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...

Pages

Myths & Legends

Ivar the Boneless: Viking Warrior, Ruler and Raider

Ivar the Boneless was likely the son of legendary Viking king Ragnar Lothbrok, and raided alongside his father and brothers, eventually becoming ruler of York in England in the 9th century AD.

Symbolism of the Mythical Phoenix Bird: Renewal, Rebirth and Destruction

The Knights of Blanik Mountain Are Ready to Face the Darkest Hour

The symbol of the Swastika and its 12,000-year-old history

The Ancient Pagan Origins of Easter

The Wooing of Etain: An Irish Tale of Love, Loss, and Jealousy

Human Origins

The origins of human beings according to ancient Sumerian texts

Sumer, or the ‘land of civilized kings’, flourished in Mesopotamia, now modern-day Iraq, around 4500 BC. Sumerians created an advanced civilization with its own system of elaborate language and writing, architecture and arts, astronomy and mathematics.

11 Mysterious Human Species That Most People Don’t Know Existed

The Secret Life of an Ancient Concubine

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

What Does Alexander the Great Have to Do with Buddhist Imagery?

The human skull that challenges the Out of Africa theory

Ancient Technology

Norimitsu Odachi: Who Could Have Possibly Wielded This Enormous 15th Century Japanese Sword?

The Norimitsu Odachi is a huge sword from Japan. It is so large, in fact, that it was said to have been wielded by a giant. Apart from the basic knowledge of it having been forged in the 15th century AD, measuring 3.77 meters (12.37 ft.) in length, and weighing as much as 14.5 kg (31.97 lbs.), this impressive sword is shrouded in mystery.

Was the Baghdad Battery a medical device?

Robots Guarded Buddha’s Relics in a Legend of Ancient India

A Step Closer to the Mysterious Origin of the Viking Sword Ulfberht

Catapult: The Long-Reaching History of a Prominent Medieval Siege Engine

Han Purple: A 2,800-year-old artificial pigment that quantum physicists are trying to understand

Ancient Places

The White Slaves of Barbary

Much attention and condemnation has been directed towards the tragedy of the African slave trade, which took place between the 16 th and the 19 th centuries. However, another equally despicable trade...

The Knights of Blanik Mountain Are Ready to Face the Darkest Hour

Ramsund Carving: Viking Inscription Speaks of Dragon Slayer

Populating Palmerston Island: One Man, Three Wives and A Desert Island Paradise

Khajuraho: The Sexiest Temples in India

Legendary Lia Fáil: A Roaring Rock for the Coronation of Ancient Irish High Kings

Opinion

The astronomical ceiling at the Pronaos, Detail of the first Band west from the center. From left to right: two wind creatures (the winged ram with four heads personifies the south wind), the snake- and frog-headed eight goddesses and gods of the Ogdoad who ruled the cosmos before the creation of the world and Osiris seated on a throne sails across the sky as personification of the full moon accompanied by the seated goddesses Nephtys (left) and Isis on the right (Maat stands near the bow of the ship). Siri

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

In Egypt, Sirius was the Star of Isis, Isis being the companion and rescuer of the god Osiris. In a very deep way, Osiris was Egypt.

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

Alchemy and Generating Lifeforce —Global Temples Made in the Shape of Lingams: Shaivite Bull Cult Part II

From Green Man to Bull Son, The Universal Shaivite Bull Cult – Part I

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.