World’s Oldest Shoes: Some Look Surprisingly Modern More than 700 years ago today, on May 20, 1310, shoes were made for the first time for both right and left feet. Before that, unfortunately, they weren’t. Archaeologists have discovered several very old shoes in many parts of the world. Some of the shoes are thousands of …

Scientists Reconstruct Face Of 16th Century Italian ‘Vampire’ Buried With Brick In Mouth A 16th-century ‘vampire‘ who was buried with a stone brick jammed in her mouth over fears she would feed on corpses underground has had her face reconstructed by scientists. A facial reconstruction expert reconstructed the features of the female corpse discovered in …

New study: Human brains preserve in diverse environments for at least 12 000 years A study by forensic anthropologist Alexandra Morton-Hayward and her team from the University of Oxford has shown that the human brain can survive the test of time far better than previously believed. This finding shows that human brains are surprisingly resistant …

World’s Oldest Unopened Bottle of Wine Remains Sealed Since the 4th Century The origin of man’s wine romance seems to predate written history because no one is really sure when people began to get drunk. Archaeology may not be aware of the exact date that people first began growing grapevines, but the theory is that …

A new study provides evidence that modern humans, coexisted in the same region with Neanderthals for thousands of years A genetic analysis of bone fragments excavated from an archaeological site in Ranis, Germany provides conclusive evidence that modern humans – Homo sapiens – had reached northern Europe around 45,000 years ago. This dates modern humans …

Between 23 and 34 million years old, the well preserved praying mantis was found in amber In a remarkable natural process, insects and even mammals can be preserved in time for all eternity by becoming encased in tree sap that eventually turns into amber. In the hit movie Jurᴀssic Park, a scientific character was able …

Analysis of ancient Scythian leather samples shows two were made from human skin A multi-insтιтutional team of anthropologists has discovered that two pieces of ancient Scythian leather excavated at sites in Ukraine were made from human skin. In their project, reported on the open-access site PLOS ONE, the group tested an account by the Greek historian Herodotus regarding …

Lost ‘Woolly Dog’ Genetics Highlight Indigenous Science “Woolly dogs” that were kept by the Coast Salish peoples are now extinct, but researchers were able to see their importance written in the genome of the only known pelt. For millennia before Europeans colonized what is now called the Pacific Northwest, small, fluffy, white “woolly dogs,” known …

Our Ancestors Collected Shells 100,000 Years Ago To Create Personal Idenтιтy Scientists have found evidence suggesting the ancient use of ochre in Africa and Europe indicates that body painting, clothing decoration, and tattooing may date back to more than 300,00 years ago, or perhaps even 500,000 years ago. But when did our ancestors start showing …