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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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prehistory

Worked “Mode 2” tools from the site with intentional breakage points which point to this sophisticated tool production process arriving in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than previously thought. Source: IVPP / SciTechDaily.

Did Hominids in Asia Use Advanced Tools Much Earlier than Thought?

A new find in China has potentially rewritten the course of prehistory. Did our hominid ancestors use sophisticated tools in East Asia 300,000 years earlier than thought? One of the best ways to...
The largest penguin to ever waddle on Earth, Kumimanu fordycei, steps onto a beach surrounded by another newly discovered species, Petradyptes stonehousei, in this life reconstruction. Source: Simone Giovanardi

Massive Penguins the Size of Gorillas Once Waddled Around New Zealand

Scientists have discovered what appears to be the world’s biggest penguin species known to have swum Earth’s oceans or waddled across its surface, and it was the size of a gorilla! This newly...
Digital reconstruction of a Acrocanthosaurus dinosaur and a prehistoric Sarcosuchus crocodile or SuperCroc. Source: Michael Rosskothen / Adobe Stock

Dinosaur-Eating Galloping Crocodiles Once Existed in the Sahara Desert

Believe it or not, but 100 million years ago the area of the present-day scorching hot Sahara Desert was a lush swamp home not just to dinosaurs, but also to several kinds of prehistoric crocodilians...
Bronze Age Treasure Accidentally Found in Swedish Forest

Bronze Age Treasure Accidentally Found in Swedish Forest

The Nordic or Scandinavian Bronze Age lasted from 1700-500 BC – ancient prehistory – with major metallurgical influences from Central Europe. The people from the Nordic Bronze Age were adept metal...
Skara Brae

Stepping Back in Time at Skara Brae: A Neolithic Settlement in the Heart of Prehistoric Orkney

In 1850, a fierce storm hit the Bay o’ Skaill on the main island of the Orkney island archipelago. In doing so, it ripped grass from a hill, then known as Skerrabra, to reveal the remnants of an...
Researchers found the collection of ‘Oldowan’ flaked stone tools in the Afar region of north-eastern Ethiopia. Source: Erin DiMaggio.

World’s Oldest Stone Tools and Weapons Found in Ethiopia

Researchers have unearthed some deliberately sharpened tools that date from over 2.5 million years ago. These artifacts are changing our understanding of the invention of tools and showing that our...
The hoard of copper axe and axe hammer heads from the 5th millennium BC is said to be Europe’s largest Chalcolithic find of its kind.

27 Pounds of Copper Age Axe and Hammer Heads is the Largest European Hoard of its Kind

Ancient societies’ ability to manufacture metal objects was critical in the development of civilization. This is why any finds of metallic goods or tools from the prehistoric past is so important for...
Representations in the Boxer Codex of two of the ethnic groups of people living in the Pre-Colonial Philippines - A Zambal Couple (Public Domain) and Pintados of the Visayas (Leyte or Samar). (Public Domain)

The Rarely Told Story of Pre-Colonial Philippines

The Philippines were ruled by Western powers - first the Spanish and later the United States, for some 350 years. Except for a few religious minorities, the Philippines has also become thoroughly...
Egyptians with domesticated cattle and corn circa 1422-1411 BC

Rising Inequality Began with Agriculture and Domestication of Plants and Animals

Researchers at Washington State University and 13 other institutions have found that the arc of prehistory bends towards economic inequality. In the largest study of its kind, the researchers saw...
Reconstructed heads of the children that may have been sacrificed for a double burial in Sunghir, Russia.

The Sunghir Burial Site: Were these Two Children Sacrificed in a Form of Prehistoric Scapegoating?

One of the clearest signs of behavioral modernity in the archaeological record is the appearance of art and religion. Once we see indications of creative and speculative minds at work trying to...
Hurricane Irma centered over the island of Barbuda.

