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Human Origins

Ancient Origins presents how human origins are explained through three different perspectives: a) science and scientific evidence, b) religions and creation stories and c) folklore and mythology.

The ruins of Tanis.

King Solomon’s Mines Discovered: Ancient Treasures - Part II

Have King Solomon's Mines really been discovered? Yes, indeed. In fact, they have been known about for centuries, and modern archaeological work on them started way back in the early 19th century...
The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon

King Solomon’s Mines Discovered: Kings and Pharaohs - Part I

Have King Solomon's Mines really been discovered? Yes, indeed. In fact, they have been known about for centuries, and modern archaeological work on them started way back in the early 19th century...
Deriv; Ordination of Jacques de Molay in 1265 as a Knight Templar, at the Beaune commandery and the Chinon Parchment.

The Guilt of the Gnostic Knights Templar: The Chinon Parchment

The recently discovered Chinon Parchment of the Vatican Library in 2001 has brought a level of redemption to the Knights Templar. It does not discount their “heretical” activities, which were...
Assembly of twenty gods, predominantly the Twelve Olympians, as they receive Psyche (Loggia di Psiche, 1518–19, by Raphael and his school, at the Villa Farnesina).

Disbelieve it or Not, Ancient History Suggests That Atheism is as Natural to Humans as Religion

People in the ancient world did not always believe in the gods, a new study suggests – casting doubt on the idea that religious belief is a “default setting” for humans. “Early societies were far...
The Great Deluge, a global flood. (1869).

Evidence of The Great Flood – Real or a Myth? Part I

The story of a “Great Flood” sent by God (or gods according to much earlier testimony) to destroy humanity for its sins is a widespread account shared by many religions and cultures around the world...
The wolf howls against the moon.

Howling Against the Moon: The Last Wolves of Ireland

The man followed the tracks through the snow. His hound sniffed eagerly, almost pulling the leash from the man’s grasp. The wolf was not far ahead of them. Through a break in the clouds a full moon...
Hellenistic culture in the Indian subcontinent: Greek clothes, amphoras, win,e and music. Detail from Chakhil-i-Ghoundi Stupa, Hadda, Gandhara, 1st century AD.

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

When Alexander the Great arrived in Pakistan and India two very different civilizations confronted and were influenced by each other. The first anthropomorphic representations of Buddha were...
Amulet of a Ba. Egypt, Ptolemaic Period, 332-30 B.C. Jewelry and Adornments; amulets. Gold with inlays of lapis lazuli, turquoise, and steatite.

Warding Evil and Welcoming Luck: Protective Amulets of the Ancient World

In the past, human life was vulnerable to disaster; Disease, wars, famine, natural disasters and many other factors could easily claim the lives of individuals. For this reason, people sought all...
Two varying depictions of the same figure, Jesus. (Deriv)

Reconstructing Jesus: Using Science to Flesh out the Face of Religion

For being one of the most widely recognized men in the last 2,000 years, the true appearance of Jesus of Nazareth remains a mystery. Traditionally portrayed in western art as a be-robed, light-...
Strange beasts, mythological and real, graced the pages of ancient bestiaries.

Bestiary, The Book of Beasts: Compendiums of Medieval Monsters and Moral Lessons

During the Middle Ages the phoenix rose from its ashes to be reborn, dangerous dragons battled elephants to the death, and the pelican tore out its own breast to feed its young with its life’s blood—...
Traditional ceremonial dress at Mount Hagan, Papua New Guinea.

Why are humans unique? It’s the small things that count

Can there be any more important a question than, ‘How did we get here?’ Of course, I don’t mean those books we all gawked at as tweens desperate to understand our transforming pubescent bodies. I...
Artist’s depiction of ancient hominids.

How Ancient Hominid Interbreeding has Shaped Humans Today

Over the past half-decade, ancient DNA research has revealed some surprising aspects to our evolutionary history during the past 50,000 years. Perhaps the most startling of these has been the extent...
A portrait painted by John Cooke in 1915 showing scientists involved in the Piltdown man case: F. O. Barlow, G. Elliot Smith, Charles Dawson, Arthur Smith Woodward. Front row: A. S. Underwood, Arthur Keith, W. P. Pycraft, and Sir Ray Lankester.

Piltdown Man: The scandal that delayed the study of human origins by decades

For a long time in archaeology, and even in the popular media, there was discussion of a missing link in the archaeological/paleontological fossil record between apes and humans. In 1911, Englishman...
Cro-Magnon man communicating with each other and producing cave drawings

The Origins of Human Language: One of the Hardest Problems in Science

How human language began has been a question pestering researchers for centuries. One of the biggest issues with this topic is that empirical evidence is still lacking despite our great advances in...
The tooth before it was removed. Credit: Musee Homme de Tautavel

560,000-year-old tooth found by student may be one of the oldest human remains in France

A volunteer archaeologist by the name of Valentin Loescher, aged 20, has found an ancient tooth at the Arago Cave, near Tautavel, south western France. He was working as part of an archaeological dig...
Ogdoad - The Place of Truth. Relief at Deir el Medina.

The Infinite Ogdoad: The Creation Pantheon of Ancient Egypt and Predecessor Gods of the Old Kingdom

The Ogdoad, also called the Hehu or Infinites, were the celestial rulers of a cosmic age. Considered to have come long before the Egyptian religious system currently recognized, the Ogdoad were...
Matsya protecting Svayambhuva Manu and the seven sages at the time of Deluge

Startling Similarity between Hindu Flood Legend of Manu and the Biblical Account of Noah

In 1872, the amateur Assyriologist, George Smith, made a discovery that would shock the world. Whilst studying a particular tablet from the ancient Mesopotamian city of Nineveh, he comes across a...
Replica of 9th century Viking ship docked in Norway.

Did a Native American travel with the Vikings and arrive in Iceland centuries before Columbus set sail?

Scientists have been searching for answers on the puzzles of history by sifting through the genetic code of certain Icelanders. They have been looking to see if a Native American woman from the New...
Abstract image depicting creation of the universe and mankind

The awesome, terrible, and unknowable creator gods through history

All throughout history people have invoked gods of various kinds, including incomprehensibly strange creators. Crediting an almighty god as the creator of the universe is an acknowledgement that the...
Ancient Book

Ancient DNA on parchments reveal hidden stories

Parchment documents--ancient writings on animal skins--record an immense wealth of information about the history of humanity and past civilizations. However, new research has shown that within these...
Khoisan busy barbecuing grasshoppers

Khoisan people of South Africa were once the most populous humans on Earth

The Khoisan, an indigenous population in Namibia, may once have comprised the majority of living humans on the planet, for much of the past 150,000 years. The Khoisan population declined about 22,000...
The Roman god Bacchus

The Roman god Bacchus as a Christian icon

Before the acceptance of Christianity, Roman polytheism was dominant in the western world. Rome's borders extended as far west as Britain and as far east as modern day Greece and Turkey. To help ease...

Optical Illusions: The Challenge of Tracing Human Origins

If tracing this lineage from our earliest ancestor seems inconsistent or spotty, that’s because it is. We have a makeshift model of human history that had been cobbled together by geneticists,...
Autumnal Equinox

Ancient Meaning of the Autumnal Equinox

The autumnal equinox is the hour hand that tells us what time it is in the Great Year. Just as we can tell the hour of the day by noticing how high or low the sun is in the sky so do we tell time in...

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