Ancient news stories

Using information from inside the rocks on Earth’s surface, we have reconstructed the plate tectonics of the planet over the last 1.8 billion years.

The huge asteroid that hit Earth and wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was not alone, scientists have confirmed. A second, smaller space rock smashed into the sea off the coast of West Africa creating a large crater during the same era.

When an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, it caused a mass extinction. Now, researchers have evidence that this catastrophe ushered in the invention of agriculture by ants. See the paper here.

Across the United States, the second Monday of October is increasingly becoming known as Indigenous Peoples Day. In the push to rename Columbus Day, Christopher Columbus himself has become a metaphor for the evils of early colonial empires, and rightly so.

A comet that has not been seen from Earth since Neanderthals were alive and kicking has reappeared in the sky, with astronomers saying it might be visible to the naked eye.

Fossils found in Brazil are leading palaeontologists to re-write the evolution of mammals…The findings are detailed in a paper published in Nature.

New research published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests that the moon was captured during a close encounter between a young Earth and a terrestrial binary—the moon and another rocky object.

Journalist and best-selling author Graham Hancock’s new 6 x 40-minute documentary series Ancient Apocalypse: The Americas, will be released on Netflix on Wednesday 16th October. See the Official Clip here.

A cheese found in northwestern China is 3,600 years old and is the subject of a paper published today in the journal Cell.

A boom in vegetation at the end of the last ice age may have created so much pollen, it blocked mammoths’ sense of smell. A new study suggests this drove the beasts to extinction, but not everyone agrees.

In a recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports, the use of new bioarcheological methods has allowed the identification of chromosomal sex from the study of DNA and the analysis of a protein known as Amelogenin present in the tooth enamel.

Archaeologists have analyzed textiles from the ancient city of Huacas de Moche, Peru, showing how the population’s cultural traditions survived in the face of external influence. See the study here.

Scientists have grown an ancient seed from a cave in the Judean Desert into a tree — and it could belong to a locally-extinct species with medicinal properties mentioned several times in the Bible

Scientists, as well as Hollywood movie producers, have long looked to nuclear bombs as a promising form of defence should a massive asteroid appear without warning on a collision course with Earth. Now, researchers at a US government facility have put the idea on a firm footing, showing how such a blast might save the world in the first comprehensive demo of nuclear-assisted planetary defence.

Archaeological fieldwork in Morocco has discovered the earliest previously unknown farming society from a poorly understood period of northwest African prehistory. This study, published today in Antiquity, reveals for the first time the importance of the Maghreb (northwest Africa) in the emergence of complex societies in the wider Mediterranean.

Using drones and AI, a team led by archaeologist and anthropologist Masato Sakai of Yamagata University in Japan has discovered a jaw-dropping 303 more in just six months – nearly doubling the known number.