Free Republic

A team of researchers from Universidade de São Paulo, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, has found evidence of a genetic Australasian influence in more parts of South America than just the Amazon. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of a genomic dataset from multiple South American populations across the continent.Back in 2015, a team of researchers found what they described as an Australasian influence in native people living in the Amazon. They had found what they described as a Ypikuéra population signal—a genetic...

On Monday morning, a canal service provider said the Ever Given container ship — the 99-ton ship that measures 1,312 feet by 107 feet by 47 feet — had finally been dislodged after it got stuck in the Suez Canal and blocked ship traffic for six days. Leth Agencies, the canal service provider, confirmed that the Ever Given had been freed, was floating once again, and was moving through the canal, the Associated Press reported. NBC News foreign correspondent Raf Sanchez shared a video on Twitter of the ship moving again At least 369 vessels are waiting to transit the...

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.

About 8500 years ago, hunter-gatherers living beside Eagle Lake in Wisconsin hammered out a conical, 10-centimeter-long projectile point made of pure copper. The finely crafted point, used to hunt big game, highlights a New World technological triumph—and a puzzle. A new study of that artifact and other traces of prehistoric mining concludes that what is known as the Old Copper Culture emerged, then mysteriously faded, far earlier than once thought. The dates show that early Native Americans were among the first people in the world to mine metal and fashion it into tools. They also suggest a regional climate shift...

Archaeologists in Sweden have discovered nearly two dozen gold foil figures that have engravings of couples embracing each other.The figures, which date back about 1,300 years, were found in the remains of a great hall on a platform mound, a human-made structure, at the site of Aska in Sweden. The researchers are still trying to piece together the broken figures to uncover more about them."Our best estimate is that we have 22 foil figures. The exact number is not quite clear because most are fragmented, and there is some uncertainty as to which fragments go together," Martin Rundkvist, an archaeology...

A 2,000-year-old artifact that had ended up in the home of a Manhattan antiquities dealer is now in an Italian museum....It was crafted in the first century for the deck of one of two spectacularly decorated ships on Lake Nemi that the Emperor Caligula commissioned as floating palaces. Recovered from underwater wreckage in 1895, the mosaic was later lost for decades, only to re-emerge several years ago as a coffee table in the living room of a Manhattan antiques dealer...Caligula’s rule only lasted from A.D. 37 to 41, but he enthusiastically embraced the trappings of the position, including an opulent...

Do three dog effigy pots excavated in Georgia in the 1930s at the Bull Creek Site and one from the Neisler Mound site represent the Chihuahua breed, a native dog of Mexico? Is the tribe most likely associated with these pots the Kasihta/Cussetta Creek Indians whose migration legends strongly suggest an origin in west Mexico, likely the state of Colima which is also known for similar dog effigy pots? Did the Kasihta raise Chihuahuas for food which they fattened up for this purpose as depicted by the pots and as recorded by early Spanish eye-witness accounts? Finally, does this evidence...

On a recent December morning, Mack Jones hiked a trail bordering the lake at Sandy Creek Park in Athens before he ventured off the path and up a forested ridge. There he showed a group following him a series of mysterious stone terrace walls and rock piles. "It's hidden in plain sight, and it's been that way for the 30 years the park has been here," Jones said. "No one has messed with it and maybe they won't." Jones believes those numerous rock piles - and especially the stone wall terraces lacing the hillside - might constitute evidence that the...

Archaeological zone 9UN367 at Track Rock Gap, near Georgia’s highest mountain, Brasstown Bald, is a half mile (800 m) square and rises 700 feet (213 m) in elevation up a steep mountainside. Visible are at least 154 stone masonry walls for agricultural terraces, plus evidence of a sophisticated irrigation system and ruins of several other stone structures. Much more may be hidden underground. It is possibly the site of the fabled city of Yupaha, which Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto failed to find in 1540, and certainly one of the most important archaeological discoveries in recent times.

From the sky, the Mound of the Cross at Paquime, a 14th-century ruin in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, looks like a compass rose -- the roundish emblem indicating the cardinal directions on a map. About 30 feet in diameter and molded from compacted earth and rock taken near the banks of the Casas Grandes River, the crisscross arms point to four circular platforms. They might as well be labeled N, S, E and W...

