ancientorigins
Member for
9 years 5 monthsBlog: View recent blog entries
ancient origins
View Recent Blogs
In the hills of north-west Morocco, overlooking the river that gives the site its name, research at Oued Beht is bringing to light a previously unknown chapter of the region’s past. The discovery of a substantial built structure suggests that, during the second millennium BC, communities in north-west Africa were actively shaping their environment. They were also engaging in broader networks of interaction across the Mediterranean world. Map of Oued Beht in today’s Morocco, separated from Spain above it by the ocean. (Toby Wilkinson/OBAP Archive) Previous research by the Oued Beht Archaeological Project had already brought to light what is likely the earliest and largest agricultural complex ever discovered in Africa outside the Nile Valley. It dates to around 5,400
Deep in the El Castillo cave in northern Spain, up a side passage off the main pathway, there is a small painted panel most visitors would walk straight past. Created some 17,000 to 15,000 years ago, it shows five red signs, each shaped a little like a bell. A natural stone ledge runs beneath them like the lip of an altar. For over a century, archaeologists have simply catalogued these as “bell-shaped signs”, filed under the vast heading of ice age marks we don’t know the meaning of. Building on my PhD research surveying plants used in shamanic ritual worldwide, I argue they may be flowers. Mind-altering flowers, to be specific – the bell of a psychoactive nightshade, most likely
Simonetta Vespucci is probably one of the most painted women of the Italian Renaissance. Sandro Botticelli is widely believed to have used her as his model for Venus, and she appears, transformed and idealised, across several of his most famous works. She died in 1476, aged just 23. For centuries, historians have assumed tuberculosis was to blame – it was common, it was often fatal, and it fitted the pattern of a young woman fading quickly. In 2019, my colleagues and I proposed a different explanation. We examined the portraits attributed to Botticelli alongside written descriptions from the period, looking for whether the same woman’s face changed in ways that might reflect an underlying illness. What we found was a
Unretouched triangular microlithic projectile points have been identified from their impact traces in the oldest occupation layers of the Obi-Rakhmat site in Uzbekistan, dating to 80,000 years ago. Their size corresponds to small arrowheads, which are directly comparable to those produced by Homo sapiens during an incursion into Neanderthal territory in the Rhône Valley, 25,000 years later. This new study, published in PLOS One journal, provides a strong argument that could rewrite history on Homo sapiens‘ first settlement in Europe. The chrono-cultural and anthropological frameworks of prehistory, along with the evolutionary models they inspired, were first created in Western Europe, especially France, in the second half of the 19th century. They were initially linear and Eurocentric: Cro-Magnons (European early modern
It is well known that only about one percent of ancient Egyptians mastered the difficult art of reading and writing hieroglyphics. But there was little information about the education of royal children and how many of the powerful rulers of Egypt learned this important skill. In 2014 researchers from Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland examined ancient texts to find clues regarding the literacy of Egypt’s Dynastic rulers, making some striking revelations. Exploring the Scripts The most famous of all ancient Egyptian scripts is hieroglyphic. However, throughout three thousand years of ancient Egyptian civilisation, at least three other scripts – Hieratic, Demotic, and later on, Coptic – were used for different purposes. Using these scripts, scribes were able to preserve the
Jo Osborn / Emily Milton / Jacob L. Bongers / The Conversation In 1532, in the city of Cajamarca, Peru, Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro and a group of Europeans took the Inca ruler Atahualpa hostage, setting the stage for the fall of the Inca Empire. Before this fateful attack, Pizarro’s brother, Pedro Pizarro, made a curious observation: other than the Inca himself, the Lord of Chincha was the only person at Cajamarca carried on a litter, a carrying platform. Why did the Lord of Chincha occupy such a high position in Inca society? In our new study published in PLOS One, we find evidence for a surprising potential source of power and influence: bird poo. Finding Francisco Pizzaro: The Strange
Throughout history, precious gemstones have gone beyond decoration, serving as powerful symbols of wealth, authority, and divine blessing. Ancient civilizations across the globe attributed mystical properties and deep significance to these rare and beautiful stones. They used them to display social status, form political alliances, and strengthen connections to the spiritual realm. From the glittering crowns of pharaohs to the sacred amulets of priests, gemstones communicated messages of authority that needed no translation. Their captivating combination of rarity, durability, and striking beauty made them ideal repositories of value and meaning in societies. Understanding the historical significance of these ancient gems reveals the aesthetic preferences of past cultures, along with their values and power structures. These historical insights continue to shape
Eleanor Dobson /The Conversation November 2025 marks 100 years since archaeologists first examined Tutankhamun’s mummified remains. What followed wasn’t scientific triumph – it was destruction. Using hot knives and brute force, Howard Carter’s team decapitated the pharaoh, severed his limbs and dismembered his torso. Then they covered it up. Tutankhamun’s tomb was first discovered in the Valley of the Kings by a team of mostly Egyptian excavators led by Howard Carter in November 1922. However, it took several years for the excavators to clear and catalogue the tomb’s antechamber – the first part of what would become a decade-long excavation. This meticulous work, as well as delays caused by friction between Carter and the Egyptian government, meant that it wasn’t
The Conversation/ Renaud Joannes-Boyau et al. When we think of lead poisoning, most of us imagine modern human-made pollution, paint, old pipes, or exhaust fumes. But our new study, published in Science Advances, reveals something far more surprising: our ancestors were exposed to lead for millions of years, and it may have helped shape the evolution of the human brain. This discovery reveals the toxic substance we battle today has been intertwined with the human evolution story from its very beginning. It reshapes our understanding of both past and present, tracing a continuous thread between ancient environments, genetic adaptation, and the unfolding evolution of human intelligence. Infographic shows lead exposure to humans in modern times versus our ancestors; how teeth
Ian Towle & Luca Fiorenza/The Conversation For decades, small grooves on ancient human teeth were thought to be evidence of deliberate tool use – people cleaning their teeth with sticks or fibers, or easing gum pain with makeshift “toothpicks”. Some researchers even called it the oldest human habit. But our new findings, published in the American Journal of Biological Anthropology , challenge this long-held idea about human evolution. We found these grooves also appear naturally in wild primates, with little support for tooth-picking as the cause. Even more striking, in more than 500 wild primates, across 27 species both living and fossil, we found no trace of a common modern dental disease: deep, V-shaped gumline notches called abfraction lesions. Together
