Ancient news stories

How we humans became what we are today is a question that scientists have been trying to answer for a long time. How did we evolve such advanced cognitive abilities, giving rise to complex language, poetry and rocket science?

Well-preserved iron, bronze and tin carriage discovery is ‘without precedent in Italy’.

Based on a manual recently discovered in a 3,500-year-old medical papyrus, University of Copenhagen Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt has been able to help reconstruct the embalming process used to prepare ancient Egyptians for the afterlife. It is the oldest surviving manual on mummification yet discovered.

Teenage T rexes and other carnivorous dinosaurs the size of lions or bears may have crowded out smaller species, explaining why there are so few of them preserved in the fossil record, research suggests.

These surreal cauldron-like megaliths in Laos are known as the Plain of Jars, an archaeological relics whose original purpose is still shrouded in mystery, their significance long forgotten.

The water-to-land transition is a leap in the history of vertebrate evolution and one of the most important scientific issues in vertebrate evolution. Previous studies have shown that vertebrate landing occurred in bony fishes.

Thomas Cody Prang, assistant professor of anthropology, and colleagues examined the skeletal remains of Ardipithecus ramidus (“Ardi”), dated to 4.4 million years old and found in Ethiopia. One of Ardi’s hands was exceptionally well-preserved.

Discovery of 19.5-metre tree with roots, branches and leaves is unprecedented, say experts

In Wonderland, Alice drank a potion to shrink herself. In nature, some animal species shrink to escape the attention of human hunters, a process that takes from decades to millennia.

Artwork that had adorned the walls of an Egyptian prince’s tomb for more than four millennia has been found to contain images of a bird completely unknown to modern science – until now.

The Neanderthal of popular imagination is a hideous, ape-like being, lumbering around with his or her crude spear.

A life size kangaroo painted in red ochre around 17,300 years ago is Australia’s oldest known rock art. This indicates that the earliest style of rock art in Australia focused on animals, similar to the early cave art found in Indonesia and Europe.

Scientists have successfully sequenced the genome of an extinct cave bear using a 360,000-year-old bone—the oldest genome of any organism from a non-permafrost environment.

The 5cm (2in) figure of a Celtic deity was discovered at the National Trust’s Wimpole Estate in Cambridgeshire.

Researchers have discovered organic molecules trapped in incredibly ancient rock formations in Australia, revealing what they say is the first detailed evidence of early chemical ingredients that could have underpinned Earth’s primeval microbial life-forms.

The standing stones at Avebury and the Ring of Brodgar in Orkney are henges, but it is generally agreed that Stonehenge is not. But why?