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Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

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Ancient Polynesian stories tell about a mysterious light guiding navigators across the Pacific Ocean. Source: aleksandar nakovski/AdobeStock

The Enigmatic Te Lapa lights, Utilized by Polynesians for Ocean Navigation

The Polynesian peoples have long been known as incredibly skilled sailors, and have navigated the vast and seemingly empty expanse of ocean - in search of new islands to settle. This they did with...
Phantoms islands never existed in the first place, but their origins are varied. Source: Indstock / Adobe Stock

7 Phantom Islands We Never Really Discovered

The Earth is a big place, and it has taken us a long, long time to fully map it. Today, it is easy to feel like the last of the great adventures is over, and we’ve found all that there is to be found...
Remote sensing and drone footage of the Lagash / Tell al-Hiba site was deployed to conclude that the ancient Mesopotamian city was made up of four marsh islands. Source: Lagash Archaeological Project

Drone Footage Reveals Lost Mesopotamian City Built on Marsh Islands

Using remote sensing data technologies at the site of one of the oldest urban centers in world history, scientists have identified a vast Mesopotamian settlement called Lagash. Once upon a time,...
Statue overlooking Cardigan Bay, where the lost Welsh Atlantis may lay beneath the waves of today. Source: davidyoung11111 / Adobe Stock

UK’s ‘Oldest Map’ May Confirm the Location of the ‘Welsh Atlantis’

An 800-year-old medieval map of Great Britain kept in an Oxford library has been studied by two scientists and it clearly shows two islands lying off the Welsh coast, giving further momentum to the “...
The amazing Roman mosaic unearthed beneath the streets of Stari Grad on the Croatian island of Hvar.		Source: Slobadna Dalmacıja / Arkeonews

Luxury Roman Villa and Mosaic Found on Croatian Island of Hvar

Archaeology on the Croatian island of Hvar in the Adriatic Sea is proceeding at a pace likely not exceeded anywhere else in the world. Just within the past two weeks, researchers affiliated with a...
Professor Robert Carter (right side of left image), leader of the British team that determined that Bahrain’s Al Sayah Island (right image) is an ancient artificial man-made island.                 Source: Arkeonews

Team Proves Bahrain’s Al Sayah Island Is Ancient and Man-made

Excavations on Bahrain’s ancient Al Sayah island have shown that it is an ancient artificial man-made island. The excavations are being conducted by the Bahrain Authority for Culture and Antiquities...
Sunrise at Laomei Green Reef on the coast north of Taipei, Taiwan, where researchers found scant evidence of early human impact on animal extinction.

New Study Reveals the Real Impact of Early Humans on Animal Extinction

It has been told and retold and accepted as an unproven truth that early human beings arrived on uninhabited islands and forced other species to make way for them, eventually driving them to...
It Looks Like America’s First People Were Island Hoppers

It Looks Like America’s First People Were Island Hoppers

Standing right beside the question “are we alone in the universe” is “when and by whom was America first populated.” Now that question might finally be answered as a team of researchers propose a...
An aerial view of Atafu atoll in Tokelau         Source: DFAT / CC BY 2.0

Tokelau, a Small Nation with Great Traditions

Many dream of living on an island in the Pacific beneath endless blue skies and along golden beaches, far from the stresses of modern living. While few have heard of the islands of Tokelau, fewer...
Funi Aziri Bangwe

The Comoros Archipelago and An Aged Tradition of Public Spaces

The Comoros is an archipelago of islands located off the East Coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean and north of Madagascar, and yet, one of the least known countries in Africa. Because of its relative...
The Marriage of the Sky and the Sea: Visayan Creation Myths

The Marriage of the Sky and the Sea: Visayan Creation Myths

Although there are different versions of the Visayan creation myth, they are similar in characters, conflicts and resolutions. The way the story was narrated and its different subsequent retellings...
The Remarkable Ancient Navigation System of the Marshall Islands

The Remarkable Ancient Navigation System of the Marshall Islands

People were navigating long distances between islands in the Pacific for at least 2,000 years. How did they do it without astrolabes, sextants or modern satellite positioning technology? One group,...
A diver exploring one of the wreck sites.

23 Wrecks Found in Ship Graveyard in Aegean Sea in Just 22 Days

It is the second time in a little over the year that researchers in Greece have announced the discovery of nearly two dozen sunken ships in the Aegean Sea. In the area of Fourni, a group of 13...
Women of Rennell Island in the Solomons, drawn by Norman H. Hardy

Ancient Tattoos: Archaeologists find Blood and Pigments on 3,000-Year-Old Obsidian

Australian archaeologists have examined prehistoric obsidian tools from the Nanngu site in the Solomon Islands and have determined they may have been used for tattooing people. The 3,000-year-old...
Artist’s representation of Atlantis

Atlantis Revealed: Plato's Cautionary Tale Was Based On A Real Setting

The time is 360 BC, the dawn of Western civilization. Athens, the cradle of democracy, is the epicenter of the ancient world. In his dialogues of Timaeus and Critias, Plato introduces a tale of an...
Colorful Rainbow over an ocean rock in Iceland.

Phantom islands on ancient maps dismissed as mirages, myths, or mistakes

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...
Floating Islands - Myth and Reality

Floating Islands Seen at Sea: Myth and Reality – Part 2

(Read Part 1 ) Floating islands do indeed exist on six of the seven continents; they may have trees growing upon them, be hundreds of meters across, and support the weight of humans living upon them...
Floating Islands - Myth and Reality

Floating Islands Seen at Sea: Myth and Reality

A floating island—can such a thing exist? Can the chunks of the solid earth on which we stand drift easily about the surface of a body of water? The idea of a floating island seems impossible,...
The megalithic gate of Ha’amonga ‘a Maui, Tonga

New research suggests Tonga was a vast seafaring empire

Scattered over 500,000 square kilometres in the southern Pacific Ocean are the Tonga islands. The kingdom of Tonga is a Polynesian sovereign state and archipelago comprising nearly two hundred...
The ancient origins of the ceremonial Kava drink of the Pacific

The ancient origins of the ceremonial Kava drink of the Pacific

The ancient origins of Kava drinking is known to trace back at least 3,000 years and is associated with both social and ceremonial function. It was, and is, highly valued for its medicinal uses as a...
Shipwreck of the Stirling Castle - Samoa

Cannibal Jack Jones and the Beachcombers of Samoa

One of the most intriguing developments on Samoa, in the early period of post-European contact, began with the arrival of beachcombers; sailors who were shipwrecked or who deserted their ships to...
The Mesolithic people of Doggerland - North Sea Islands

North Sea islands with prehistoric inhabitants were wiped out by tsunami

New research presented at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna has revealed that an ancient civilisation located on a group of islands between Britain and Europe was wiped out by...
Stone Labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky

The Ancient Stone Labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky

On a small collection of remote islands in the White Sea of Russia lies the highest concentration of ancient labyrinths on the planet. Despite numerous theories, archaeologists and historians have...