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Prehistoric Boy May Be Native American 'Missing Link' LiveScience.com By By Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience ContributorFebruary 12, 2014 A prehistoric boy's DNA now suggests that ancient toolmakers long thought of as the first Americans may serve as a kind of "missing link" between Native Americans and the rest of the world, researchers say. The findings reveal these prehistoric toolmakers are the direct ancestors of many contemporary Native Americans, and are closely related to all Native Americans. Scientists investigated a prehistoric culture known as the Clovis, named after sites discovered near Clovis, N.M. Centuries of cold, nicknamed the "Big Freeze," helped...

Scientists Find 800,000-Year-Old Footprints Inn UK (Update) Jill LawlessFebuary 7, 2014Undated handout photo issued by the British Museum Friday Feb. 7, 2014 of some of the human footprints, thought to be more than 800,000 years old, found in silt on the beach at Happisburgh on the Norfolk coast of England, with a camera lens …They were a British family on a day out—almost a million years ago. Archaeologists announced Friday that they have discovered human footprints in England that are between 800,000 and 1 million years old—the most ancient found outside Africa, and the earliest evidence of human life in...

TORONTO — Archaeologists working near the ancient settlement of Edfu, in southern Egypt, have uncovered a step pyramid that dates back about 4,600 years, predating the Great Pyramid of Giza by at least a few decades.

Here's What Happened When Neanderthals And Ancient Humans Hooked Up 80,000 Years Ago Dina Spector Jan. 29, 2014, 1:49 PM     Neanderthal REUTERS/Nikola Solic Hyperrealistic face of a neanderthal male is displayed in a cave in the new Neanderthal Museum in the northern Croatian town of Krapina February 25, 2010 By comparing the Neanderthal genome to modern human DNA, the authors of two new studies, both published on Wednesday, show how DNA that humans have inherited from breeding with Neanderthals has shaped us. Modern humans, Neanderthals, and their sister lineage, Denisovans, descended from a common ancestor. The...

Alexander the Great built a legendary empire before his untimely—and mysterious—death at the age of just 32 in 323 BC. Some historians argued was death was due to natural causes, while others maintained he was secretly murdered at a celebratory banquet. Now, an Otago University scientist may have unraveled the case some 2,000 years later. National Poisons Center toxicologist Dr. Leo Schep thinks the culprit could be poisonous wine made from an innocuous-looking plant, according to a report in the New Zealand Herald. […] His research, co-authored by Otago University classics expert Dr. Pat Wheatley and published in the medical...

Ancient Humans Had Sex With A Mystery Species Stephanie Pappas Live Science Dec. 4, 2013, 3:33 PM A new, improved sequencing of ancient human relative genomes reveals that Homo sapiens didn't only have sex with Neanderthals and a little-understood line of humans called Denisovans. A fourth, mystery lineage of humans was in the mix, too. As reported by the news arm of the journal Nature, new genetic evidence suggests that several hominids — human relatives closer than humans' current living cousin, the chimpanzee — interbred more than 30,000 years ago. This group of kissing cousins included an unknown human ancestor...

Italian archaeologists have unearthed a 2,600-year-old intact Etruscan tomb that promises to reveal new depths of one of the ancient world’s most fascinating and mysterious cultures.

An Incredible New Skull Is Forcing Us To Rethink The Evolution Of Early Humans Dina Spector Oct. 17, 2013, 2:01 PM Photo courtesy of Georgian National Museum A 1.8-million-year-old skull combines a small braincase with a long face and large teeth, which is unlike any other Homo fossils on record. Researchers have traditionally used differences among fossilized remains of ancient humans to define separate species among the earliest members of our Homo genus — Homo erectus, Homo habilis, and Homo rudolfensis, for example. But an amazing new skull found in a republic of Georgia suggests that the specimens previously representing...

Scientists Have Found An Ancient Fossilized Mosquito Full Of Blood Jennifer Welsh Oct. 14, 2013, 5:37 PMBlood engorged mosquito Researchers have just published an exciting find: a 46-million-year-old mosquito full of blood. Next stop "Jurassic Park"? Not so fast. The find is really interesting because it's the first example of blood-feeding in these ancient insects. We hadn't had clear evidence of when this began until now. They found the mosquito in shale sediments in Montana. They first found the presence of iron in the female mosquito's belly, then used a non-destructive technique to study the molecules inside the find. They...

<p>A 4,000-year-old human brain, preserved by a combination of mineral-rich soil, fire and something known as "corpse wax," has been found in Turkey.</p> <p>The brain looks more like a piece of burned log, notes New Scientist, but it could unlock clues to the prehistoric mind. Found in the Bronze Age settlement of Seyitömer Höyük, western Turkey, the tissue was amid four skeletons dug up there between 2006 and 2011. Scientists from Haliç University, in Istanbul, who have been analyzing the brain, say special circumstances led to its preservation. The skeletons were found burned in a layer of sediment that also contained charred wood. It appears that an earthquake struck the region, flattened the settlement and buried the people before fire spread through the rubble, according to investigators.</p>

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on Saturday brought home a 2,700-year-old Persian artifact the US administration gave him as "a special gift" to Iranians, media reports said. "The Americans contacted us on Thursday and said 'we have a gift for you'," Rouhani told reporters upon arrival at the airport in Tehran, the ILNA news agency reported. "They gave it back as a special gift to the Iranian nation." Rouhani was speaking of a 7th century BC silver Persian drinking cup in the shape of a winged Griffin, a legendary creature with the head of an eagle and body of a lion....