Victor Hugo on Gutenberg's Press, "The Invention of Printing ... is the Mother of Revolution." HISTORY OF WRITING The invention of "writing" was around 3300 BC. Richard Overy, editor of The Times Complete History of the World, stated in "The 50 Key Dates of World History" (October 19, 2007): "No date appears before the start of human civilizations about 5,500 years ago and the beginning of a written or pictorial history." Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson stated in the Cosmos TV series (2014, natgeotv.com, episode 10, "The Immortals"): "It was the people who once lived here, around 5,000 years ago, who...

They are mystery stories, written large as life in mineral ink on the pages of the northern plains. A 360-foot snake – reportedly once with a blazing red tongue – slithering along a grassy slope. A long-tailed turtle lying next to woman near an earthen mound. A large grid spread across the spur of a hill. All created from lines of small boulders. Hundreds of these stone effigies or alignments, ranging from animal forms to mosaics can be found across the seven Midwestern states and parts of Canada, including more than a hundred such figures in South Dakota. The mystery...

Geologist Scott Wolter wants you to forget 1492. While you're at it, forget the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria. Forget all of it. Forget Christopher Columbus because he wasn't the first European to visit North America and Wolter is out to prove it in his new book, "The Hooked X: The Key to the Secret History of North America." Minnesota and the Great Lakes states play a key part in that history, Wolter said, as Vikings and Cistercian monks traveled here leaving behind inscriptions and evidence that they were here long before Queen Isabella hocked her jewels to...

The Kensington Runestone, one of Minnesota’s most debated artifacts is not a hoax — according to geologist Scott Wolter. Wolter spoke to a Minnesota History class at Anoka Ramsey Community College - Cambridge Campus Monday, Sept. 12. He has been researching the Runestone for five years along with Richard Nielsen, an engineer from Houston. Wolter, a geologist by education and profession works for Twin Cities Testing, performing detailed examinations on concrete and rock to determine if there are flaws in concrete projects. Wolter explained the Runestone was found by Olof Ohman in 1898 while clearing trees off his land in...

Kensington, Minn. (WCCO) Researchers have found new evidence of a secret code concealed on the Kensington Runestone, one of the most controversial pieces of Minnesota history. The rock was found near Alexandria, Minn. a century ago. It bears an inscription that places Norwegians here in 1362. Were Vikings exploring our land more than 100 years before Columbus? Or is the Kensington Runestone an elaborate hoax? New research suggests the rune stone is genuine, and a hidden code can prove it. "Eight Goths and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey ... 10 men red with blood and dead ... 14 days...

I started watching this show with an open mind. If there is evidence of Chinese expeditions to the Americas that pre-date Columbus, then I don't have a problem with that. But the flaws in the case presented began adding up, almost from the beginning. On top of that, I couldn't help but get a CCP vibe from some of the Chinese 'experts' being interviewed. Anyway, have at it, history buffs, and let's see if we can catalog all the false or misleading conclusions/claims that were made.

One of the most spectacular bronze age weapons discovered in northern Europe has been found by a metal detectorist on a Jersey beach. The perfectly preserved 35cm long spear head made from copper alloy was found buried point down at the low water mark on one of the lowest tides of the year. It is in such good condition that the finder Jay Cornick thought it must be a modern fishing spear. He put it in his bag and didn’t think much more about it until he showed it to archaeologists from Jersey Heritage. The spearhead was found last August...

The small Minoan town on the island of Pseira was first excavated by the American archaeologist Richard Seager in the first decade of the 20th century and more recently by Philip P. Betancourt and Costis Davaras, whose work from 1986 provides much of the information used here. The town began life as a small settlement as early as the Final Neolithic period and continued to grow throughout the Minoan period, reaching its highpoint during the Late Minoan IB period when the Minoan palaces were also at their height...A very impressive tall, steep flight of steps, known as the Grand Staircase,...

European-crafted glass beads found at three different indigenous sites in northern Alaska date back to the pre-colonial period of North America, in what is an intriguing archaeological discovery. Somehow, these blueberry-sized beads made their way from what is now Venice, Italy, to the Brooks Range mountains of Alaska at some point during the mid-to-late 15th century, according to new research published in American Antiquity. The authors of the paper, archaeologists Michael Kunz from the University of Alaska Museum of the North and Robin Mills from the Bureau of Land Management, suspect the beads were trade goods that, after passing through...

Four fossilized monkey teeth discovered deep in the Peruvian Amazon provide new evidence that more than one group of ancient primates journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. The teeth are from a newly discovered species belonging to an extinct family of African primates known as parapithecids. Fossils discovered at the same site in Peru had earlier offered the first proof that South American monkeys evolved from African primates.