“Magic preceded art, art served magic, and art was then liberated from magic.” This was among a number of sometimes controversial assertions made by Scottish anthropologist James Frazer in his 19 th...
Paleo rock art from around the world ranges in style, method, and age, and includes cave paintings, petroglyphs, pictographs, polished and engraved stones such as effigies, stone sculptures, and...
When you think of psychedelics and the United States, famous psychonauts like Timothy Leary, Gerry Garcia and Jim Morrison come to mind. In the 1991 movie, The Doors , Jim Morrison got seriously...
The discovery of a haunting photograph of Abraham Lincoln on his deathbed has created controversy thanks to the airing of a documentary which follows a California investigator on her hunt to discover...
The Little Ice Age is a period tentatively defined as running from the 13 th /14 th to the 19 th century in which the northern hemisphere of Earth endured a limited but substantial cooling period...
The Vinland Map carries with it the air of mystery and, some would say, the stench of deception. In the vaults of Yale University, and insured for $25 Million, it is either a colossal fraud or an...
In July 2014, an avocational surface collector chanced across a partially exposed Chinese votive sword behind roots in an eroded bank of a small stream in Georgia. The 30 cm artifact is possibly a...
Columbus famously reached the Americas in 1492. Other Europeans had made the journey before, but the century from then until 1609 marks the creation of the modern globalized world. This period...
The growth of ancient farming / agriculture led to unprecedented cooperation in human societies, a team of researchers, has found, but it also led to a spike in violence, an insight that offers...
The age of discovery is certainly one of the most dramatic periods of European history - a period of revolutionary voyages and contacts with the fascinating and mysterious New World . Many prominent...
The scientific cultivation of lost ancient seed crops has yielded much higher than expected growth rates, challenging assumptions about maize (corn) growth in prehistoric North America . According to...
Cannabis pollen discovered near an ancient Viking settlement in Newfoundland is generating differences in opinion as to whether or not the Vikings were smoking and eating the weed while they explored...
The drive to bring extinct animal species back from the dead, such as the wooly mammoth or saber-toothed tiger, is picking up speed as genetics and biotechnology science advances. But animals are not...
Every year, western scholars look with wonder to the ancient mythologies, ruins, and histories of such places as Egypt, Greece, and the Near East. Due to the considerable efforts of professional and...
There are several criteria archaeologists look for in the quest to determine the level of cultural advancement of ancient peoples. Obviously, one of these criteria is technological advancement,...
An amazing find at an Ice Age site in San Diego, California may dramatically alter the accepted timeline for when early humans first reached North America. 130,000-year-old bones and teeth of a...