Ancient news stories

Puppy prints and wall illusions found in 1,500-year-old house in Turkey
29th January 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans

Archaeologists have discovered a fantastical-looking, 1,500-year-old house in Turkey that was decorated with illusory wall paintings and terracotta tiles on the floor with puppy prints and possible chicken decorations pressed into them.

Ice age Siberian hunters may have domesticated dogs 23,000 years ago
29th January 2021 | sciencemag.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Sometime toward the end of the last ice age, a group of humans armed with stone-tipped spears stalked their prey in the bitter cold of northeastern Siberia, tracking bison and woolly mammoths across a vast, grassy landscape.

Clues on 1,000 Years of The Sun’s Turbulent Activity Are Hidden in Earth’s Trees
27th January 2021 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans, Space

The Sun has a lot of rhythm and goes through different cycles of activity. The most well-known cycle might be the Schwabe cycle, which has an 11-year cadence. But what about cycles with much longer time scales? How can scientists understand them?

Ritual monument discovered in Scotland dates to the time of Stonehenge
27th January 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans

A massive “cursus” monument, a site for ancient rituals, that was built around the same time as Stonehenge, has been discovered on the  Scottish Isle of Arran.

Pace of prehistoric human innovation could be revealed by ‘linguistic thermometer’
27th January 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans, Tech

Multi-disciplinary researchers at The University of Manchester have helped develop a powerful physics-based tool to map the pace of language development and human innovation over thousands of years—even stretching into pre-history before records were kept.

How many early human species existed on Earth?
25th January 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans

We Homo sapiens didn’t use to be alone. Long ago, there was a lot more human diversity; Homo sapiens lived alongside an estimated eight now-extinct species of human about 300,000 years ago

Why Did Early Humans Leave Africa?
25th January 2021 | discovermagazine.com | Ancient, Humans

Whichever way you look at it, the story of our species’ birthplace in Africa and dispersal across the planet is incredibly complicated.

Burial practices point to an interconnected early Medieval Europe
25th January 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

Early Medieval Europe is frequently viewed as a time of cultural stagnation, often given the misnomer of the ‘Dark Ages’. However, analysis has revealed new ideas could spread rapidly as communities were interconnected, creating a surprisingly unified culture in Europe.

Early humans used chopping tools to break animal bones and consume the bone marrow
22nd January 2021 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

Researchers from the Sonia and Marco Nadler Institute of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University unraveled the function of flint tools known as “chopping tools,” found at the prehistoric site of Revadim, east of Ashdod.

Giant sand worm discovery proves truth is stranger than fiction
22nd January 2021 | eurekalert.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Weird

Simon Fraser University researchers have found evidence that large ambush-predatory worms–some as long as two metres–roamed the ocean floor near Taiwan over 20 million years ago.

The origins of money
21st January 2021 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Humans

From cowrie shells to native resources and animals, currency in some shape or form has long been a part of human history.

Earth’s outer shell ballooned during massive growth spurt 3 billion years ago
21st January 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Earth

Ancient fragments of Earth’s crust acted as ‘seeds’ for new crust to grow from.

Lessons from the past
19th January 2021 cosmosmagazine.com | Ancient, Earth, Humans

The Anthropocene marks relentless and increasingly grave environmental degradation as the Earth faces tipping points for climate change, biodiversity and survival. To address these ills, scientists say we can learn valuable lessons from the past.

13-foot-long ‘Book of the Dead’ scroll found in burial shaft in Egypt
19th January 2021 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans

A funerary temple belonging to Queen Nearit has been discovered in the ancient Egyptian burial ground Saqqara next to the pyramid of her husband, pharaoh Teti, who ruled Egypt from around 2323 B.C. to 2291 B.C.

Mexico archaeologists reveal tale of cannibalism and reprisal from conquest
19th January 2021 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Humans

A convoy of Spaniards and allies was ritually sacrificed in 1520 at Tecoaque – ‘the place where they ate them’ – before Hernán Cortés wreaked revenge.

Astronomers may have detected background ripples in spacetime itself
18th January 2021 newatlas.com | Ancient, Space

The gravitational waves we’ve detected so far have been like tsunamis in the spacetime sea, but it’s believed that gentle ripples should also pervade the universe. Now, a 13-year survey of light from pulsars scattered across the galaxy may have revealed the first hints of these background signals.

Image from: https://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/catalog/PIA24036 (Wiki Commons)

News stories covering history, archaeology, ancient Egypt, and mysteries of the past.