Ancient news stories

More than 70 thousand years ago, Neanderthals transferred obsidian to distances up to 250 kilometers and used it to manufacture tools.

A pot bought for £4 at a car boot sale and used as a toothbrush holder has turned out to be 4,000 years old.

New study shows that the genetic makeup of northern Europe traces back to migrations from Siberia that began at least 3,500 years ago.

The ancient rhinoceros didn’t die off 200,000 years ago, before the last Ice Age, as previously thought. The strange animals actually only disappeared as recently as 36,000 years ago.

Two sarcophagi, each containing a mummy, were found. All are in perfect condition. The archaeological dig also discovered around 1,000 funerary statues at the site.

Brainwaves of highly experienced meditation practitioners are different than those of non-meditators.

If it is really true that the Greenland crater was created 12,000 years ago or more, it could explain a mysterious feature called the Younger Dryas event.

A new project backed by the European Research Council aims to transform our knowledge of the Denisovans and their relations with both Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals.

They weren’t made by Neanderthals. Nor Homo Sapiens. Complex stone tools found in China may have been the handiwork of a mysterious, almost-human tribe.

While most people are still asleep, thousands gather each year to remember the occupation that helped inspire the modern Native American protest movement.

Ancient Egyptian astronomers may have discovered variable stars, and calculated the period of a well-known one called Algol, thousands of years before Europeans.

The team’s research, published in Science, shows that early hominin species played little to no role in driving mammal extinctions in ancient African ecosystems.

Because amphioxus “sits in the middle” between invertebrates and vertebrates, it can tell us about some of the steps and developments that took place as animals became more complex over millions of years of evolution.

Japan’s Daisen Kofun is an ancient burial mound shrouded in mystery, massive in scale, and surprisingly little-known to the rest of the world. Reportedly, no one has crossed the inner-moat and visited the island since 1872.

Australia is the only Commonwealth country never to make a treaty with its indigenous peoples. Why has it proven so difficult? Kathy Marks looks at the vast challenges in Victoria alone – a state that is working towards a national first.

Residue found in a jug in Israel shows vanilla was likely produced and traded from South Asia, millennia before it was cultivated in Mexico.