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The 257 fossil footprints were found in a coastal creek bed in Le Rozel in northern France. They were made around 80,000 years ago and preserved in sandy mud. Most of the footprints were from children and may show that Neanderthals could have been taller than previously thought. "The discovery of so many Neanderthal footprints at one site is extraordinary," says Isabelle de Groote at Liverpool John Moores University, who was not involved with the study. Before this, only nine Neanderthal footprints were known, from 4 different sites, says Jérémy Duveau of the MuséumNational d'Histoire Naturelle in France, who led...

But the black rectangle, which measures about 7 inches (18 centimeters) long and around 4 inches (9 cm) wide, is no electronics accessory; it's an ancient belt buckle made of jet — a gemstone made from pressurized wood — inlaid with small beads of mother-of-pearl, carnelian and turquoise, The Siberian Times reported. Scientists with the Institute for the History of Material Culture at the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) found the object in a woman's grave, where it lay upon the skeleton's pelvis. The researchers nicknamed the woman "Natasha" and dubbed the artifact "Natasha's iPhone," according to The Siberian Times....

(CNN) — Archeologists in Peru have uncovered the remains of around 250 children sacrificed by the pre-Columbian Chimú civilization. The remains are of children aged 4-12 years old, as well as 40 warriors, sacrificed between the 13th and 15th centuries, according to a video from Peruvian state media agency Andina. The Chimú civilization inhabited northern Peru before they were conquered by the Inca. They built Chan Chan, the largest city in pre-Columbian South America.

Something was amiss at the ruins of Iglesia Colorada, an ancient Incan village in the foothills of the Andes. In the remains of what had been a garbage dump, among ancient food scraps and shards of discarded pottery, researchers discovered four skulls. No bodies, no formal burial, no jewelry to carry on to an afterlife — just the skulls. No one knew why they were there. For over 15 years, since the skulls were uncovered in 2003, the mystery has baffled archaeologists. But two researchers at the National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, Chile, have proposed an explanation: The...

The 2nd and 3rd millennia BC are known to have been a period of significant migrations in western Europe, including the movement of steppe populations into more temperate regions. Starting around 1600 BC, southern Scandinavia became closely linked to long-distance metal trade elsewhere in Europe, which gave rise to a Nordic Bronze Age and a period of significant wealth in the region of present-day Denmark... Frei and colleagues... examined skeletal remains of 88 individuals from 37 localities across present-day Denmark. Since strontium isotopes in tooth enamel can record geographic signatures from an early age, analysis of such isotopes was used...

A large-scale study conducted by an international team of scientists has revealed that the mysterious skeletons of Roopkund Lake - once thought to have died during a single catastrophic event - belong to genetically highly distinct groups that died in multiple periods in at least two episodes separated by one thousand years... Situated at over 5000 meters above sea-level in the Himalayan Mountains of India, Roopkund Lake has long puzzled researchers due to the presence of skeletal remains from several hundred ancient humans, scattered in and around the lake's shores, earning it the nickname Skeleton Lake or Mystery Lake... Whole...

New research published today in the journal Parasitology shows how the prehistoric inhabitants of a settlement in the freshwater marshes of eastern England were infected by intestinal worms caught from foraging for food in the lakes and waterways around their homes. The Bronze Age settlement at Must Farm, located near what is now the fenland city of Peterborough, consisted of wooden houses built on stilts above the water. Wooden causeways connected islands in the marsh, and dugout canoes were used to travel along water channels. The village burnt down in a catastrophic fire around 3,000 years ago, with artefacts from...

Lead author Professor Nicholas Saunders, from Bristol's Department of Anthropology and Archaeology, said: "A number of studies have recently begun to re-interpret the remains and ours provides a new analysis. "The goods found with the remains are a mix of foreign (non-Czech) items, such as the sword, axe and fire striker (a common piece of Viking equipment), and domestic objects, such as the bucket and the knives. "The sword is especially unique as it is the only one discovered in 1,500 early medieval graves so far found in Prague Castle. "Perhaps he was a Slav from a neighbouring region, who...

The team who worked on the Stonehenge Riverside Project in 2009 are to return to their findings to explain the eating habits of the people who built and worshipped at the stone circle over four thousand years ago... the new 'Feeding Stonehenge' project will analyse a range of materials including cattle bones and plant residue... Initial research suggests the animals were brought considerable distances to the ceremonial site.. The original Stonehenge Riverside project, which strengthened the idea that nearby Durrington Walls was part of the Stonehenge complex, yielded a surprisingly wide range of material ranging from ancient tools to animal...

And although the burial mound is much older than the Druids — who lived about 2,000 years ago, if they existed at all — the excavations have cast new light on the ancient inhabitants of the island of Anglesey. Overlooking the Irish Sea from the northwest corner of Wales, Anglesey is dotted with numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments. The most famous is the 5,000-year-old passage tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu (Welsh for "the mound in the dark grove"), which has an entrance passage that aligns with the rising midsummer sun. It was archaeologically excavated in 1928 and 1929,...

