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...
Gold has long been regarded as a precious object, and has been equated with kingship and authority. As gold was rare, and sometimes not locally available, people often travelled over great distances...
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...
The historical figure Ferdinand Magellan was a Portuguese explorer who remains famous for the first circumnavigation of the earth, proving that the earth is round. However, the voyage was dogged by...
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...
Half a million years before early humans arrived on the scene, the prehistoric hominins living in East Africa were shaping tools out of stone. These rare artifacts have been discovered by scientists...
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...
It was gold and silver that drove the Spanish on in their exploration and conquest of the Americas. By the 1530s, less than 50 years after Christopher Columbus had reached the New World, the Spanish...
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...
In AD 921, the Arab traveler and Islamic theologian Ahmad ibn Fadlan was sent by the Abbasid caliph, al-Muqtadir to the court of the king of the Volga Bulghars as part of a diplomatic party. During...
Rising temperatures approximately 1.4 million years ago might have assisted the migration of hominins out of Africa and into Europe, a new study suggests. Dr. Jordi Agustí and colleagues have...
Neanderthals from the French region of Poitou-Charentes cut, beat and fractured the bones of their recently deceased companions, as revealed by the fossil remains of two adults and a child found at...
Although the ancient Romans were the first people to have had a fire brigade, they did not have a police force (apart from a night-watch). Thus, victims of minor crimes such as petty theft had to...
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...
Nothing seems to stir controversy in the historical, archaeological and theological research fields more than relics associated with Jesus. A weathered limestone box found in the 1970s and said to...