Buried under soil for hundreds of years, the goddess of love and beauty has some chipping on her nose and face. Researchers think her presence could shed light on the extent of the Roman Empire's wide cultural influence at the time of its peak. Archaeologists found the sculpture while working at a site called Antiochia ad Cragum (Antioch on the cliffs), on the Mediterranean coast. The researchers believe the region, which is dotted with hidden inlets and coves, would have been a haven for Cilician pirates — the same group who kidnapped Julius Caesar and held him for ransom around...

More than 1,000 Egyptian artifacts have been stolen from the Mallawi museum, which was ransacked the same day police violently dispersed Islamist sit-ins in Cairo. The museum was looted and ransacked on Aug. 14, when mobs across the country attacked churches, Christian homes and shops, police stations, and government institutions after police forcefully dispersed two Islamist protest camps. The devastated museum serves as a reminder of the toll that Egypt's two and a half years of upheaval – including the most recent episode – have taken not only on Egypt's people, but also on their history.

Researchers have shown that ancient Egyptian iron beads held at the UCL Petrie Museum were hammered from pieces of meteorites, rather than iron ore. The objects, which trace their origins to outer space, also predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being rolled into tubes, the nine beads – which are over 5000 years-old - were originally strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic material in ancient times. The study is published in the Journal of Archaeological Science....

Archaeologists have unearthed a mysterious coffin-within-a-coffin near the final resting place of Richard III. The University of Leicester team lifted the lid of a medieval stone coffin this week – the final week of their second dig at the Grey Friars site, where the medieval king was discovered in September. This is the first fully intact stone coffin to be discovered in Leicester in controlled excavations – and is believed to contain one of the friary's founders or a medieval monk. Within the stone coffin, they found an inner lead coffin – and will need to carry out further analysis...

New Fossil Book Won't Showcase Obvious Catastrophe by Brian Thomas, M.S. * Not just horses and fish, but—like a whole ancient zoo buried together—lizards, alligators, stingrays, snakes, squirrel varieties, bats, long-tailed turtles, lemur-like primates, birds, frogs, insects, and sycamore, palm, and fern leaves were all fossilized in Wyoming's Green River Formation. A new book showcasing some of the more spectacular fossils provides secularists another opportunity to reinforce their ideas about how these diverse creatures were encased in what became a giant rock formation. Commonsense observations refute their slow-and-gradual scenario, however, and point to a more violent explanation. Lance Grande collected...

Drum Castle, the seat of the Chief of Clan Irvine for centuries, has the oldest keep in Scotland and is the oldest intact building in the care of the trust. The trust is planning to bring in specialists to remove cement pointing on the ancient tower and replace it with traditional, breathable lime mortar to help preserve the historic keep. And the hidden chamber -- complete with its medieval toilet -- was uncovered while initial archaeological investigations were being conducted by Dr Jonathan Clark from FAS Heritage. Dr Clark...: "We were surprised that when we carefully unblocked the windows and...

Reuters) - Archaeologists in Peru on Thursday said they have unearthed a massive royal tomb full of mummified women that provides clues about the enigmatic Wari empire that ruled the Andes long before their better-known Incan successors. "For the first time in the history of archeology in Peru we have found an imperial tomb that belongs to the Wari empire and culture," lead archeologist Milosz Giersz said. Researchers said the discovery will help them piece together life in the Andes centuries before the rise of the Incan empire, which was written about in detail by the conquering Spaniards. The mausoleum,...

The massive circular structure appears to be an archaeologist's dream: a recently discovered antiquity that could reveal secrets of ancient life in the Middle East and is just waiting to be excavated. It's thousands of years old -- a conical, manmade behemoth weighing hundreds of tons, practically begging to be explored. The problem is -- it's at the bottom of the biblical Sea of Galilee. For now, at least, Israeli researchers are left stranded on dry land, wondering what finds lurk below. The monumental structure, made of boulders and stones with a diameter of 230 feet, emerged from a routine...

The Real 'Hobbit' Had Larger Brain Than Thought Charles Choi, LiveScience Contributor Date: 16 April 2013 Time: 07:01 PM ETThe hobbit, Homo floresiensis, lived on the island of Flores some 18,000 years ago, and now researchers have more evidence (its relatively large brain) the diminutive creature was a unique human species. The brain of the extinct "hobbit" was bigger than often thought, researchers say. These findings add to evidence that the hobbit was a unique species of humans after all, not a deformed modern human, scientists added. The 18,000-year-old fossils of the extinct type of human officially known as Homo...