Free Republic

Dogs have helped law enforcement and search-and-rescue crews discover human remains for decades. But recently, a new group has enlisted the help of canines and their olfactory superpowers: archaeologists. ... To test the dogs, Glavaš had them sniff around an area where they she had excavated three grave sites the year before. The human remains had been removed, and due to weathering, it was no longer apparent where the excavations had taken place. Two dogs, working independently, easily located all three spots. They then allowed the dogs, Sattve and Mali, to sniff around another site where they suspected there were...

...we did some very delicate drilling to produce enough ceramic powder and then treated it with a chemical technique that extracts molecules called lipids... from the fats, oils and waxes of the natural world and are normally absorbed into the material of the prehistoric pots during cooking, or, in this case, through heating the milk. Luckily, these lipids often survive for thousands of years. We regularly use this technique to find out what sort of food people cooked in their ancient pots. It seems they ate many of the things we eat today, including various types of meat, dairy products,...

Along with locations in North and South America, Greenland, Western Europe, and the Middle East, we can now add southern Africa to the list of places where scientists have uncovered evidence of a calamitous event that happened 12,800 years ago. This evidence of a 12,800-year-old platinum spike in Africa is the first to be found on the continent, and it’s yet further evidence in support of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis. According to this theory, either a comet or asteroid struck Earth during the Pleistocene, triggering an impact winter that saw temperatures plummet around the globe. The associated loss of...

Although the Bible is not an ancient history textbook, it does report events that have been confirmed by other historical works. Consider the following examples: Archeological digs and ancient Assyrian records confirm the Bible’s portrayal of King Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah (2 Kings 18:13–19:37). Until recent excavations at Tell Mardikh uncovered tablets mentioning Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:1–29), scholars dismissed the existence of both cities as a biblical legend. The Hittites were also considered a biblical legend until their capital and records were discovered in modern-day Turkey. The palace of King Sargon, an Assyrian ruler mentioned in Isaiah, was uncovered...

A Roman mosaic depicting a mythical chariot race has been fully uncovered in a Berkshire village - and it could be one of Britain's most exciting archaeological discoveries. The 1,600-year-old mosaic, which was found in Boxford in 2017 but only fully uncovered recently, is one of only three of its kind in the world and is 'totally unknown' in Britain, experts said. It depicts a chariot race involving Greek mythological figure Pelops, who is racing to win the hand of love interest Princess Hippodamia. ... The mosaic will now be covered over once more to protect it and to allow...

A relic hunter dubbed ‘Indiana Bones’ has lifted the lid on a macabre collection of 400-year-old jewel-encrusted skeletons unearthed in churches across Europe. Art historian Paul Koudounaris hunted down and photographed dozens of gruesome skeletons in some of the world’s most secretive religious establishments.

Not many people realize this but the biggest slab of raw glass from the ancient world was discovered in northern Israel in "Beit She'arim", in the Galilee, in 1956. The rectangular glass slab is 11?.5?.5 feet, weighing 9 tons. Beit She'arim is a cemetery where the editor of the Mishna (the first "layer" of the Talmud), Rabbi Judah the Prince/Yehudah haNasi (135 to 217 CE) is buried. Most people visiting this cemetery are not aware that the chunk of glass is there, looking somewhat opaque on the floor of the cave that serves as the visitors' center... Again, no one...

A mysterious female warrior discovered in a Viking grave in Denmark was originally thought to be a Viking. But now, researchers have made a surprising discovery about this fierce warrior who died more than 1,000 years ago — she wasn't actually a Viking. According to researchers at Poland's Ministry of Science and Higher Education, the woman was likely Slavic, emanating from a region in Eastern Europe that is now present-day Poland. Dr. Gardeła added that the revelation is not all that surprising. "During the Middle Ages, this island was a melting pot of Slavic and Scandinavian elements." Although the woman's...

And although the burial mound is much older than the Druids — who lived about 2,000 years ago, if they existed at all — the excavations have cast new light on the ancient inhabitants of the island of Anglesey. Overlooking the Irish Sea from the northwest corner of Wales, Anglesey is dotted with numerous Neolithic and Bronze Age stone monuments. The most famous is the 5,000-year-old passage tomb of Bryn Celli Ddu (Welsh for "the mound in the dark grove"), which has an entrance passage that aligns with the rising midsummer sun. It was archaeologically excavated in 1928 and 1929,...

