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Arlington Man -- In 1959, while looking for pygmy mammoth bones on Santa Rosa Island, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History archeologist Phil Orr discovered a human femur sticking out of the canyon wall at Arlington Springs. He knew it was old, but scientific dating technology couldn’t tell him how old. Yet. So he put the bones away in the basement of the SBMNH where they were rediscovered by Don Morris and John Johnson in the 1990s. These two archeologists take us back to Arlington Springs while explaining how modern carbon dating confirmed the bones were over 13,000 years old......

According to a Science in Poland report, traces of four unusual huts dated to the eleventh or twelfth century have been uncovered on an island in the Baltic Sea near the coast of Poland. Researchers were excavating an area once known as Srebrne Wzgórze on the northern edge of the medieval town, where there had been a market and craft workshops, when they unearthed the huts. “They are platforms made of clay and sand, surrounded by a ditch,” said Wojciech Filipowiak of the Polish Academy of Sciences. “Some have a hearth, some have an oven,” he added. Pottery, animal bones,...

A small-sized find in an ancient megalithic temple stirs the imagination. Excavations among what many scholars consider to be the world's oldest monumental buildings on the island of Malta continue to unveil surprises and raise new questions about the significance of these megalithic structures and the people who built them. Not least is the latest find -- a small but rare, crescent-moon shaped agate stone featuring a 13th-century B.C.E. cuneiform inscription, the likes of which would normally be found much farther west in Mesopotamia. Led by palaeontology professor Alberto Cazzella of the University of Rome "La Sapienza", the archaeological team...

A stone fragment bearing ancient carvings in Hittite style and one of the world’s earliest writing systems, cuneiform, has been uncovered in a cave deep in the Moravian Karst. The discovery of this mysterious ancient cuneiform script in Central Europe has puzzled archaeologists and raised questions about possible cultural links between Anatolia and prehistoric Europe.The artifact, found during a recent reanalysis of excavated sediment in Kateřinská Cave, Czech Republic, shares material and stylistic traits with earlier fragments uncovered in 2021. Experts say the thickness, composition, and carvings of all the pieces suggest they were once part of the same object....

According to a statement released by the Autonomous University of Barcelona, people living some 5,000 years ago in the Babitonga Bay area on the southern coast of Brazil hunted whales. An international team of researchers led by Krista McGrath and André Colonese of the Autonomous University of Barcelona analyzed whale bones and bone tools recovered from sambaquis, or shell mounds, in Babitonga Bay. These artifacts are now housed at the Archaeological Museum of Sambaqui of Joinville. The researchers identified the remains of southern right whales, humpback whales, blue whales, sei whales, sperm whales, and dolphins in the collection. Many of...

Mighty Dover Castle commands a view of the shortest sea crossing between Britain and continental Europe, a position of immense strategic importance. But within the walls of the medieval castle stands a much older building, dating from a time when Britain was an outpost of the Roman Empire.Around 2,000 years ago, in the early 2nd century AD, the Romans built a pharos, or lighthouse, here. This would have guided the ships of a Roman fleet into the harbour below.Not only is the Dover pharos the most complete standing Roman building in England, it's also one of only three lighthouses to...

According to a statement released by the University of Edinburgh, analysis of tooth enamel samples collected from the remains of people buried in England between the end of Roman rule in Britain around A.D. 400 and the arrival of the Normans around 1100 indicates that migration to the island was continuous throughout the period. Tooth enamel is laid down during childhood and carries chemical markers of the local environment. Sam Leggett of the University of Edinburgh, Susanne Hakenbeck of the University of Cambridge, and their colleagues examined more than 700 chemical signatures in the samples, and determined that people came...

Embark on a fascinating journey through Scotland's genetic history, spanning 12,000 years! Discover how waves of migration - from Mesolithic hunter-gatherers to Vikings and Normans - have shaped Scottish DNA. Learn about groundbreaking studies revealing unexpected connections to Siberian tribes and North African genes. We'll explore regional genetic clusters, the origins of Scottish surnames, and even uncover some royal DNA! Scotland's Ancient DNA Revealed | 16:49 The History Hub | 165K subscribers | 1,137,164 views | September 15, 2024 dna scotland [YouTube search]

A unique discovery, a glittering hoard of beautifully crafted objects in silver, gold and crystal, buried in the ground and forgotten 1100 years ago. Hands on History: Rare Viking Treasure | 36:53History Hit | 1.83M subscribers | 1,547,432 views | October 7, 2024

Long before submarines and modern ocean exploration, Alexander the Great embarked on an underwater expedition that blurred the line between history and legend. Beyond his military conquests, he constantly sought the unknown, from frozen northern deserts to mysterious islands, pushing himself into territories where no one else dared to venture. One story, preserved in the Pseudo-Callisthenes Alexander Romance, recounts an extraordinary underwater odyssey, blending daring, ingenuity, and mythical creatures that seem to leap from the page. Even in the realm of myth, few tales capture the adventurous spirit of Alexander like this one. A journey in the dark: Northern deserts...

