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.
Archaeologists have discovered that the Maya made offerings to Chaak, the rain god, at a newly discovered water temple complex alongside the sacred pools of Cara Blanca in Belize. The sacrifices...
Archaeologists have discovered that the carved seat numbers in the Roman Colosseum had been painted red to make the seats easier to see, assuring orderly, trouble-free seating of the crowd--who then...
The weapons, tactics and strategies of warfare have changed enormously through the centuries, but the hellish aspects of war and the deep psychological scars it leaves on warriors were apparently...
An elaborate, beautifully painted tomb was found when rains washed away soil and revealed a capstone on a hillside in China. The tomb dates to the Yuan dynasty, about 700 years ago. Scholars believe...
When explorers began making maps as they explored the world a couple of millennia ago they included land masses that later could not be found. As recently as 2012 an expedition went to one of these...
In summer 2014 in just one Norwegian county a team of archaeologists found 400 Stone Age artifacts uncovered by glacial melt. “Mittens, shoes, weapons, walking sticks – lost in the high mountains of...
Routine landscaping last year led to a Norwegian man inadvertently uncovering extremely rare Viking Age artifacts. When Leif Arne Nordheim pulled up flagstones from his lawn, he revealed a rusty iron...
Drilling holes in the head, otherwise known as trepanation , is the earliest surgical technique known. Holes were bored into a patient’s skull in an attempt to relieve physical ailments and mental...
A team of scientists claim to have recovered the oldest known copy of a gospel, dating back to the 1 st century AD, which they extracted from papyri used to create an Egyptian mummy mask, Live...
In the 17 th century, Europeans came to what they called the New World and started divvying it up and parceling it out under the rubric of ‘exploration’. One particularly grasping Frenchman was...
A multidisciplinary study of a geoglyph located atop a hill in Kanda in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM), has unravelled a series of incredible features of the ancient structure,...
Archaeologists have excavated a home in what may have been the site of a small 15 th century town near a historic Irish castle that was later the ground for a battle between the MacDonnell family and...
A small Roman bronze figure representing Silenus, the mythological companion and tutor to the wine god Dionysus, has been found on the Danish island of Falster. The miniature bust dates back nearly...
Archaeologists in Japan have unearthed a huge stone-paved moat in Asuka, Nara Prefecture, which they believe is part of a burial mound for an ancient emperor. The finding adds to a string of...
People wore domestic cat fur clothing in medieval England, and archaeologists may have found a site where such leather was produced in the 13 th century. Archaeologists digging in Norwich, England,...
Ancient Egypt was one of the most powerful civilizations of the ancient world, but it was under attack by other peoples at various times throughout its history. Consequently, it had a powerful...