A toothless skull was all that researchers had of one of Scotland's oldest known Druids, but now they have something more: a wax re-creation of her face, showcasing her gnarled wrinkles and seeming intense determination. The Druid woman, nicknamed Hilda, lived during the Iron Age. An anatomical analysis suggests that Hilda made it into her 60s, an impressive feat because most women from that region and time lived only until their early 30s, said Karen Fleming, a forensic art and facial identification master's student at the University of Dundee in Scotland.

Recent evidence that Druids possibly committed cannibalism and ritual human sacrifice—perhaps on a massive scale—add weight to ancient Roman accounts of Druidic savagery, archaeologists say.After a first century B.C. visit to Britain, the Romans came back with horrific stories about these high-ranking priests of the Celts, who had spread throughout much of Europe over a roughly 2,000-year period.

A group of militant Druids has forced an expensive official inquiry after demanding that a museum releases a 4,000-year-old skeleton called 'Charlie' so they can rebury it. They claim the bones of a young girl and seven other sets of prehistoric remains excavated near the ancient stone circle in Avebury, Wiltshire, are their 'tribal ancestors'. If their claim is rejected, they have threatened to take a test case to the High Court under the Human Rights Act. The row has triggered two years of meetings and reports by state-funded English Heritage and the charity The National Trust, which have been...

Druid Grave Unearthed in U.K.? Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News Digging for History Feb. 11, 2008 -- Historical records tell of a mystical, priestly and learned class of elite individuals called Druids among Celtic societies in Britain, but there has been no archaeological evidence of their existence. Until, perhaps, now. A series of graves found in a gravel quarry at Stanway near Colchester, Essex, have been dated to 40-60 A.D. At least one of the burials, it appears, may have been that of a Druid, according to a report published in British Archaeology. Mike Pitts, the journal's editor and an archaeologist,...

New excavations near the mysterious circle at Stonehenge in South England have uncovered dozens of homes where hundreds of people lived -- at roughly the same time 4,600 years ago that the giant stone slabs were being erected. The finding strongly suggests that the monument and the settlement nearby were a center for ceremonial activities, with Stonehenge likely a burial site while other nearby circular earthen "henges" were areas for feasts and festivals. The houses found buried beneath the grounds of the Stonehenge World Heritage Site are the first of their kind from that late Stone Age period in Britain,...

Stonehenge druids 'mark wrong solstice' By Charles Clover, Environment Editor (Filed: 21/06/2005) Modern-day druids, hippies and revellers who turn up at Stonehenge to celebrate the summer solstice may not be marking an ancient festival as they believe. The latest archaeological findings add weight to growing evidence that our ancestors visited Stonehenge to celebrate the winter solstice. Analysis of pigs's teeth found at Durrington Walls, a ceremonial site of wooden post circles near Stonehenge on the River Avon, has shown that most pigs were less than a year old when slaughtered. Dr Umburto Albarella, an animal bone expert at the University...

LONDON (Reuters) - The construction of one of the country's most famous ancient landmarks, the towering megaliths at Stonehenge in southern England, might have been supervised by the Swiss, or maybe even the Germans. Archaeologists studying the remains of a wealthy archer found in a 4,000-year-old grave exhumed near Stonehenge last year said on Monday he was originally from the Alps region, probably modern-day Switzerland, Austria or Germany. "He would have been a very important person in the Stonehenge area and it is fascinating to think that someone from abroad -- probably modern-day Switzerland -- could have played an important...

Where is the grave of Revolutionary War hero Captain Margaret Corbin? BY STRANGEREMAINS on JULY 4, 2018 A contractor tasked with constructing a new retaining wall for the Molly Corbin Enhancement Project at the West Point Cemetery disturbed Corbin’s burial in October of 2016. Captain Margaret “Molly” Corbin is the Revolutionary War hero who took over her husband’s canon when he was killed during the Battle of Fort Washington. She is considered one of the inspirations for folk hero Molly Pitcher. The bones recovered from Corbin’s grave were analyzed by a forensic anthropologist and the results surprised a lot of...

Bonn scientists shed light on the dark secret of Queen Hatshepsut's flaconThe corpus delicti is a plain flacon from among the possessions of Pharaoh Hatshepsut, who lived around 1450 B.C., which is on exhibit in the permanent collection of the Egyptian Museum of the University of Bonn. For three and a half millennia, the vessel may have held a deadly secret. This is what the Head of the collection, Michael Höveler-Müller and Dr. Helmut Wiedenfeld from the university's Pharmacology Institute just discovered. After two years of research it is now clear that the flacon did not hold a perfume; instead,...

Archaeologists working in the buried Roman city of Pompeii say they have uncovered a "sorcerer's treasure trove" of artefacts, including good-luck charms, mirrors and glass beads. A room with the bodies of 10 victims, including women and children, was excavated in the same house. Pompeii was engulfed by a volcanic eruption from Mt Vesuvius in AD 79. The fatal eruption froze the city and its residents in time, making it a rich source for archaeologists. The trove was found in what remained of a wooden box. The wood itself had decomposed and only the bronze hinges remained, preserved by the...