Free Republic

Wild boars look more or less the same in Israel as they do anywhere else: stalky and hairy with big heads, long snouts, and beady eyes. So scientists had no reason to suspect Israeli wild boars were any different than their brothers and sisters roaming the Middle East, from Egypt to Iran... unlike the Near Eastern wild boars in surrounding countries, Israel's wild boars originated in Europe. After a genetic and archaeological analysis, the researchers suggest the wild boars living in Israel are descendants of domesticated pigs brought to Israel starting almost 3,000 years ago by the Philistines and other...

Traces of the Hurrian civilization discovered in excavations in the ancient city of Bathonea in Istanbul's Küçükçekmece river basin are being hailed as the year's most important discovery as they provide the first ever proof that the Hittites came to Europe and civilisations' long history... The traces from the Hurrian civilization -- the early Hittite era -- were found in the Küçükçekmece river basin in the western parts of the city. The discoveries -- iron god and goddess statues that were found in two different places -- have created great excitement among researchers... Two Hurrian statues, bitumen, tin and...

The earliest known examples of wine-making as we know it are in the regions of modern-day Iran, Georgia, and Armenia -- and researchers believe that modern winemaking slowly spread westward from there to Europe... The Etruscans, a pre-Roman civilisation in Italy, are thought to have gained wine culture from the Phoenicians -- who spread throughout the Mediterranean from the early Iron Age onward -- because they used similarly shaped amphoras... Dr McGovern's team focused on the coastal site of Lattara, near the town of Lattes south of Montpellier, where the importation of amphoras continued up until the period 525-475 BC....