After building trust with a local Shuar village, Ancient Origins returned once again to explore the Tayos caves in Ecuador. While the search for hidden cave entrances continues, our recent expedition...
Two rare and unique swords have been found in a 1,500-year-old underground tunnel tomb in southern Kyushu, Japan. One of them is the longest sword ever found in an ancient Japanese tomb, while the...
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...
There is significant variation in how different cultures over time have dealt with the dead. Yet, at a very basic level, funerals in the Sonoran Desert thousands of years ago were similar to what...
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...
A new study that examined cut marks on bones in order to distinguish between cannibalism and ritualistic defleshing practices have determined that a very morbid feast took place 15,000 years ago in...
The Sogdians were a people of Iranian origin who lived in the fertile valleys of Central Asia between the sixth century BC and tenth century AD. The secret to the Sogdians’ success was their knack...
The medieval city-states of northern Italy were more competitive than any given Kardashian battling her sister for more Snapchat followers. Time and again, the cities of Modena and Bologna put their...
Sixteen hundred years before Sir Thomas More wrote Utopia , describing a near-ideal society, a Hellenistic king attempted to create his own real-life paradise. The monarch? Aristonicus, also known as...
By Tamara Zubchuk | The Siberian Times A find-of-the-year by Novosibirsk archeologists is a toy that entertained prehistoric babies. The remarkable discovery of one of the oldest toys in the world...
A collection of gorgeous artifacts discovered in the Uşak Province in Turkey overwhelmed the world of archaeology, but also caused many troubles. The impressive assemblage of ancient mystical...
Archaeologists from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) started excavations in September 2016 at Khirbat al-Minya, an early-Islamic caliphate palace on the shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel...
Dogs have been with us since the first stargazer cast an eye to the heavens. Were dogs up there, too -- in the stars? The answer is yes. In ancient times the dog star guided and guarded, just as its...
The line between goddess and witch or witch and saint is very thin in ancient history. One example of this confusion is the legendary story of Aradia – a woman whose life has been explored in neo-...
A worked piece of aluminum which is believed to have been made 250,000 years ago is making world history news headlines. The composition and possible purpose of the object is baffling scientists and...
The year is 745 BCE and much of the Middle East is about to be conquered and confiscated by the powerful Assyrian Empire under King Tiglath-pileser III. Tiglath-Pileser III: stela from the walls of...
Rauðskinna is a legendary book that was more terrifying than most of the black magic documents ever produced. It was so dark, that most people could not believe it was written by a Christian bishop...
Seven-headed monsters, one-eyed giants and blood-born winged horses are all shocking representations of the ways in which the well-known creatures of ancient Greek and Roman mythology transcend the...
Strabo in his Geography (17 1.54) talks about the “one eyed Kandake” who fought the Romans. Between 30 BC and 22 BC the Romans and Meroites were at war. Meroitic-Kush never became part of the Roman...
New dating on the stone buildings of Nan Madol suggests the ancient coral reef capital in the Pacific Ocean was the earliest among the islands to be ruled by a single chief. The discovery makes Nan...
Ever wondered what would become of humanity if the power grid were to collapse, nulling every technological advancement man has ever made? Long before ego tricked humans into thinking they were the...
In 1997, a crypt of skeletons was unearthed during an excavation of Stirling Castle in Scotland. What was originally believed to have been part of the Governor’s Kitchens was revealed to be the ‘lost...
For thousands of years, we turned to history to explain the what, why and how an event happened. Although “historian” did not become a professional occupation until the late nineteenth century, the...
By Tamara Zubchuk / Siberian Times The 2,400-year-old Ust-Taseyevsky idol 'underwent racial realignment early in Middle Ages', losing his European looks. But why this medieval plastic surgery? And...
