Archaeology
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ArchaeologyRoman gladiator school digitally rebuilt
Imaging techniques unveil a 1,900-year-old Roman gladiators’ training center that’s buried beneath a site in Austria.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyFire used regularly for cooking for 300,000 years
Israeli cave yields a fireplace where Stone Age crowd may have cooked up social change.
By Bruce Bower -
HumansClovis baby’s genome unveils Native American ancestry
DNA from skeleton shows all tribes come from a single population.
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ArchaeologyNearly 1-million-year-old European footprints found
Erosion temporarily unveils remnants of a Stone Age stroll along England’s coast.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyStone Age fishing spear found on Southeast Asian island
Notched piece of bone found near Indonesia illustrates surprisingly complex tool making 35,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyAfter 2,000 years, Ptolemy’s war elephants are revealed
A genetic study sheds light on world’s only known battle between Asian and African elephants.
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AnthropologySkulls from ancient London suggest ritual decapitations
The city’s Roman rulers had special watery places to keep the heads of military enemies or vanquished gladiators.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyAnimal mummies were a message direct to the gods
A new theory about the purpose of animals mummified by ancient Egyptians proposes that the cats, ibises and other dead critters were more than just simple sacrifices.
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HumansYear in Review: New discoveries reshape debate over human ancestry
Human evolution appears poised for a scientific makeover as the relationships among early hominids are disputed.
By Bruce Bower -
AnimalsChina trumps Near East for signs of most ancient farm cats
Earliest evidence found for grain as a force in feline domestication.
By Susan Milius -
ArchaeologyEaster Island’s farmers cultivated social resilience, not collapse
A Polynesian society often presumed to have self-destructed shows signs of having carried on instead.
By Bruce Bower