Ancient news stories

In a new study, US researchers shed light on what they call an “explosion” of animal color signals over the past 100 million years – with novel insights about the timing and possible triggers of this evolutionary innovation.

Evidence is growing that Mars was once sloshy and wet, draped with lakes and oceans, which lapped at shorelines and deposited sediments that are, even as you read these words, being scrutinized by robots rolling across the now dry and dusty surface.

Two newly discovered stone circles, built about 5,000 years ago in what is now the southwest of England, are the latest to show that Stonehenge was not the only Stone Age circle built in the region.

“The structure that has revealed a hitherto unknown way by which Neanderthals managed and used fire,” the researchers wrote in the new study, published Nov. 12 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

What appears to be evidence of the oldest alphabetic writing in human history is etched onto finger-length, clay cylinders excavated from a tomb in Syria by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers.

Research led by the Universidad de Burgos has uncovered evidence suggesting Neanderthals engaged in collecting activities based on discoveries at the Prado Vargas Cave in Burgos, Spain…The research is published in the journal Quaternary.

Lucy lived in a wide range of habitats from northern Ethiopia to northern Kenya. Researchers now believe she wasn’t the only australopithecine species there.

A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Los Angeles, has revealed new insights into how ancient Europeans adapted to their environments over 7,000 years of European history. The study was published last week in the journal Nature Communications.

The analysis, which looked at nearly 6 million galaxies and quasars spanning 11 billion years of cosmic time, found that even at colossal scales, the force of gravity behaves as predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity.

An ancient inscription decorated with lions and sphinxes is finally deciphered, and it involves the “mother of the gods.”

A new study by Dr. Linda Evans and her colleagues from Macquarie University, Australia, published in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology, has recently identified what may be an Egyptian petroglyph depicting the zodiac sign Capricornus, a hybrid creature with the forequarters of a goat and body of a fish.

Brain scans suggest the whistle’s tones may do more than create a scary ambience. This research was published in Communications Psychology.

Famously known for its extensive ring system, Saturn is one of four planets in our solar system that have the distinctive feature. And now, scientists hypothesize that Earth may have sported its own ring some 466 million years ago.

Ancient pollen and charcoal remains uncovered from islands north of Tasmania (Lutruwita) suggest that human fire management practices were happening in the region 41,600 years ago. The study, published in Science Advances, draws on 2 sediment records collected from islands in the Bass Strait.

A University of South Florida professor found the first-ever physical evidence of hallucinogens in an Egyptian mug, validating written records and centuries-old myths of ancient Egyptian rituals and practices. Published in Scientific Reports, the study sheds light on an ancient Egyptian mystery…

A collection of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may be spindle whorls, representing a key milestone in the development of rotational tools, including wheels, according to a study published November 13, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.