Mehrgarh is an archaeological site situated in the Balochistan, in the southwestern part of Pakistan. In the native Balochi language, ‘mehr’ is said to mean ‘love’, and ‘garh’ means heaven. Thus, the...
Groucho Marx once joked , “Anything that can’t be done in bed isn’t worth doing at all.” You might think he was referring to sleeping and sex. But humans, at one time or another, have done just about...
It’s no surprise that the history of medicine had a rocky and somewhat gruesome journey before reaching its current, modern state. From the earliest meddling in surgery in Classical Antiquity to the...
A group of extreme Christian missionaries is causing irreversible trouble in outback Wangkatjungka, in Australia, by burning sacred Aboriginal objects because they are “all from the devil”, while...
The Achaemenid Empire was an ancient empire whose heartland was the region of Persis , in the southwestern part of modern-day Iran. At its greatest extent, the Achaemenids ruled over an empire that...
Virginity has been the obsession of men for thousands of years. It has driven the best people, like the virgin warrior Joan of Arc, to fight for just cause. Virginity has also lured the worst people...
In the ancient battle of Thurii in 282 BC, between Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum, the Romans noticed a youth of extraordinary height marching in front of them and performing miracles of...
The Scottish public is being consulted on a proposed national memorial in Fife for people condemned as witches. Scottish records inform that between the 16th and 18th centuries there were at least 1,...
17 miniature coffins were discovered in a small cave on the mystical Arthur’s Seat outside of Edinburgh, Scotland in 1836. Today, only eight remain and are now on display at the National Museum of...
The famous Lakota were one of the three Sioux tribes of the plains. Throughout their history, which is both glorious and tragic, there have been many prominent heroes, braves, and chiefs. The one...
At Tiwanaku, Bolivia , archaeologists have excavated a number of vessels that are believed to be 1,400 years old making them amongst the very oldest artifacts to be found at the site. Tiwanaku is one...
At a staggering 88 meters tall, a 400-year-old tree found in the Brazilian Amazon has been declared the region’s largest tree. Researchers are now trying to figure out how it grew to such heights...
Sitting in plain sight but unnoticed for centuries, Rujm el-Hiri - an unusual megalith near the Sea of Galilee - has stumped experts. An ancient monument comprised of enormous stone circles dating to...
A 21st century nuisance for parents may have proved deadly to early man . It is one of the great unsolved mysteries of anthropology. What killed off the Neanderthals , and why did Homo sapiens thrive...
Based on ancient DNA methylation patterns, a portrait of a juvenile female Denisovan has been recreated. Only two weeks ago I wrote a news piece for Ancient Origins in which I listed all of the known...
In the Hebrew Bible , the Edomites were the descendants of Jacob's brother Esau, but did an ancient Egyptian invasion trigger technological innovations within this biblical kingdom? Erez Ben-Yosef,...
Herod the Great was a Roman client king of Judaea (known also as the Herodian kingdom) who lived during the 1st century BC. He was also the founder of the Herodian dynasty, whose members, like Herod...
The Seleucid Empire was a Hellenistic state that existed between the 4th and 1st centuries BC. It was established by Seleucus I Nicator (meaning ‘victor’ or ‘conqueror’), one of the diadochi, or...
Anatomists of the 18th and 19th centuries faced a dreadful predicament in that they lacked what would today be called ‘educational aids’. They needed cadavers to dissect. These circumstances created...
A sebaceous horn, popularly known as Devil’s Horn, grew from an old Indian man’s head after an injury. 74-year-old Shyam Lal Yadav from Rahli village in Sagar district in Madhya Pradesh, India,...
Mokèlé-mbèmbé is the name given to a creature believed to inhabit the upper reaches of the Congo River basin, i.e. Congo, Zambia, and Cameroon, as well as in Lake Tele (in the Republic of Congo) and...
Farming caused the human heart to evolve less “ape-like” and be better for endurance and stamina. New research suggests human hearts significantly changed when we dropped hunting and began leading...
Archaeologists working on the Spanish holiday island of Majorca (Mallorca) have made a surprising discovery. They came across a 3,200-year-old sword, completely by accident at a Bronze Age site. It...
The Acheulian culture endured in the Levant for over a million years during the Lower Paleolithic period (1.4 million to 400,000 years ago). Its use of bifaces or large cutting tools like hand axes...
