We bring you all the latest historical news and archaeological discoveries relating to ancient human history. Read more history news from around the world here at Ancient Origins.
A team of scholars says their new research is rewriting when and where the Viking age began. The official date for the start of Viking voyages was a 793 AD raid in England. But researchers say people...
A gang of modern-day tomb raiders have been caught after they rented a restaurant near the ancient Guanghui Temple in China and used it as a base to dig a 50 meter (165 ft) underground tunnel in an...
About 1,600 years ago in the Maya site of Tikal, a boy and a man were sacrificed in an elaborate ritual. A new study suggests they were sacrificed and burned to re-enact the legend of the twin heroes...
Sometimes old friends give you a surprise. Russian archaeologists were conducting a routine examination of an old sabre unearthed seven years ago in Yaroslavl -- when it turned out to be oldest...
Many people think of ancient Egyptian dynasties as fairly well-documented, but there were many kings whose lives and deeds are lost in the dust of time . One was King KhaBa of the Old Kingdom’s Third...
What does champagne left on the bottom of the ocean for 170 years taste like? Leather and wet dog, apparently. Those were the initial findings by a team of scientists and lucky tasters after...
Chinese archaeologists say they have confirmed the ancient capital of legendary emperor Yao Tangdi, who lived 4,200 years ago and who is said to have brought peace and “illumined the people.” Yao has...
An important ancient temple site dedicated to the founder of a sect of Taoism has recently been excavated by Chinese archaeologists. In China's Jiangxi Province, the archaeological site of ruins of...
When scientists examined the cracked skulls and gnawed bones found in a cave in England, they recognized the grisly signs of cannibalism. Archaeological findings now indicate that the dwellers of...
New research suggests that people in a Stone Age village in Turkey cut the flesh off the bones and skulls of several people who were dying or had just died then painted and/or plastered the bones and...
According to Manetho, an ancient Egyptian historian and priest of the 3 rd century BC, Memphis once carried the name Ineb-hedj, meaning ‘White Walls’. Some historians maintain that the city was named...
Archaeologists excavating ritual pits in southwest Bulgaria have found the remains of two children that had been sacrificed about 2,700 years ago. The remains indicate that they had been crushed to...
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...
A person with a metal detector uncovered some beautiful items of a Roman period burial from around 200 AD in a field in England north of London. An archaeologist says the items were likely owned by a...
Skeletons from one of the world’s oldest civilizations—the Indus Valley or Harappan Civilization—have been unearthed in India. Scientists hope to be able to examine their genetic makeup to learn more...
An incredible archaeological discovery in Alaska provided evidence that trade was occurring between Asia and the New World centuries before Christopher Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492...
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,...
Egyptologists have found carved basalt blocks in a chapel to King Nectanebo I, founder of the 30 th Dynasty—the last native Egyptian royal house before Alexander the Great conquered the country in...
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...
An Italian man’s dream to open a modest restaurant became an archaeological obsession when he broke ground in order to repair a faulty toilet. The underground world filled with centuries of history...
A vow of silence has protected the mystery behind an ingenious invention for nearly 500 years. The secrets behind Guglielmo de Lorena’s amazing diving bell, a technical marvel, would have remained an...
Workers operating an excavator during a road-widening project in the Caha mountain range in County Cork made a surprising discovery, when they accidentally made an opening in the earth that exposed...
Archaeologists in South Korea have uncovered a 1,500-year-old tomb of a noblewoman containing the ancient remains of a woman and a man. The discovery of precious grave goods and the circumstances of...
Scientists recently examined tissue samples from tuberculosis-infected bodies that were naturally mummified in a church crypt in Vac, Hungary. Researchers found that the tuberculosis that killed them...