Ancient news stories

New research has revealed that the giant asteroid that created the South Pole-Aitken basin (SPA), the Moon’s largest crater, slammed into the lunar surface from a northerly direction. The study was published in Nature.

The authors add, “Our study shows how, 400,000 years ago in the area of Rome, human groups were able to exploit an extraordinary resource like the elephant—not only for food, but also by transforming its bones into tools. The study was published on October 8, 2025, in the open-access journal PLOS One. 

Melting ice sheets in North America played a far greater role in driving global sea-level rise at the end of the last ice age than scientists had thought, according to a Tulane University-led study published in Nature Geoscience.

Studying nearly 1,000 moai statues, Binghamton University Professor of Anthropology Carl Lipo and the University of Arizona’s Terry Hunt found that the people of Rapa Nui likely used rope and “walked” the giant statues in a zig-zag motion along carefully designed roads. The paper is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Researchers Magnus Pharao Hansen and Christopher Helmke from the University of Copenhagen have presented a possible solution to the mystery in an article published in Current Anthropology.

The temple may have been dedicated to a mother goddess worshipped by many cultures, including the Greeks and the Romans.

An international group of researchers have discovered that birds on opposite sides of the planet produce almost identical ‘whining’ calls when beset by parasitic birds. The findings from this study have been published in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

In a recent study by Dr. Sawada and his colleagues published in Scientific Reports, 183 human bones were surveyed, of which 52 were found to be worked human bones, all of which belong to the Neolithic Liangzhu culture.

The finding “suggests that humans inhabited the land bridge region soon after it was exposed,” the researchers wrote in the study, which was published in the September issue of the journal Quaternary Science Advances.

he results of the study “Dynamics of early agriculture—multivariate analysis of changes in crop cultivation and farming practices in the Rhineland (Germany) between the 6th and early 4th millennium BCE” have been published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

A fresh look at data collected by NASA’s Cassini probe nearly two decades ago has revealed new, complex organic molecules on Saturn‘s icy moon Enceladus – pointing to tantalizing chemistry taking place deep beneath its hidden ocean. The research has been published in Nature Astronomy.

Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have discovered hundreds of rock art engravings that were carved by humans more than 12,000 years ago. The study was published Tuesday (Sept. 30) in the journal Nature Communications.

This marks the first time in the world that nets from over 6,000 years ago have been digitally and physically resurrected in such detail. The research is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

Archaeologists have found an extraordinary cluster of Stone Age artifacts that may have been the personal gear of a single prehistoric individual. The study was published Aug. 13 in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology.

In a new discovery that illuminates new insights into the early prehistoric origins of art and creativity, researchers have identified the earliest known use of blue mineral pigment in Europe.

Until Homo floresiensis was discovered, scientists assumed that the evolution of the human lineage was defined by bigger and bigger brains….But these theories had to be thrown out the window when archaeologists announced our fossil cousins Homo floresiensis via scientific publication in 2004…new research on the skulls and teeth provides a novel theory for how the Hobbits evolved to be small.