The Spanish Empire was one of the earliest (and longest-lasting) European colonial empires. It was established towards the end of the 15th century, when the New World was discovered. The Spanish...
The coronavirus is concentrating our minds on the fragility of human existence in the face of a deadly disease. Words like ‘epidemic’ and ‘ pandemic ’ (and ‘panic’!) have become part of our daily...
A German research team has produced new nanosheets for near infrared imaging from ancient ‘Egyptian blue pigment’. In October 2018, I wrote an Ancient Origins article about Egyptian blue, a brilliant...
Mary I of Scotland, popularly known as Mary, Queen of Scots, is one of the best-known Scottish monarchs. Mary was a contemporary, and cousin, of Queen Elizabeth I of England. However, they the two...
Scientists analyzing 2500-year-old baby teeth have revealed evidence of gender inequality during Bronze Age China. Feminism encompasses ideologies to achieve the social, political, and economic...
For thousands of years, nilometers measured the water level of the Nile River during the annual flood season. This, in turn, was used to predict the fortunes of the annual harvest, the taxes to be...
When we think about the life in medieval Europe, we tend to conjure up grim and dismal images of war, poverty, sickness, and the Dark Ages . But was it truly so dark? Is there more to it, or are we...
Lucky Canadian scientists have discovered new evidence in diamonds of ancient continental formation and drift. During the Archean Eon, 4 to 2.5 billion years ago, the Earth's crust had cooled enough...
Several years ago, a team of scientists from the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, set out to put a human face to ancient hominid species that once walked the Earth. Using...
Radiocarbon dating, invented in the late 1940s and improved ever since to provide more precise measurements, is the standard method for determining the dates of artifacts in archaeology and other...
In secluded fields, on the walls of churches, and beneath construction sites, stones have been found with intricate markings that rise from the lower left up to the center and then down to the lower...
New Cornell University research is producing a more accurate historical timeline for the occupation of Native American sites in upstate New York, based on radiocarbon dating of organic materials and...
Confucian values in ancient China held that since one's hair is a gift from one's parents it is to be treated with utmost respect. This rule applies to men and women alike. Haircuts were therefore...
John the Baptist was a Jewish preacher and prophet who is believed to have been a forerunner to Jesus Christ . In the Book of Matthew in the Greek New Testament, John is depicted as another Elijah...
The minaret is one of the most recognizable elements of Islamic religious architecture. Essentially, the minaret is a tower attached to a mosque. In the past, the minaret served mainly as the from...
Daily life has been heavily disrupted by the outbreak of COVID-19 or coronavirus . However, one British town is determined to carry on as normal as possible. They are committed to continuing a...
The world is full of difficult-to-explain wonders. In the last century, archaeologists have discovered many civilizations, such as the Hittites , which were previously not thought to exist. As a...
A majestic ponderosa pine, standing tall in what is widely thought to have been the "center of the world" for the Ancestral Puebloan people, may have more mundane origins than previously believed,...
By John Long & Richard Cloutier / The Conversation One of the most significant events in the history of life was when fish evolved into tetrapods , crawling out of the water and eventually...
Amélie Beaudet / The Conversation In his book Wonderful Life , Professor Stephen Jay Gould – an evolutionary biologist, paleontologist and widely-read popular science author – described the evolution...
In 1512 Portuguese navigator Pedro Mascarenhas, identified a group of islands in the Indian Ocean east of Madagascar as the Mascarene islands (modern-day Mauritius, Réunion and Rodrigues). The...
Scientists have proven that tooth enamel developed much quicker in ‘other’ hominids groups. Fossilized bones and teeth tell scientists when organisms lived, and morphological differences provide...
When Hernán Cortés and his conquistadors entered the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1519, they saw magnificent treasures of the ancient civilization. The wonders of pyramids, gold, and silver...
Archaeologists in Scotland excavating a castle on the western isles have discovered a seal matrix forged in a time of great struggle between the clan Campbell and clan MacDonald. In the early 17th-...
