How Studying Mummies Could Cure Modern Diseases
How Studying Mummies Could Cure Modern Diseases Earlier this year, scientists published a study of whole-body CT scans of 137 mummies: ancient Egyptians and Peruvians, ancestral Puebloans of southwest America, and Unangan hunter-gatherers of the Aleutian Islands. They reported signs of atherosclerosis—a dangerous artery hardening that can lead to heart attacks or stroke—in 34 per …
93-Million-Year-Old Killer Crocodile Discovered With a Baby Dinosaur in Its Stomach
93-Million-Year-Old “Killer” Crocodile Discovered With a Baby Dinosaur in Its Stomach Advanced nuclear and synchrotron imaging has confirmed that a 93-million-year-old crocodile found in Central Queensland devoured a juvenile dinosaur based on remains found in the fossilized stomach contents. The discovery of the fossils in 2010 was made by the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum …
Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years
Lavish Roman mosaic is biggest found in London for 50 years Archaeologists have uncovered the largest area of Roman mosaic found in London for more than half a century. The two highly decorated panels feature large, colourful flowers, geometric patterns and elaborate motifs in a style unique to the capital. It is thought it once …
Prehistoric Site in Portugal Yields 350-Year-Old Remains
Prehistoric Site in Portugal Yields 350-Year-Old Remains An African man who lived just 350 years ago was buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. This was very surprising because Amoreira and other midden sites in the Muge region are well known by archaeologists for the cemeteries of the last hunter-gatherers living in …
Inscribed Medieval Gold Brooch Recovered in England
Inscribed Medieval Gold Brooch Recovered in England A metal detectorist has discovered a medieval gold brooch with a series of Latin and Hebrew inscriptions. The artefact, found in Wiltshire in the U.K., may have mixed religion and magic in an attempt to give its user protection against illness or supernatural events. The Latin inscriptions translate …
Palau’s green pyramids: could be a geo-archaeological project
Palau’s green pyramids: could be a geo-archaeological project According to oral tradition, a huge serpent wound around the hills on the Palauan island and created the terraces with her body. But how did the monumental earthworks on Babeldaob really come about? Researchers from the Insтιтute for Ecosystem Research at Kiel University (CAU), in collaboration with …
Archaeologists puzzled how ‘big clue’ over Cerne Abbas Giant’s age was missed
Archaeologists puzzled how ‘big clue’ over Cerne Abbas Giant’s age was missed Carved into the hillside of rural Dorset is a 55-metre tall naked man wielding a huge club in his right hand. With an 11-metre erection on full display, he is England’s largest and rudest chalk hill figure. Situated near the village of Cerne …
Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert
Archaeologists find a 9,000-year-old shrine in the Jordan desert 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 ritual complex was found in a Neolithic campsite near large structures known as “desert kites,” or mᴀss traps that …
Ancient Hunting Blinds Found in Norway
Ancient Hunting Blinds Found in Norway If you want to kill a reindeer with a bow and arrow you have to get as close to the animal as you possibly can. You probably can’t be further away than 10-20 metres. Which is difficult, with an animal that will flee at the smallest sound or movement. …
Fossil child skull from 2.2 million years ago reveals how humans outsmarted the other great apes
Fossil child skull from 2.2 million years ago reveals how humans outsmarted the other great apes A fossil more than two million years old could help explain why man became so brainy. The Taung fossil, an early hominid that was discovered in South Africa in 1924, was a significant feature that could shed light on …