up a small statue that proved to be one of the most important pieces of prehistoric art...
The Sinai Peninsula, the only part of Egypt located in Asia, sandwiched between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. This peninsula has been the subject of...
Black Death is said to have killed over half of Europe’s population. However, a new pollen study suggests many parts of Europe were not affected by the bacterial onslaught. Black Death was a bubonic...
The 5,000-year-old remains of a man unearthed from a mass burial in northern Chile have been identified as having belonged to a Neolithic fisherman who died by drowning. The details of the man’s life...
Ancient Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology are characterized by a burial practice known as kurgan burials, wherein mounds of earth and stone are raised over a single or multiple graves...
In an intriguing discovery, the remains of an African man who died just 350 years ago have been found buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. The middens in Amoreira and other...
Back in 2014, a pair of pants were discovered in the Tarim Basin in China. Believed to be the oldest pair of trousers in the world, they were made between 3,000 and 3,300 years ago. Dating back to...
A highly-skilled 3D artist has brought back to life a 4,000-year-old Stone Age woman’s skull. This story can only be written after 300 grueling hours of work by archaeologist and artist Oscar Nilsson...
A team of Norwegian scientists have been tracking the evolution of diseases in medieval bodies. Not only have they added to the understanding of how diseases become pandemics, but they’ve revealed...
A construction crew working at a residential building site in northern Gaza in Palestine unearthed a most unexpected and historically significant find. While digging deep into the bedrock, the...
A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists have found an exceptionally well-preserved and intact Neolithic shrine at a remote prehistoric hunting campsite in Jordan’s eastern desert that dates...
An archaeological dig prior to the demolition of the Old Berwick Hospital site, built in 1874 in the town of Berwick in Northumberland, continues to unveil interesting discoveries about the town’s...
