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An extensive new analysis published in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports has produced new and impressive evidence supporting the idea that the shipwreck found in 1863 was the Sparrow-Hawk, something shipwreck historians have long believed but were never able to prove. Through the application of techniques that can accurately date wood and trace it to its place of origin, the scientists involved in this study have linked the pieces of timber found on a Cape Cod beach in 1863 to the shipbuilding industry of late 16th and early 17th century England. The 40-foot small pinnace ship that was scuttled...

At least six pirate skeletons were recently discovered in a shipwreck off the coast of Cape Cod. The remains were unearthed from the wreck site of the Whydah, which sank near the town of Wellfleet in 1717, according to The Boston Globe. Investigators at the Whydah Pirate Museum said the skeletons were identified in several large concretions, or hard masses of minerals, from the wreck site. They are now being examined by a team of archeologists led by underwater explorer Barry Clifford, who discovered the Whydah in 1984, the museum said.

Birds of a feather flock together. When the cat's away, the mice will play. We all know and love these common, American proverbs. Sometimes ironic, often silly and amusing, these sayings test our brains—and our wit. And it's not just in English. Playing with language in literature, conversation, and art has been a hallmark of different cultures for centuries. With this in mind, over 450 years ago, Dutch master Pieter Bruegel the Elder painted his incredible Netherlandish Proverbs. Also known as The Dutch Proverbs, this oil on wood painting is a detailed masterpiece that visually represents over 100 Dutch proverbs....

LONDON (Reuters) - People looking to track ancestors who emigrated from British ports will from Wednesday be able to search online passenger lists of the ships that carried them to new lands. Released by Britain's National Archives, the passenger manifests give an insight into all long-distance trips made by 30 million travelers from the country's ports between 1890 and 1960, including that of the Titanic which sank in 1912.

Neanderthals and other extinct human lineages might have been ancient mariners, venturing to the Mediterranean islands thousands of years earlier than previously thought. This prehistoric seafaring could shed light on the mental capabilities of these lost relatives of modern humans, researchers say. Scientists had thought the Mediterranean islands were first settled about 9,000 years ago by Neolithic or New Stone Age farmers and shepherds... For instance, obsidian from the Aegean island of Melos was uncovered at the mainland Greek coastal site of Franchthi cave in layers that were about 11,000 years old, while excavations on the southern coast of Cyprus...

Modern science has held that islands such as Cypress and Crete were first inhabited by seafaring humans approximately 9,000 years ago by agriculturists from the late Neolithic period. Simmons writes that research over the past 20 years has cast doubt on that assumption however and suggests that it might be time to rewrite the history books. He cites evidence such as pieces of obsidian found in a cave in mainland Greece that were found to have come from Melos, an island in the Aegean Sea and were dated at 11,000 years ago as well as artifacts from recent digs on...

IT LOOKS like Neanderthals may have beaten modern humans to the seas. Growing evidence suggests our extinct cousins criss-crossed the Mediterranean in boats from 100,000 years ago - though not everyone is convinced they weren't just good swimmers. Neanderthals lived around the Mediterranean from 300,000 years ago. Their distinctive "Mousterian" stone tools are found on the Greek mainland and, intriguingly, have also been found on the Greek islands of Lefkada, Kefalonia and Zakynthos. That could be explained in two ways: either the islands weren't islands at the time, or our distant cousins crossed the water somehow. Now, George Ferentinos of...

Archaeologists on the island of Crete have discovered what may be evidence of one of the world's first sea voyages by human ancestors, the Greek Culture Ministry said Monday A ministry statement said experts from Greece and the U.S. have found rough axes and other tools thought to be between 130,000 and 700,000 years old close to shelters on the island's south coast. Crete has been separated from the mainland for about five million years, so whoever made the tools must have traveled there by sea (a distance of at least 40 miles). That would upset the current view that...

<p>Early humans, possibly even prehuman ancestors, appear to have been going to sea much longer than anyone had ever suspected.</p> <p>That is the startling implication of discoveries made the last two summers on the Greek island of Crete. Stone tools found there, archaeologists say, are at least 130,000 years old, which is considered strong evidence for the earliest known seafaring in the Mediterranean and cause for rethinking the maritime capabilities of prehuman cultures.</p>

Human ancestors that left Africa hundreds of thousands of years ago to see the rest of the world were no landlubbers. Stone hand axes unearthed on the Mediterranean island of Crete indicate that an ancient Homo species -- perhaps Homo erectus -- had used rafts or other seagoing vessels to cross from northern Africa to Europe via at least some of the larger islands in between, says archaeologist Thomas Strasser of Providence College in Rhode Island. Several hundred double-edged cutting implements discovered at nine sites in southwestern Crete date to at least 130,000 years ago and probably much earlier, Strasser...

