All  

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ

Ancient Origins Tour IRAQ Mobile

sailing

The foodstuffs found on the obsidian blades at Anakena in Rapa Nui suggest the islanders made the voyage to South America and returned. Source: F.C.G. / Adobe Stock.

Rapa Nui Obsidian Discovery: Did the Islanders sail to America?

It has long been thought that the people of Rapa Nui (popularly called Easter Island) lived a largely isolated existence, cut off from other lands by the vast and treacherous ocean. However a new...
AI generated image of a complete shipwreck, representative of wrecks that have recently been discovered in the Mediterranean Sea. Source: MediaM/Adobe Stock

Survey Finds Two Dozen Shipwrecks Proving Historic Mediterranean Sea Routes

Archaeologists have long believed ancient mariners were excessively cautious when sailing the Mediterranean, staying close to the coast at all times to avoid the risk of tumultuous mid-sea storms and...
Evidence from several of the Aegean Islands shows archaic humans must have been sailing the seas around 450,000 years ago. Source: Chris/Adobe Stock

Evidence Shows Archaic Humans Sailed to Aegean Islands 450,000 Years Ago

Ample archaeological and geological evidence has now been uncovered that suggests archaic humans were building boats and crossing the Aegean Sea as long as 450,000 years ago, the authors of a new...
A Racetrack Playa Sailing Stone.

Leave No Stone Unturned: What Propels the Racetrack Playa Moving Rocks?

Racetrack Playa is a dried-up lake located in Death Valley, California, USA. This dry lake is notable for its sailing stones, which are known also as sliding stones, rolling stones, or moving rocks...
Homo erectus statue, taken at David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins as the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

Primeval Navigation Suggests Language Began 1.5 Million Years Earlier Than Thought

Were our primeval ancestors skilled mariners who sailed thousand of miles to distant islands using language, or did they grunt at each other while holding onto tree trunks being blown randomly on the...
Phoenicians: Creating what is now known as the Alphabet

Phoenicians: Creating what is now known as the Alphabet

A-B-C-D-E-F-G ... This famous sequence of letters known to much of the world dates back to the 16th century BC. A fairly small group of traders and merchants known as the Phoenicians created the...
DNA Study Unravels Mystery Behind Origins of First Pacific Islanders

DNA Study Unravels Mystery Behind Origins of First Pacific Islanders

More than 3,000 years ago, a group of people set out from the Solomon Island chain in the southwestern edge of the Pacific Ocean and steered their outrigger canoes toward the horizon, with no land as...
Clockwise from top left - Koh Ker, Cambodia (thomaswanhoff/CC BY SA 2.0), Pyramid of Khafre, Egypt (MusikAnimal/CC BY SA 3.0), El Castillo, Chichén Itzá, Mexico (Grand Velas Riviera Maya/CC BY SA 2.0), Pyramid of Cestius, Italy (Nicholas Laughlin/CC BY NC SA 2.0) Center: Replica of a wind rose from the chart of Jorge de Aguiar, 1492. (Alvesgaspar/CC BY SA 3.0)

The Pyramids Route: Was Knowledge of the Pyramids Spread by Ancient Castaways?

Jose Salvador Alvarenga was fishing off the coast of Mexico in late 2012 when a powerful storm sent his boat adrift. Marshall Islanders found the battered vessel nearly 16 months later, stuck on a...