Ancestors

29 November, 2018 - 01:39 Ed Whelan

Stone Mask from the Dawning of Ancient Societies Found in Israel

The Israel Antiquities Authority has announced the recovery from looters of a very rare Neolithic mask made from stone. The item was originally discovered this year in Hebron, on the West Bank. This...

Picture taken at the site of the discovery of ancient tools in China.

12 July, 2018 - 13:57 ancient-origins

New Find Indicates Humans Left Africa Earlier than Believed

Ancient tools and bones have been discovered in China by archaeologists that suggest early humans left Africa and arrived in Asia earlier than previously thought. The artifacts show that our earliest...

Llullaillaco boy’s mummy in Salta Province, Argentina.

18 June, 2018 - 18:52 ashley cowie

Cocaine Laden Mummified Children Vindicate Football Champion

The coca plant is native to western South America and is grown in Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru and the chewing of coca with lime in rituals and to relieve altitude sickness, goes...

Skull from Roman Dead exhibition at the Museum of London Docklands

26 May, 2018 - 14:00 ancient-origins

The Dead Tell Us of a Diverse Londinium

Rebecca Redfern / The Conversation Our knowledge about the people who lived in Roman Britain has undergone a sea change over the past decade. New research has rubbished our perception of it as a...

Sunset looking across Port Warrender to the Mitchell Plateau on the Kimberley coast. It is in Wunambal Gaambera country

25 May, 2018 - 23:00 ancient-origins

How to get to Australia … more than 50,000 years ago

The Conversation Over just the past few years, new archaeological findings have revealed the lives of early Aboriginal Australians in the Northern Territory’s Kakadu potentially as early as 65,000...

Matabele land and the Victoria Falls: a naturalist's wanderings in the interior of South Africa, from the letters and journals of the late Frank Oates / edited by C.G. Oates. 1881

18 April, 2018 - 15:42 Chris Boonzaaier

The Masebe Mountains in Africa Speak Their Ancient Names

Africa is a continent where its people are in spiritual communication with the soul of the land, as typically illustrated in the Masebe Nature Reserve in the Limpopo province of South Africa...

Rock art in central Northumberland, northern England. (Author provided)

22 December, 2017 - 01:58 ancient-origins

What Neolithic Rock Art Can Tell Us About the Way Our Ancestors Lived 6,000 Years Ago

The British and Irish countryside is often celebrated for its wealth of unique places of heritage, significance and interest. But not many people know that this heritage includes thousands of ancient...

An ankle bone from 52 million years ago suggests that the earliest primates, the ancestors of humans, were great at leaping from tree to tree. Credit: Douglas Boyer, Duke University

13 September, 2017 - 02:00 ancient-origins

Why Your Ancestors Would Have Aced the Long Jump

This tiny ankle bone belonged to one of the earliest members of the primate family tree. The 52-million-year-old fossil suggests that the first primates were expert leapers. Discovered more than 30...

Researcher Elspeth Hayes with Mark Djandjomerr and traditional owner May Nango extracting comparative samples at a cave adjacent Madjedbebe. Credit: David Vadiveloo / Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation

21 July, 2017 - 13:58 Theodoros Karasavvas

New Findings in Australia Have Shocking Ramifications for Human Occupation, Species Extinction and Out of Africa Theories

A group of archaeologists in Australia has discovered the world's oldest stone axes with a ground edge. This discovery is extremely significant as it pushes Australia's human history back to 65,000...

Pietro Perugino's use of perspective in this fresco at the Sistine Chapel (1481–82) helped bring the Renaissance to Rome

27 June, 2017 - 22:53 Chris Morgan

Do Your Eyes Fool You? Ancient Vision and a New Reality — How to See and Draw Like the Ancients

From the beginning of time, those among us we now call artists have tried to capture in two dimensions what they saw of the real, three-dimensional world in which they lived. Almost from the very...

Artistic representation of an Australopithecus family. Australopithecus afarensis like “Lucy” may have required some help in childbirth.

27 April, 2017 - 23:00 Theodoros Karasavvas

The Evolution of Human Birth: An Incredible Story a Million Years in the Making

A team of scientists claim that they have found a mask depicting an Australopithecus afarensis, a human ancestor that could have possibly given birth in a way that combines the childbirth practices...

7 April, 2017 - 23:05 Caleb Strom

Are Humans Just Self-Domesticated Apes?

One of the greatest mysteries is the origin of the human mind. Why are humans so different from other animals? Why do we have languages, religions, complex political and economic systems, and...

1 November, 2016 - 20:49 ancient-origins

Paleolithic Jewelry: Still Eye-catching After 50,000 Years

By Tamara Zubchuk | The Siberian Times Beads made from ostrich eggs buried in the Siberian cave around 2,000 generations ago reveal amazing artistic (and drilling) skills of our long-ago ancestors...

