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Ötzi’s human genome was decoded from a hip bone sample taken from the 5,300 year old mummy. However the tiny sample weighing no more than 0.1 g provides so much more information. A team of scientists analyzed the non-human DNA in the sample. They found evidence for the presence of Treponema denticola, an opportunistic pathogen involved in the development of periodontal disease. Ötzi's human genome was decoded from a hip bone sample taken from the 5,300 year old mummy. However the tiny sample weighing no more than 0.1 g provides so much more information. A team of scientists from EURAC...

The panel, carved in Nubian Sandstone, was found recently in a tomb at the site of Sedeinga, in modern-day Sudan. It is about 5.8 feet (1.8 meters) tall by 1.3 feet (0.4 m) wide, and was found in two pieces. Originally, it adorned the walls of a temple at Sedeinga that was dedicated to Queen Tiye (also spelled Tiyi), who died around 1340 B.C. Several centuries after Tiye's death — and after her temple had fallen into ruin — this panel was reused in a tomb as a bench that held a coffin above the floor. Scars of a revolution...

“One of the odd burials is in Grave 1003, which had been excavated by our Italian colleagues,” Sajjadi said. The skeleton of 45-year-old man is located in the center of the circle-shaped grave and skulls of two dogs are placed above his head. In addition, 12 human skulls were placed on the north side of the grave, he stated, adding that to date, no other example of such a burial has been discovered in the Burnt City. Due to the structure of the grave, Sajjadi stated, “The grave undoubtedly belongs one of the peoples who had migrated from the Central...

For the first time in three decades, paleontologists are about to revisit one of North America's most remarkable troves of ancient fossils: The bones of tens of thousands of animals piled at the bottom of a sinkhole-type cave. Natural Trap Cave in Wyoming is 85 feet (25 meters) deep and almost impossible to see until you're standing right next to it. Over tens of thousands of years, many, many animals—including now-extinct mammoths, short-faced bears, American lions and American cheetahs—shared the misfortune of not noticing the 15-foot-wide (4 meters) opening until they were plunging to their deaths. Now, the U.S. Bureau...

...an ancient naval ram used by the army of Mithradates VI of the Bosporan Kingdom to quell a popular uprising against him in Phanagoria in 63 B.C. One-meter long ram and presumably made of bronze, it has an engraving of Mithradates VI, the king of Pontus from 119 to 63 B.C. who was the most powerful king in Anatolia during the 1st century B.C... The ram was found in the submerged part of Phanagoria, the largest Greek colony on the Taman peninsula, not far from the 15-meter-long ship that was previously unearthed in 2012... and proves that the ship was...

An ancient inscription discovered on a 14th century church in Spain's Galicia region has been identified as Gaelic; the first written evidence of the northern region’s Irish and Scottish heritage. For centuries it has gone unnoticed, weathered by Galicia’s incessant drizzle but still visible to those with an eagle-eye. On one of the granite walls of Santiago church in the small town of Betanzos, a small previously unintelligible inscription five metres above ground kept historians and epigraphists, or people who study ancient inscriptions, baffled for decades. Researchers working for a private association called the Gaelaico Project now believe they've finally...

ANCIENT WARFARE   ANCIENT ROMAN MILITARY(continuation) PART II-C: ROMAN TACTICSFrom Creasy's Battle of the Metaurus (http://www.standin.se/fifteen04a.htm ) The tactics of the Roman legions had not yet acquired that perfection which it received from the military genius of Marius, and which we read of in the first chapter of Gibbon. We possess, in that great work, an account of the Roman legions at the end of the commonwealth, and during the early ages of the empire, which those alone can adequately admire who have attempted a similar description. We have also, in the sixth and seventeenth books of Polybius, an...

    For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces.     Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today!     ANCIENT WARFARE The oldest remaining documentation of military campaigns come from the Middle East where the Egyptians, Assyrians, Hittites, and Persians were the main combatants. Read about the rise of standing armies and how battles were fought 4000 years ago.   PART I: Ancient Egyptian MilitaryThe Army     Until the takeover of Lower Egypt by the Hyksos, most conflicts the Egyptians had fought...

An archer has achieved a one-in-a-million feat of marksmanship after splitting one arrow with another. What makes the shot even more remarkable is that Tilly Trotter is blind. The 74-year-old grandmother pulled off the shot, known among archers as a "Robin Hood", at a practice session of the Wellington Bowmen in Somerset. Mrs Trotter, who has been an archer for two years at the invitation of granddaughter Charlotte, said: "The second arrow made such a noise going into the back of previous arrow I thought I had hit the ceiling or done some expensive damage. "Then I heard people jumping...

A set of proteins found in our intestines can recognize and kill bacteria that have human blood type molecules on their surfaces, scientists at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered. The results were published online Feb. 14 and are scheduled to appear in the journal Nature Medicine. Many immune cells have receptors that respond to molecules on the surfaces of bacteria, but these proteins are different because they recognize structures found on our own cells, says senior author Richard D. Cummings, PhD, professor and chair of the Department of Biochemistry. "It's like having a platoon in an army whose...

