DNA testing in an archaeological context has been improving by leaps and bounds, resulting in many new discoveries relating to ancient human, animal and plant genetics. New ground in DNA analysis of...
A rare lilac-colored amethyst seal has been discovered in an ancient sewer beneath Jerusalem. Depicting a bird holding a plant branch with five fruits with its feet, the engraved amethyst seal...
In 1879 Charles Darwin wrote a letter to his close friend, the botanist and explorer named Dr. Joseph Hooker. He expressed his annoyance at the puzzling mystery of how the first flowering plants...
The Shroud of Turin is believed by many to be the bloodstained burial cloth Jesus of Nazareth was wrapped in after his crucifixion. But skeptics say it is a forgery, or at best only a religious...
James Cook and his companions aboard the Endeavour landed at a harbour on Australia’s southeast coast in April of 1770. Cook named the place Botany Bay for “the great quantity of plants Mr. Banks and...
Scientists visiting Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic discovered something remarkable and fascinating . Led by Catherine LaFarge, a geologist from the University of Alberta in Edmonton (Canada...
Archaeologists discovered traces of hallucinogenic substances used over 3,000 years by the Philistines living in ancient Yavneh, Israel, revealing a drug culture that is believed to have revolved...
“That plant will save you from a poisonous snake bite,” my Kichwa guide, Pidru, pointed out as I tried to remove my boot from a foot of mud in the depths of the Amazon jungle in Ecuador. “And this...
Researchers at Washington State University and 13 other institutions have found that the arc of prehistory bends towards economic inequality. In the largest study of its kind, the researchers saw...
In the Bible, Genesis 2:7 is the first verse that tells us about the first man. It tells how God formed a man from the dust and blew the breath of life into him. The man was then placed in Eden where...
The landscape of the remote island of Socotra looks so foreign that it could almost pass as an alien planet. Its native flora is so rare and unique that the island looks like something out of a...
Far away on the remote island of Spitsbergen in the Artic Svalbard archipelago lies humanity’s fail-safe storage of seeds. With the threat of natural and man-made disasters looming in the future, the...
Hundreds of strange circular patches of ground where nothing grows can be found amongst the thick grass of the vast Namib desert. These bald spots apparently exist, and sometimes grow, for years...
Piece by piece, archaeologists are discovering evidence of creative engineering techniques practiced by innovative ancient peoples. One such example is making archaeological news headlines – the...
In 2014, archaeologists discovered ceramic containers used for cereal storage dating back 2,800 years in Cuvustepe Castle in Turkey. Incredibly, some preserved sesame and wheat seeds remained inside...
The battle against drugs and drug usage rages on today and for good reason. However, with the near constant limelight that the ‘drug war’ receives today, it can seem like the most common drugs have...
A community of cave dwellers in North Africa apparently resisted switching over to pure agriculture and instead continued gathering highly nutritional wild grass seeds and other wild plants for many...
Some Native Americans found squash seeds in a pot about 800 years old and revived the plant for the first time in centuries. The seeds from the large, bright orange squash have been distributed to...
It was in the Middle East that hunter-gatherers first started to switch to plant cultivation, thereby initiating the first movement towards organised agriculture. This is why the region is popularly...
Poisons are ubiquitous in the plant and animal world – some snakes and frogs are venomous, and various trees and plants are lethally toxic. This was well-known by our ancient ancestors, and they...
For thousands of years poisons have been both a deadly threat and a protective tool used around the world. Poisons have played a dominant role in our history and legends, persisting both as evil...
A team of scientists have discovered that people of numerous pre-Columbian civilizations in northern Chile, including the Incas and the Chinchorro culture, suffered from chronic arsenic poisoning...
We’ve got to hand it to the persistent and determined researchers who have not given up hope of decoding the enigmatic Voynich manuscript despite dozens of studies over the last few decades, many of...
The 15th Century Voynich manuscript is considered to be the most mysterious text ever uncovered as it has never been deciphered despite over a century of attempts to uncover its meaning and more than...