25 October, 2016 - 03:48 ancient-origins

Ancient Human History More Complex Than Previously Thought, Researchers Say

Relationships between the ancestors of modern humans and other archaic populations such as Neanderthals and Denisovans were likely more complex than previously thought, involving interbreeding within...

1 September, 2016 - 03:37 ancient-origins

Smarter Brains Are Blood-Thirsty Brains

A University of Adelaide-led project has overturned the theory that the evolution of human intelligence was simply related to the size of the brain -- but rather linked more closely to the supply of...

Imaginative depiction of the Stone Age, by Viktor Vasnetsov.

28 April, 2016 - 21:53 Mark Miller

Just a Few Men Controlled Reproduction in Prehistory and Dominate World Genetics Today

A new genetic study of male ancestry shows there were periods in human prehistory when just a few elite men controlled reproduction. For example, one man about 190,000 years ago was the ancestor of 1...

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Myths & Legends

The Epic of Gilgamesh. Source: Luca Oleastri / Adobe.

The Epic of Gilgamesh Unveiled: Searching For a Way to the Home Planet

In contrast to many theorists, this unconventional retelling of key parts of the Epic explores the idea that Gilgamesh was not searching for life eternal on Earth, as has been suggested as the theme of the Epic, but was instead searching for the means of transport to return to his goddess mother Ninsun’s home planet in the heavens.

Say the Magic Word: The Origins of Abracadabra

The Real Story of Medusa: Protective Powers from a Snake-Haired Gorgon

The Epic of Gilgamesh Unveiled: Enlightenment and Source of Religions

The Nature and Dangers of the Legendary Kobold

The Menhune of Hawaii – Ancient Race or Fictional Fairytale?

Human Origins

The Pagan Wheel of the Year: What Elaborate Rituals and Events Mark this Sacred Cycle?

Although it may be a long time (if ever) before pagans reclaim their Yule from Christmas or their Samhain from Halloween, it is worthwhile to explore these ancient religious traditions. The Wheel of the Year follows the cycle of pagan festivals.

The Epic of Gilgamesh Unveiled: Enlightenment and Source of Religions

The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts

Rh-Negative Blood: An Exotic Bloodline or Random Mutation?

Pharaoh Akhenaten: An Alternative View of the Heretic King

Are the Distinctive Kalash People of Pakistan Really Descendants of Alexander the Great’s Army?

Ancient Technology

An ancient Roman road at Leptis Magna, Libya

Ancient Journeys: What was Travel Like for the Romans?

It was not uncommon for the ancient Romans to travel long distances all across Europe. Actually during the Roman Empire, Rome had an incredible road network which extended from northern England all...

The incredible earthquake detector invented nearly 2,000 years ago

Mummy Brown – the 16th century paint made from ground up mummies

Secrets Behind the Creepy Plague Doctor Mask and Costume

Romans in Pompeii Repaired the Roads with Molten Iron

Why Are There 365 Days in a Year? Organizing Dates with an Ancient Egyptian Calendar

Ancient Places

Royal Palace at Ebla. Source: CC BY-SA 3.0

First Kingdoms: The Forgotten Mesopotamian Kingdom of Ebla

Spectacular things were happening in Mesopotamia in the period we call the Early Bronze Age, particularly in the southern part of it, commonly called Babylonia.

Sumer: Where Written Language, Arithmetic and Civilization Were Born

Explaining the Fall of the Great Akkadian Empire

Homer’s Iliad Casts Doubt on the Aegean Location of Troy

The Great Ziggurat of Ur

The Incredible Subterranean City of Kish

Opinion

Mysterious Worlds: Travels to the Faerie and Shamanic Realms

There are many accounts of a land of immortality and eternal youth in world myths and legends, as well as shamanic and indigenous spiritual traditions. Mysterious Worlds Writing in his recent work,...

Pharaoh Akhenaten: An Alternative View of the Heretic King

Changing Colors and Scampering Across the Night Sky: What Did the Ancients Say about Sirius?

Cracking the Code to Discover Ancient Tarot Symbolism and Forgotten Universal Knowledge

The Secret Strategic Plans of Darius the Great

The Secrets of the Kabbalists Garden

Our Mission

At Ancient Origins, we believe that one of the most important fields of knowledge we can pursue as human beings is our beginnings. And while some people may seem content with the story as it stands, our view is that there exists countless mysteries, scientific anomalies and surprising artifacts that have yet to be discovered and explained.

The goal of Ancient Origins is to highlight recent archaeological discoveries, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.

We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives.

By bringing together top experts and authors, this archaeology website explores lost civilizations, examines sacred writings, tours ancient places, investigates ancient discoveries and questions mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us. We seek to retell the story of our beginnings.