Ancient news stories

Char from ancient fires and stalagmites in caves hold clues to the mysterious disappearance of Neanderthals from Europe.

It’s one of the oldest gold objects ever found in central China, as contemporary treasures tend to be crafted from bronze and jade, raising questions about possible links to other early Chinese states where gold was more common.

Researchers have shed light on the story behind a large sandstone rock art site in Central Queensland that features seven star-like designs, large snake-like designs, six-toed human feet and even a penis.

Scientific study of human evolution historically reassured us of a comforting order to things. It has painted humans as as cleverer, more intellectual and caring than our ancestral predecessors…Over the last five years discoveries have upended this unbalanced view.

Archaeologists digging near Prague have discovered the remains of a Stone Age structure that’s older than Stonehenge and even the Egyptian pyramids: an enigmatic complex known as a roundel.

Archaeologists say find supports theory that drug was used in burial rituals, possibly to ‘enter ecstatic state’

Israeli archaeologists on Sunday announced the “once-in-a-lifetime” discovery of a burial cave from the time of ancient Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II, filled with dozens of pottery pieces and bronze artifacts.

A new examination of some of the oldest rocks in the world suggests that the first continents on Earth were unstable, and sank back into the mantle before making their way out again and reforming.

New techniques allowed researchers to analyze ancient DNA for the first time. The data they unearthed helps describe the genomic history of the area and reveals population movements from as far back as 10,000 years ago. It contains some big surprises regarding theories for the origin of languages.

Swirling around the planet’s equator, the rings of Saturn are a dead giveaway that the planet is spinning at a tilt.

An ancient fossil from one of our planet’s earliest vertebrate organisms was found concealing an exciting surprise.

The devastating destruction that’s happening across the Amazon might be what comes to your mind first when thinking about deforestation – but it’s by no means the only place where dwindling forests are a worry, as a new study highlights.

A prehistoric human skeleton has been found in a cave system that was flooded at the end of the last ice age 8,000 years ago, according to a cave-diving archaeologist on Mexico’s Caribbean coast.

Despite transforming history as beasts of burden essential for transporting goods and people, the humble donkey has long been woefully understudied.

Student’s find provides new evidence region may be one of first places early humans settled outside Africa

The brains of Neanderthals, a species that’s thought to have lived alongside humans for hundreds of years, were about as large as ours are. Still, researchers aren’t sure how similarly their brains functioned to ours. A recently published study reveals that several amino acids in the human brain — which only emerged after humans split away from Neanderthals — make our chromosomes far less prone to errors as they separate into identical pairs.