The Viking Ship Museum in Denmark recently announced an unprecedented discovery in the Øresund Strait: the world’s largest and most advanced medieval cargo ship ever found. Hailed as “a milestone in maritime archaeology,” the discovery occurred while divers were investigating the seabed in the Sound, in anticipation of Copenhagen’s new Lynetteholm district, and stumbled upon a record-breaking cog buried beneath centuries of sand and silt. Found approximately 43 feet deep, the precious wreckage escaped destructive forces, resulting in an extraordinary state of preservation that provided archaeologists with a rare, close-up look at never-before-seen details. “It is extraordinary to have so...

Tony Robinson and the rest of the Time Team embark on an expedition to Fetlar, a remote Shetland Island. The Time Team are hoping to unravel the ancient local legend surrounding the enigmatic 'Giant's Grave'. As they delve into its secrets, investigating the connection to Viking pottery discovered nearby, the team uncovers a potentially legendary discovery that could redefine the island's history. Welcome to Unearthed History -- the home for all things archeological! From ancient Roman ruins to buried medieval mysteries, we'll be bringing you award-winning documentaries that explore the remnants of long lost civilizations. The Hunt For Ancient Viking...

Roman Amphora were discovered in 1975 buried in the sediment deep in the bay of Rio de Janeiro. Renowned scientists Sir Robert Marx, Dr. Harold Edgerton, Dr. Elizabet Will and I believe the Romans may have arrived in the New World over a thousand years before Columbus, and we are out to prove it. Mystery of the Roman Amphora in Rio de Janeiro Bay | 2:38 | 802 subscribers | 1,056 views | August 7, 2021 Bay of Jars Robert Marx [YouTube search]

...for over two millennia, the great civilizations of the Mediterranean... possessed copper in abundance. They had gold, timber, and grain... What they did not have was tin... in the early centuries, tin came from... Central and South Asia, from the Zeravshan Valley in what is now Tajikistan and the Hindu Kush in Afghanistan... By the Late Bronze Age, the kingdoms had turned to the sea... In 1982, a sponge diver off the coast of Grand Cape in Turke... found what came to be known as the Uluburun shipwreck... mostly, it carried metal. There were ten tons of copper, in the...

According to a statement released by the Public Library of Science, a new study of the 2,400-year-old Hjortspring boat, discovered with a cache of weapons in the early twentieth century on Denmark's island of Als, suggests that it may have been constructed in the Baltic Sea region. First, Mikael Fauvelle of Lund University and his colleagues radiocarbon dated cording and caulk found with the boat to the fourth or third century B.C. Then, they used gas chromatography and mass spectrometry to determine that the caulk had likely been made of animal fat and pine pitch. At the time, there were...

The infamous Black Death -- a pandemic that killed as many as one third to one half of Europeans within just a few years -- may have been aided in its devastation by an unknown volcanic eruption.That's the hypothesis presented in research published December 4 in Communications Earth & Environment, which argues that the eruption triggered several seasons of climate instability and crop failures. That instability, in turn, forced several Italian states to import grain stores from new sources -- specifically, from regions surrounding the Black Sea. Riding along on those grain stores, the researchers posit, were fleas infected with...

For students of ancient civilizations, one of the curious facts is that the site of Troy (Hisarlik in western Turkey), whose walls Homer describes as overlooking the sea, is now 6.5 kilometers inland at the closest point to the Aegean. Millions of modern-day tourists have visited that inland site since Schliemann excavated it in the 19th century. Portions of the walls and towers are clearly visible — but the Aegean is nowhere in sight. Why? Because the world's oceans and seas were different at the time of the Trojan War that Homer celebrated in the Iliad. The seas were higher...

Thousands of 'Vikings' took to the streets brandishing burning torches and axes as the ancient Up Helly Aa festival got under way on the Shetland Islands. The event, a celebration of the Scottish island's Norse heritage, drew massive crowds with many 'warriors' wearing winged helmets and sheepskins.

Climate records back to Viking times show the 20th century was unexceptional for rainfall and droughts despite assumptions that global warming would trigger more wet and dry extremes, a study showed on Wednesday. Stretching back 1,200 years, written accounts of climate indicated that variations in the extremes in the 20th century were less than in some past centuries. "Several other centuries show stronger and more widespread extremes," lead author Fredrik Ljungqvist of Stockholm University told Reuters. "We can't say it's more extreme now." Ljungqvist said many existing scientific models of climate change over-estimated assumptions that rising temperatures would make dry...

New clues suggest slaves were vital to the Viking way of life -- and argue against attempts to soften the raiders' brutish reputation... Archaeologists are using recent finds and analyses of previous discoveries -- from iron collars in Ireland to possible plantation houses in Sweden -- to illuminate the role of slavery in creating and maintaining the Viking way of life. "This was a slave economy," said Neil Price, an archaeologist at Sweden's Uppsala University who spoke at a recent meeting that brought together archaeologists who study slavery and colonization. "Slavery has received hardly any attention in the past 30...