Archaeology
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ArchaeologyOld legend dies hard
People who first entered King Tutankhamen's tomb did not suffer from a legendary curse but instead lived long lives.
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ArchaeologyNeandertals’ diet put meat in their bones
Chemical analyses of Neandertals' bones portray these ancient Europeans as skillful hunters and avid meat eaters, countering a theory that they mainly scavenged scraps of meat from abandoned carcasses.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyDigging into Ancient Texts
For both scholars and amateur archaeologists, the Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative Web site offers fascinating glimpses of a distant past. Visitors can view images of thousands of carefully catalogued cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia. The texts include early creation myths, legal codes, medical prescriptions, and recipes for beer. Many are more mundane–ledgers, deeds, receipts, and lists […]
By Science News -
ArchaeologyAncient origins of fire use
Human ancestors may have learned to control fire 1.7 million years ago in eastern Africa.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyGuard dogs and horse riders
More than 5,000 years ago, the Botai people of central Asia had ritual practices that appeared in many later cultures.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyMaya warfare takes 10 steps forward
The discovery of hieroglyphic-covered steps on the side of a Maya pyramid has yielded new information about warfare between two competing city-states around 1,500 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyEarly New World Settlers Rise in East
New evidence supports the view that people occupied a site in coastal Virginia at least 15,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyVisit Ancient Corinth
Hosted at the University of Pennsylvania, this elaborate, regularly updated Web site features historical, literary, and archaeological information about the ancient Roman colony of Corinth in Greece. Browser plug-ins allow you to fly through the city, traverse digital maps, and view three-dimensional models of various structures. Go to: http://corinth.sas.upenn.edu
By Science News -
ArchaeologyCould the Anasazi have stayed?
New computer simulations of the changing environmental conditions around one of the Anasazi cultural centers in the first part of the last millennium suggest that drought wasn't the only factor behind a sudden collapse of the civilization.
By Sid Perkins -
ArchaeologyAncient Asian Tools Crossed the Line
Excavations in China yield surprising finds of 800,000-year-old stone hand axes.
By Bruce Bower -
ArchaeologyVase shows that ancients dug fossils, too
A painting on an ancient Corinthian vase may be the first record of a fossil find.
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ArchaeologyAncient birth brick emerges in Egypt
Investigations at a 3,700-year-old Egyptian town have yielded a painted brick that was used in childbirth rituals.
By Bruce Bower