Archaeology
- Archaeology
Greeks followed a celestial Olympics
A Greek gadget discovered more than a century ago in a 2,100-year-old shipwreck not only tracked the motion of heavenly bodies and predicted eclipses, but also functioned as a sophisticated calendar and mapped the four-year cycle of the ancient Greek Olympics.
- Archaeology
From Science News Letter, August 2, 1958
PORCUPINES GNAWED ON STONE AGE MAN’S TOOLS — Razor sharp edges on some of the bone chisels of Middle Stone Age man in Africa were found to have been put there by the needle-sharp front teeth of porcupines, Dr. Raymond A. Dart of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, reports. But the fact […]
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- Archaeology
Green reapers
Agriculture's rise sparked widespread use of green stone beads as fertility charms and as protection against supernatural forces, scientists propose.
- Archaeology
Resurrection of a biblical tree
Date palm pit found at Masada sprouts at age 2,000, becoming the oldest known seed to germinate.
- Archaeology
Acrobat’s last tumble
Sacrificial offerings in an ancient Mesopotamian building included a beheaded acrobat, a new skeletal analysis suggests.
- Archaeology
Domain of the dead
Researchers say that Stonehenge functioned as the largest cemetery of its time.
- Archaeology
Footprints in the ash
Humans may have been walking around what is now central Mexico 40,000 years ago.
- Archaeology
Peruvian site yields a golden discovery
The discovery of a 4,000-year-old gold necklace in Peru suggests that social elites and economic growth appeared in a surprisingly simple society.
- Archaeology
Zeus’ altar drew early visitors
Archaeologists have discovered evidence that people used a ceremonial altar to the ancient Greek god Zeus around 5,000 years ago, a millennium before Zeus worship originated.
- Archaeology
The Black Death chose its victims selectively
An analysis of medieval skeletons in England and Denmark finds that the devastating epidemic known as the Black Death killed excess numbers of people who were physically frail to begin with.
- Archaeology
Dawn of the City
A research team has excavated huge public structures from more than 6,000 years ago in northeastern Syria, challenging the notion that the world's first cities arose in the so-called fertile crescent of what's now southern Iraq.
