Ancient news stories

Archaeologists find 9,000-year-old shrine in Jordan desert
23rd February 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

A team of Jordanian and French archaeologists said Tuesday that it had found a roughly 9,000-year-old shrine at a remote Neolithic site in Jordan’s eastern desert.

The Mysterious Origins of King Tutankhamen’s Space Rock Dagger Just Got Clearer
23rd February 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Humans, Tech

You may already know the legend of King Tutankhamen’s space dagger – an iron weapon forged from the rock of meteorites, and entombed with the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Now a new study has revealed more details about this most fascinating and mysterious of artifacts

Earth’s crust ‘tilted’ under ice sheets to create ancient megafloods
18th February 2022 | independent.co.uk | Ancient, Earth

Retreating ice at the end of the last ice age created bewildering landscape of gulleys, plateaus and dry waterfalls which have long puzzled geologists studying their formation

The Biggest Galaxy Ever Found Has Just Been Discovered, And It Will Break Your Brain
17th February 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Space

Astronomers have just found an absolute monster of a galaxy. Lurking some 3 billion light-years away, Alcyoneus is a giant radio galaxy reaching 5 megaparsecs into space. That’s 16.3 million light-years long, and constitutes the largest known structure of galactic origin.

Early findings from HERA telescope promise deeper understanding of the cosmic dawn
14th February 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Space, Tech

All through history, humans have created and shared stories that ponder the creation of stars—what they are and how the first stars came to be.

The 5,000-year-old human bone found in the River Thames
14th February 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Humans

Lying on the pebbles and rocks of the riverbed at low tide was a human femur, or upper leg bone.

Lines written by ‘naughty pupils’ among 18,000 ancient pottery fragments found in Egypt
11th February 2022 edition.cnn.com | Ancient, Humans

The 2,000-year-old fragments also included receipts, school texts, trade information and lists of names, according to researchers at Germany’s University of Tübingen, which carried out the excavation.

Image from Encyclopædia Britannica (Wiki Commons)

Prehistoric drum is top ancient find: British Museum
11th February 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

The 5,000-year-old drum carved from chalk is set to go on display for the first time in a major exhibition about the Neolithic site of Stonehenge and its historical context.

Researcher develops Google for archaeologists
10th February 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Humans, Tech

An incredible quantity of archaeological reports are stored in digital archives. If you want to search for information in them, you have to do this manually. And that is a real chore.

Neanderthal extinction not caused by brutal wipe out
10th February 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Humans

New fossils are challenging ideas that modern humans wiped out Neanderthals soon after arriving from Africa.

Did an exploding comet help end an ancient Native American culture?
7th February 2022 | washingtonpost.com | Ancient, Humans

Experts think the violent blast incinerated Hopewell settlements in what is now Ohio.

Image from:File:Map of Muskingum County Ohio With Municipal and Township Labels.PNG (Wiki Commons)

Earth’s Ancient ‘Supermountains’ May Have Been Crucial For Life as We Know It
7th February 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth

Once, there were giants. Mountain ranges that rivaled the Himalayas in height used to stretch thousands upon thousands of kilometers across the seams of merging supercontinents, billions of years in the past.

This may be one of the oldest Buddhist temples ever discovered
3rd February 2022 | livescience.com | Ancient, Humans

An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearthed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan — part of the ancient Gandhara region that was conquered by Alexander the Great and gave rise to a mixing of Buddhist belief and Greek art.

Prehistoric human vertebra discovered in the Jordan Valley tells the story of migration from Africa
3rd February 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

A new study led by researchers from Bar-Ilan University, Ono Academic College, The University of Tulsa and the Israel Antiquities Authority presents a 1.5 million-year-old human vertebra discovered in Israel’s Jordan Valley.

Rare Breed of Ancient Trees With Incredible Lifespans Help Keep Their Forests Alive
3rd February 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Earth

The venerable elders of a forest are hugely important to the diversity, fitness, and survival of the woodland as a whole, new research shows – and they bring with them a hardiness and experience in dealing with change, as well as a lifetime of ecological interactions preserved in their immediate surrounds..

Woolly mammoth and other Ice Age remains found in Devon
3rd February 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

The remains of a woolly mammoth have been found among a host of hugely significant Ice Age animal remains in a cave in Devon, experts have said.

News stories covering history, archaeology, ancient Egypt, and mysteries of the past.