Nearly 70 years ago, on Aug. 1, 1944, Lieutenant General George S. Patton took command of the American Third Army in France. For the next 30 days they rolled straight toward the German border. Patton almost did not get a chance at his summer of glory. After brilliant service in North Africa and Sicily, fellow officers -- and his German enemies -- considered him the most gifted American field general of his generation. But near the conclusion of his illustrious Sicilian campaign, the volatile Patton slapped two sick GIs in field hospitals, raving that they were shirkers. In truth,...

Pioneering archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, who headed the excavations at Göbekli Tepe in southeastern Turkey, has died at the age of 61. Schmidt had been working on the excavations at Göbekli Tepe, sometimes called Turkey’s Stonehenge, with the German Archaeology Institute since 1995.

More than 700,000 records relating to WWI, as well as photos, films and audio recordings were made accessible on a new portal on the Federal Archive's website. The collection includes private material as well as files of military and civilian authorities, records left by politicians and military officers, documentaries and propaganda films. Access to the complete archive is free. The archive will also help people compiling family histories, say curators, since it has extensive information about locations where individual soldiers served. It also contains letters written to and by combatants in the war, which began on July 28, 1914, and...

The highlight of the excavation was the discovery of a Judea Capta coin, which was minted by Roman Emporor Domitian during his reign of 81 – 96 CE in honor of the conquest of Judea and the destruction of Jersusalem in 70 CE by his father, Vespasian, and brother, Titus. Christie Cobb, a doctoral student at Drew University in New Jersey, discovered the coin. There are only 48 other versions of this coin that have been found, and fewer still at Biblical sites such as Bethsaida. “The coin confirms other ceramic data about the date of the large Roman period...

Among the most exciting of the new acquisitions are the materials from the site of Jebel Sahaba, now in northern Sudan, which were donated to the Museum by Dr Fred Wendorf in 2002. Excavating here in 1965–66, as part of the UNESCO-funded campaign to salvage sites destined to be flooded by the construction of the Aswan High Dam, Dr Wendorf found a cemetery (site 117) containing at least 61 individuals dating back to about 13,000 years ago. This discovery was of great significance for two reasons. First, as a designated graveyard, evidently used over several generations, it is one of...

...the burials of the deceased of the estimated 30,000 commoners and laborers remained elusive – until 2001, when archaeologist Barry Kemp of the University of Cambridge began to see the first signs. Kemp has directed excavations and surveys at Amarna for the Egypt Exploration Society since 1977. “The puzzle seems now to have been solved,” says Kemp. “ It has come about through the desert GPS survey begun in 2001 and continued in subsequent years. First came the discovery of two cemeteries (clearly robbed) of what must be relatively poor graves on the flat desert not far from tomb no....

About 400 footprints were first discovered in the cave in 1965. Scientists initially attributed the impressions to a man, woman and child who lived 10,000 to 15,000 years ago. But radiocarbon measurements of two cave bear bones excavated just below the footprints now indicate that Homo sapiens made these tracks around 36,500 years ago, say anthropologist David Webb of Kutztown University in Pennsylvania and his colleagues. Analyses of 51 footprints that remain — cave explorers and tourists have destroyed the rest — indicate that six or seven individuals, including at least one child, entered the cave after a flood had...

Mary O'Melia left Ireland for America as a young widow with three children before she was hired as housekeeper at the White House of the Confederacy. An intimate witness to history, she also has been much of a mystery. That was until this year, when a woman with a distinctive Irish lilt to her voice called The American Civil War Museum. The housekeeper, the woman said, was related to her late husband, and she had in her possession a necklace that Confederate first lady Varina Davis gave O'Melia. But there was more. "What really took my breath away is she...

Over the centuries, they’ve been scorned, persecuted and marginalized. But it was an example of modern-day disdain towards redheads that prompted an Italian photographer’s mission to safeguard their diversity, The Local has learned. Let’s face it, redheads get a tough time, especially in the early years of their life. I should know, because I am one. But more on that later. Marina Rosso, a 29-year-old fine art photographer and researcher from Udine, is not a redhead as the English translation of her surname might suggest. But after hearing in 2011 that flame-haired men were being rejected from the world’s largest...

Chhattisgarh state department of archaeology and culture plans to seek help from Nasa and Isro for research on 10,000-year-old rock paintings depicting aliens and UFOs in Charama region in Kanker district in tribal Bastar region. According to archaeologist JR Bhagat, these paintings have depicted aliens like those shown in Hollywood and Bollywood flicks. Located about 130km from Raipur, the caves come under village Chandeli and Gotitola. "The findings suggest that humans in prehistoric times may have seen or imagined beings from other planets which still create curiosity among people and researchers. Extensive research is needed for further findings. Chhattisgarh presently...