“There are but 155 years left … at which time … the world will come to an end,” wrote Christopher Columbus in his book “Libro de Las Profecias,” composed in 1502 between his third and fourth voyages. Columbus continued: “… The sign which convinces me that our Lord is hastening the end of the world is the preaching of the Gospel recently in so many lands.” Though his predictions were off, Columbus’ writings revealed his motivation for setting sail on his first voyage Aug. 3, 1492, with the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. He sought to find a sea...

Lost Grave of First Explorer to Circumnavigate Australia Has Been Found Paul Seaburn January 27, 2019 Flinders Island. Flinders Ranges. Flinders Ranges National Park. Flinders Column. Flinders University. Flinders Medical Centre. Flinders Street. Flinders Peak. Flinders Bay. Flinders Highway. You’d think the guy famous enough to have hundreds of places in Australia named after him would be buried in a recognized place of honor. Yet the grave of Captain Matthew Flinders — the English navigator, leader of the first circumnavigation of Australia and first person to identify the island as a continent – has been lost since shortly after he...

A more than 300-year-old Spanish shipwreck carrying treasure that might be worth up to $17 billion was discovered with the help of an underwater robot. It's called the Remus 6000 and it can dive nearly four miles and is loaded with sensors and cameras. Bronze cannons confirmed "the holy grail of shipwrecks" had been found at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. They are engraved with dolphins — a telltale sign they belong to the Spanish galleon San Jose, lost more than 300 years ago. "I just sat there for about 10 minutes and smiled," said Jeff Kaeli, a research...

Colombia on Friday opens bidding for investors willing to retrieve billions of dollars in gold and silver from an 18th century ship wreck off the country's Caribbean coast. The Spanish galleon "San Jose" was the main ship in a fleet carrying gold and silver -- likely extracted from Spanish colonial mines in Peru and Bolivia -- and other valuables back to King Philip V. It sank in June 1708 during combat with British warships attempting to take its cargo, as part of the War of Spanish Succession. Only a handful of the ship's crew of 600 survived. President Juan Manuel...

The team believe the ship was returning from India when it sank sometime between 1575 and 1625. This was at the height of Portugal's spice trade with Asia. Chinese porcelain from the late 16th and early 17th centuries was also among the wreck, as were bronze artillery pieces and cowry shells - a currency used in the slave trade. Cascais municipal council said the ship was found at the start of September while dredging the mouth of the Tagus river, which runs past the resort town through Lisbon.

uropeans first came to the Western Hemisphere armed with guns, the cross and, unknowingly, pathogens. Against the alien agents of disease, the indigenous people never had a chance. Their immune systems were unprepared to fight smallpox and measles, malaria and yellow fever.The epidemics that resulted have been well documented. What had not been clearly recognized until now, though, is that the general health of Native Americans had apparently been deteriorating for centuries before 1492.That is the conclusion of a team of anthropologists, economists and paleopathologists who have completed a wide-ranging study of the health of people living in the Western...

One of the most dramatic pieces of evidence for a pre-Columbian crossing of the Atlantic is to be found in a single Latin marginalia, that is some words scribbled into the margin of a book. The sentence in question appears in a copy of the Historia rerum ubique gestarum by Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini which was published in Venice in 1477. In that work Piccolomini discusses the arrival of Indians in Europe blown from across the Atlantic at a date when America was unknown to Europeans (another post another day). Next to this passage a reader has written in Latin the...

Cave skeleton is European, 1,300 years old, man says Archaeologist group wants a look at evidence Sunday September 29, 2002 By Rick Steelhammer STAFF WRITER MORGANTOWN — The man who first advanced the theory that markings carved on in a Wyoming County cave are actually characters from an ancient Irish alphabet has found human remains at the site, which tests indicate are European in origin and date back to A.D. 710, he maintains. Robert Pyle of Morgantown says that a DNA analysis of material from the skeleton’s teeth roots was conducted by Brigham Young University. That analysis, he says, shows...

The researchers are basing their claims on a number of Roman discoveries in Oak Island... As well as the stone, they found carved stones on Oak Island also 'possess a language from the ancient Levant' according to Pulitzer. Other findings include a Roman legionnaire's whistle found on Oak Island in 1901, a Roman shield 'boss' and a small Roman head sculpture found in Mexico City in 1933. Another clue, in his report, is the presence of an invasive species of plant which was once used by Romans... 'The ceremonial sword came out of that shipwreck,' he told The Boston Standard....

Professor Elizabeth Lyding Will (1924 - 2009...) was one of the world's leading authorities on amphoras, an ancient two-handled container that her research demonstrated to be vitally important for tracing ancient trade patterns and for opening windows on tremendous amounts of information about ancient life and commerce. In a 2000 article entitled "The Roman Amphora: learning from storage jars," she discusses the diverse uses of "the lowly Roman amphora -- a two-handled clay jar used by the Canaanites, Phoenicians, Greeks and Romans to ship goods," describing both its main usage for the transportation of liquids including wine, olive oil, and...