Free Republic

A new study of the 37,000-year old remains of the "Deep Skull" - the oldest modern human discovered in island South-East Asia - has revealed this ancient person was not related to Indigenous Australians, as had been originally thought. The Deep Skull was also likely to have been an older woman, rather than a teenage boy. The research, led by UNSW Australia Associate Professor Darren Curnoe, represents the most detailed investigation of the ancient cranium specimen since it was found in Niah Cave in Sarawak in 1958. "Our analysis overturns long-held views about the early history of this region," says...

Despite the often oppressive heat, summer is the main season for... excavations... Tenth-grade students volunteering on an Israel Antiquities Authority dig at a stalactite cave near Moshav Manot in the Western Galilee earlier in June discovered a 40,000-year-old grindstone... Lerer said that the grindstone was basalt, "which is created when lava erupts out of a volcano and is not indigenous to the Western Galilee area. It looks like [either] the raw material or the tool itself was brought here from the Lower Galilee by residents of the cave." The stalactite cave where the dig is underway was discovered in 2008,...

The age of the dinosaurs ended 66 million years ago, when an asteroid six miles in diameter crashed into what is now southeastern Mexico. The world went up in flames. Dinosaurs, along with the massive reptiles that ruled the sea and the sky, perished as forest fires raged across the globe, dust blotted out the sun, and Earth experienced intense heat, frigid cooling, and then more heat. Conventional wisdom states that mammalian diversity emerged from the ashes of the mass extinction, ultimately giving rise to our own humble species. But according to a study in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology,...

In November 2014, the team at Antiochia Hippos, Israel, uncovered an extraordinary artifact -- a large bronze mask of the Greek god Pan (or Faunus in the Roman pantheon)... Weighing more than 11 pounds and measuring nearly 12 inches tall, the Pan mask is made of well-cast bronze. It was discovered outside the walled city of Hippos, Israel -- in a basalt tower with 6.5-foot-wide exterior walls... The Pan mask at Hippos, Israel, is an extraordinary and unique find, but Eisenberg explains that some parallels exist in the archaeological record: Similar masks -- perhaps influenced by the style of theater...

On one tablet excavated from the area we can see a human head eating from a bowl, meaning “ration”, and a conical vessel, meaning “beer”. Scattered around are scratches recording the amount of beer for a particular worker. It’s the world’s oldest known payslip.

Italian and Egyptian researchers analyzed the metal with an X-ray fluorescence spectrometer to determine its chemical composition, and found its high nickel content, along with its levels of cobalt, “strongly suggests an extraterrestrial origin”. They compared the composition to known meteorites within 2,000km around the Red Sea coast of Egypt, and found similar levels in one meteorite.

King Tut owned a dagger that was out of this world—literally. Researchers have recently published a study in the journal Meteoritics & Planetary Science that supports what has long been suspected: The ancient Egyptians were using meteoritic iron well before the spread of iron smelting technology. The recent study on King Tut’s dagger, led by researchers from Italy and Egypt, used X-ray fluorescence (XRF) spectrometry to analyze the composition of the iron blade. Iron meteorites mostly contain iron and nickel, and the results of the XRF analysis on King Tut’s dagger confirm that the blade is mostly composed of iron...

Mysterious Collapse of a Great Ancient Empire. From his capital, Hattusa, in central Anatolia, the last-known Hittite king, Suppiluliuma II (1207 B.C.-?), ruled over a people who had once built a great empire—one of the superpowers (along with Egypt, Mittani, Babylon and Assyria) of the Late Bronze Age. The Kingdom of the Hittites, called Hatti, had stretched across the face of Anatolia and northern Syria, from the Aegean in the west to the Euphrates in the east. But now those days were gone, and the royal capital was about to be destroyed forever by invasion and fire.

Paleontologists are in the final stages of extracting the skeleton of a huge mammoth discovered buried two metres underneath a busy street in the Mexican city Tultepec. New images of the excavation site have revealed the sheer size of the prehistoric animal, which experts believe died between 12,000 and 14,000 years ago in what is now the city's suburb of San Antonio Xahuento. With a metre-wide skull and tusks spanning more than ten feet, the skeleton belongs to Mammuthus Columbi, a North American mammoth which expects believe grew sixteen feet high and weighed up to 10 tonnes.

