Ancient news stories

An enormous stone sphinx representing the pharaoh Ramses II has spent nearly a century in the Egypt Gallery of the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.

The estimated levels of THC in these samples were higher than wild cannabis would normally produce, suggesting intentional cultivation of the plant for its psychoactive powers.

Geometric decorations surround the animals on the sandstone engraving, a telltale sign that whoever made them was part of the Azilian industry.

A grape variety still used in wine production in France today can be traced back 900 years to just one ancestral plant, scientists have discovered.

An ancient, cosmopolitan lineage of plants is shaking up scientists’ understanding of how quickly species evolve in temperate ecosystems and why.

A woman known as Kolyma1, who lived in northeastern Siberia about 10,000 years ago, shares about two-thirds of her genome with living Native Americans.

What would happen if the hands of time were turned back to an arbitrary point in our evolutionary history and we restarted the clock?

The studies suggest a land bridge connected the West Indies with South America 30 million years ago, allowing the slow-moving animals to reach the islands.

Two children’s milk teeth buried deep in a remote archaeological site in north eastern Siberia have revealed a previously unknown group of people lived there during the last Ice Age.

Archaeologists just assumed that women made the pottery at Chaco Canyon 1,000 years ago. Then they started thinking like cops—and things got interesting.

The Aboriginal woman whose healing power is described as ‘a miracle’ comes from a long family lineage of healers.

A collaborative study led by archaeologists, geneticists and museum curators is providing answers to previously unsolved questions about life in sub-Saharan Africa thousands of years ago.

Identifying the movements of extinct species from millions of years ago can provide insights into ancient migration routes, interaction between species, and the movement of continents.

Charred material found in South Africa suggests humans digested starch long before farming.