Hurricane Irma Leaves Island of Barbuda Uninhabited for the First Time in 4,000 Years

2017 is a turning point in the history of Barbuda. Due to the devastation of Hurricane Irma, this small Caribbean island currently has no human inhabitants. As Ambassador Ronald Sanders, Antigua and...
 Model of a Neanderthal

130,000-Year-Old Neanderthal Teeth Reveal Evidence of Prehistoric Dentistry

Neanderthals treating toothaches? A discovery of multiple toothpick grooves on teeth and signs of other manipulations by a Neanderthal of 130,000 years ago are evidence of a kind of prehistoric...
Oldest Human Burial and Polished Axe Unearthed in Ireland

Oldest Human Burial and Polished Axe Unearthed in Ireland

Archaeologists have shed new light on the belief systems of early Mesolithic hunter-gatherers after analyzing cremated remains and artifacts given as grave offerings from the earliest recorded human...
Stay Out of the Water: Does a Prehistoric Shark Still Live in the Ocean?

Stay Out of the Water: Does a Prehistoric Shark Still Live in the Ocean?

There is said to be a shark that is scarier than the one from the movie Jaws which is as large as the biggest whale. But this isn’t a monster from a sci-fi movie, it’s real. This kind of shark lived...
A sample of flint tools found in the Barranc de la Boella site

Scraping Up Prehistory in Iberia: Million-Year-Old Flint Tools Found in Spain

Excavations being carried out at the site of La Boella Creek, Tarragona, Spain are bringing to light a world packed with diverse, ancient, and large mammals. The archaeological remains found at this...
‘The Stone Age’ (1882-1885), detail of a painting by Viktor M. Vasnetsov.

Why Did Hunter-gatherer Group in Europe Unexpectedly Disappear After the Last Ice Age?

A recent study has shown that a group of hunter-gatherers had survived the last Ice Age while living in the modern location of Europe, only to unexpectedly disappear about 14,500 years ago. As the...
One of the smashed skulls from Lake Nataruk, Kenya.

Earliest War Grave Found with 27 Slain People Dates Back 10,000 Years

The world’s earliest known mass-homicide grave of 27 adults and children shot with arrows and bludgeoned to death about 10,000 years ago has been found west of Lake Nataruk in Kenya. The authors of a...
Neolithic farmers

New Study Indicates that Europe Owes Ancestry and Agriculture to Early Anatolian Farmers

Anatolia was a source of not just agriculture but of human ancestry during the advent of farming in Europe around 8,000 years ago, according to a researcher from Stockholm University. “When farming...
“Tourist art” bullroarer decorated with a kangaroo design.

The Bullroarer: An Instrument That Whirls Through Cultures and Time

Music is believed to have been made by human beings since prehistoric times. Paleolithic tombs suggest that one of the earliest and longest-surviving artifacts that can be called a ‘musical...
Snails appear to have holes drilled into them to make it easier to extract the meat, researchers say.

A delicacy now, snails in the human diet may have meant survival 150,000 years ago

Archaeologists digging in Libya have found evidence of human habitation going back at least 150,000 years and have had a glimpse into the people’s diet: snails whose shells were pierced to get at the...
Prehistoric man and woman carrying weapons.

Debate continues over whether Stone Age people were peaceful or warlike

There is a debate among archaeologists, anthropologists and psychologists about whether prehistoric people were violent and warlike or whether there was widespread peace in prehistory. A new...
Vision of Iron Age cremation

British Archaeologists Find First Ever Evidence of Cremation in Mesolithic era

Archaeologists have just a few ways to study how humans lived in the distant past; one of them is how people handled bodies after their loved ones died. In southeast England about 7,600 years ago,...
Tool-making in the Stone Age

Paleolithic weapons factory was a rich source of obsidian tools from 1.4 million years ago

Scientists call Mount Arteni in Armenia, an extinct volcano that has rich deposits of obsidian, a Stone Age weapons factory. They say from about 1.4 million years, Homo erectus people and later Homo...
Earliest known breast cancer identified in ancient Egyptian skeleton

Earliest known breast cancer identified in ancient Egyptian skeleton

A 4,200-year-old skeleton that shows signs of deterioration from cancer is the earliest known case of breast cancer, according to the Spanish anthropologists who uncovered her remains in a necropolis...

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