Archaeologists excavate Indo-Greek and Saka-Parthian structures at Bazira, Swat. -- Dawn photo Indo-Greek coins discovered during the recent excavation at Bazira, Barikot, Swat. Courtesy Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat Indo-Greek coins discovered during the recent excavation at Bazira, Barikot, Swat. Courtesy Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat Terracotta baroque female figurine, circa 3rd-2nd BC. Courtesy Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat Indo-Greek coins discovered during the recent excavation at Bazira, Barikot, Swat. Courtesy Italian Archaeological Mission in Swat

Scientists have studied a rare skeleton from the Silla culture, which ruled over part of the Korean Peninsula from 57 B.C. to A.D. 935. “The skeletons are not preserved well in the soil of Korea,” bioanthropologist Dong Hoon Shin of Seoul National University College of Medicine told Live Science. The skeleton, of a woman in her late 30s, was found in a traditional coffin that had been buried near the historic capital of the Silla Kingdom, Gyeongju. Analysis of her mitochondrial DNA suggests that she belonged to a genetic lineage that is present in East Asia today. Carbon isotopes in...

A monastery hewn from the rock has been found during excavations and cleaning works in an underground city that was discovered in 2014 in the Central Anatolian province of Nevsehir... Excavation and cleaning works have been continuing on an area of 400,000 square meters that includes 11 neighborhoods around Nevsehir Castle, which is situated in the city center and has been declared a third-degree archaeological area. At the beginning of the year, a historic church was discovered in the underground city. The church features frescoes depicting the ascension of Jesus to heaven as well as other important objects for the...

The remains of a vast Bronze Age town... has been discovered in Gaza, and has now been shown to be a rich trading hub. The prosperity of its Canaanite inhabitants is evident in discoveries of elaborate gold jewelry, vast amounts of imported pottery and an unprecedented number of scarabs... trade between the seaside Canaanite town and other Mediterranean peoples, notably the ancient Cypriots. Among the clay sherds discovered were over 200 of white slip I type of pottery, a type of ware rarely found outside of Cyprus. Tell el-Ajjul, which lies right on the Gazan coast, was first explored by...

The ancient Canaanites living in Gath some 5,000 years ago weren't sacrificing their own livestock to appease the gods. They were importing animals from ancient Egypt, archaeologists have now proven. A donkey, as well as some sheep and goats whose remains were found in Early Bronze Age layers at Gath dating to 4900 years ago turn out to have been born and bred in the Nile valley.The discovery at the archaeological site of Tell el-Safi shows that animals were part of the extensive trading relations between the Old Kingdom of Egypt and Early Bronze Age Canaan (circa 2900-2500 BCE).... Until...

Archaeologists say a campsite unearthed just metres from a new highway in Fredericton could be more than 12,000 years old. The campsite held 600 artifacts, most of which were from tool making, as well as a fire pit containing ancient charcoal... Artifacts including stone tool fragments and arrowheads that would have been attached to rods to make spears have been found at the site. No ceremonial objects were found at the site. The campsite is located just metres from the shoulder of a stretch of Route 8. Suttie estimated the site to be between 11,600 and 12,200 years old. The...

Archaeologists excavating a shop on the outskirts of Pompeii have found four skeletons, several gold coins, and a necklace pendant, according to an Associated Press report. The skeletons belonged to young people who died in the back of the shop when nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted in A.D. 79. There was an oven in the shop that the archaeologists believe may have been used to make bronze objects. There is evidence that the shop was targeted by looters seeking treasure after the eruption, but they apparently missed the gold coins and the gold-leaf-foil, flower-shaped pendant. Archaeologists have been excavating a second...

It could never happen here, right? Boston – National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed by elements of a Para-military extremist faction. Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw. Speaking after the clash, the Massachusetts Governor declared that the extremist faction, which was made up of local citizens, has links to the radical right-wing tax protest movement. The Governor blamed the extremists for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices. The governor, who described the...

Many thousands of years ago life flourished in the Mongolian Gobi desert... Archaeologists found many traces of old camps... located on the shores of lakes - now dried. Based on the findings, researchers concluded that thousands of years ago richness of species of animals lived in the study area, benefiting the ancient inhabitants of the desert. Archaeologists discovered mainly stone tools and the waste associated with their production... The oldest finds are represented by a massive stone tools made by the Middle Palaeolithic communities (200 thousand - 40 thousand years ago). Archaeologists have also discovered smaller stone products from later...

The coal was to take the form of small granules instead of irregular lumps, to produce a controlled and even burn, and the basket was altered to a mesh drum revolving on a vertical axis at 60 rpm. A jet of flame from tanks of bottled gas would fire into the basket once the P.13a had reached operating speed (above 320 km/h), whether by using a rocket to assist take off or by being towed. The air passing through the ramjet would take the fumes from the burning coal towards the rear where they would mix under high pressure with...

The Marine Corps admitted Thursday that it misidentified one of the six men in the World War II photograph of a flag-raising in Iwo Jima — one of the most iconic images in American history. For more than 70 years, history said John Bradley, a Navy hospital corpsman, was one of the six men seen in the legendary photo from one of the war’s bloodiest battles. But the Marines now say Bradley is nowhere in the photo — and the man believed to be Bradley is in fact Harold Schultz, a private first class.