Ancient news stories

Life will find a way: could scientists make Jurassic Park a reality?
21st June 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans, Weird

What Alida Bailleul saw through the microscope made no sense. She was examining thin sections of fossilised skull from a young hadrosaur, a duck-billed, plant-eating beast that roamed what is now Montana 75m years ago, when she spotted features that made her draw a breath.

Stonehenge summer solstice: Thousands welcome back celebrations
21st June 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Earth, Humans

More than 6,000 people have gathered to watch the sunrise at Stonehenge for the summer solstice. It is the first time since the pandemic that the stone circles in Salisbury and Avebury have been open to the public for the event.

 

Ancient Maya installed gemstones in their teeth. It wasn’t just fashion.
20th June 2022 bigthink.com | Ancient, Humans

The ancient Maya enjoyed filling their teeth with gemstones. A new study reveals how the procedure was done and how it didn’t kill them.

Incredible New Maps of Asteroid Psyche Reveal an Ancient World of Metal and Rock
20th June 2022 scitechdaily.com | Ancient, Humans, Space, Tech

The varied surface of asteroid Psyche suggests a dynamic history, which could include metallic eruptions, asteroid-shaking impacts, and a lost rocky mantle.

Dig uncovers human life on Scots isle 3,000 years earlier than thought
20th June 2022 news.stv.tv | Ancient, Humans

Items found during an archaeological dig near Stornoway have revealed people lived there thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

 

Image from: Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) (Wiki Commons)

Ancient skull reveals how all brown bears carry genes of polar cousin
18th June 2022 | independent.co.uk | Ancient, Animal Life

All brown bears today have some polar bear ancestry due to genetic mixing more than 100,000 years ago.

Chinese fossils show human middle ear evolved from fish gills
18th June 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Embryonic and fossil evidence proves that the human middle ear evolved from the spiracle of fishes. However, the origin of the vertebrate spiracle has long been an unsolved mystery in vertebrate evolution.

Ancient Humans Tamed Fire as Early as 1 Million Years Ago, Study Suggests
18th June 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Humans

Mastering fire cleared the way into whole new worlds for early humans – from accessing more nutrients through cooking (fueling an increase in brain size), to making the dark hours useful, and surviving migrations into harsher climates.

Ipswich mammoth teeth DNA to be sampled
13th June 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Mammoth teeth dating from 200,000 years ago are to be tested in the hope DNA samples can be found to reveal more about the creatures.

Turkish hilltop where civilisation began
12th June 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Humans

On a sun-blasted hillside in southeast Turkey, the world’s oldest known religious sanctuary is slowly giving up its secrets.

Pre-historic Wallacea: A melting pot of human genetic ancestries
10th June 2022 phys.org | Ancient, Earth, Humans

The Wallacean islands have always been separated from Asia and Oceania by deep-sea waters. Yet, these tropical islands were a corridor for modern humans migrating into the Pleistocene Australia-New Guinea landmass (Sahul) and have been home to modern human groups for at least 47,000 years.

An Ultra-Rare Cosmic Object Was Just Detected in The Milky Way, Astronomers Report
10th June 2022 | sciencealert.com | Ancient, Space, Weird

A new member of a category of star so rare we can count the known number of them on our fingers and toes has just been discovered in the Milky Way.

Rep Jamie Raskin has compared modern-day America to ancient civilisations that “practiced human sacrifice”
10th June 2022 | independent.co.uk | Ancient, Humans, Misc.

“In the history of our species, a number of civilians have practiced or allowed human sacrifice including the sacrifice of children,” he said.

“The Carthaginians, the Mesopotamians, the Incas, the Aztecs,” he listed.

“Will we be recorded as such as society that accepts the sacrifice of innocence?”

Image from Wiki Commons

65,000 year-old ‘Swiss Army knife’ proves ancient humans shared knowledge, research says
10th June 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Humans

A 65,000-year-old tool – a kind of ancient Swiss Army knife – found across southern Africa has provided scientists with proof that the ancestors of modern homo sapiens were communicating with each other.

Pembrokeshire: Was unearthed Roman road used to trade Irish gold?
7th June 2022 | bbc.co.uk | Ancient, Humans

An ancient Roman route found in Pembrokeshire could be the real “golden road” of the Preseli hills.

Chickens were first tempted down from trees by rice, research suggests
7th June 2022 | theguardian.com | Ancient, Animal Life, Humans

Close human contact only started about 3,500 years ago and birds were initially venerated, find archaeologists.

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