Inside a Crimean cave was a gigantic ancient mystery just waiting to be uncovered: a bird so large that it weighed nearly as much as an adult polar bear. Giant birds once roamed Madagascar, New Zealand and Australia. The latest fossil find, an intriguing fossilized femur, was recently found in Taurida Cave on the northern coast of the Black Sea. It was discovered along with other fossils, including bison bones, that helped researchers date the now-extinct giant bird to between 1.5 million and 2 million years ago. When the first early human ancestors arrived in Europe, they might have encountered...

<p>In a major archaeological discovery, Egypt on Saturday unveiled the tomb of a Fifth Dynasty official adorned with colourful reliefs and well preserved inscriptions.</p> <p>The tomb, south of Saqqara, a vast necropolis south of Cairo, belongs to a senior official named Khuwy who is believed to have been a nobleman during the Fifth Dynasty, which ruled over Egypt about 4300 years ago.</p>

Full Title: Theft of decapitated mummy's head from Dublin crypt was 'planned crime' and not 'mindless vandalism', say Gardaí Last weekend, tomb raiders decapitated and subsequently stole the head of 'The Crusader' – 800-year-old mummified remains believed to be those of a man who fought in the Crusades during the Medieval Era. The head remains missing and there are fears it will begin to deteriorate in the open air as micro-climatic conditions in the crypt had kept it preserved. Two other mummies – including the body of a 400-year-old nun – were also "desecrated" …(snip) ...St Michan's Church – founded...

With more than a year left before construction starts, the Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) has begun demolition work for the proposed Mobile River bridge and Bayway project. The agency is currently in the process of tearing down nine buildings throughout the project site just south of downtown near Virginia Street, where the bridge will be footed. “Because the final design is in a preliminary phase, we don’t have exact locations on where the footings are going to be … ,” ALDOT spokeswoman Allison Gregg said. Some of the buildings were vacant before ALDOT acquired them, other owners and tenants...

Olympia, the Sanctuary of Zeus and venue of the Olympic Games in Ancient Greece, was probably destroyed by tsunamis that reached far inland, and not as previously believed, by earthquakes and river flooding... Paläotsunamis that have taken place over the last 11,000 years along the coasts of the eastern Mediterranean. The Olympic-tsunami hypothesis has been put forward due to sediments found in the vicinity of Olympia, which were buried under an 8 metres thick layer of sand and other debris, and only rediscovered around 250 years ago. "The composition and thickness of the sediments we have found, do not fit...

Full Title: Discovery of Ancient Spearpoints in Texas Has Some Archaeologists Questioning the History of Early Americas Archaeologists have discovered two previously unknown forms of spearpoint technology at a site in Texas. The triangular blades appear to be older than the projectile points produced by the Paleoamerican Clovis culture, an observation that’s complicating our understanding of how the Americas were colonized—and by whom. Clovis-style spear points began to appear around 13,000 to 12,700 years ago, and they were produced by Paleoamerican hunter-gatherers known as the Clovis people. Made from stones, these leaf-shaped (lanceolate) points featured a shallow concave base and...

Archaeologists in Egypt have uncovered a village with remains that predate the pharaohs by around 2,000 years. Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities said that the Neolithic site was discovered in Tell el-Samara, about 87 miles north of Cairo. Chief archaeologist Frederic Gio said his team found silos containing animal bones and food, indicating human habitation as early as 5,000 B.C. Pottery and stone tools were also found. The pharaonic era began around 3,000 B.C. and the Giza pyramids were built 500 years later. The village is one of the oldest found in the Nile Delta, according to a Facebook post by...

The use of high technology in the form of small, all-terrain robots has made it possible to shed light on possible human sacrifices as much as 3,000 years old in the temple of Chavin de Huantar in Peru, the first major religious and pilgrimage center in South American history. The Chavin Rovers, as the robots are called... edged through the narrow channels that lead to the galleries of the complex, many of which remain hidden to this day, and came upon the most important discovery on this site in the last 50 years. These robotic four-wheel-drive vehicles, guided by remote...

On a hill known as Göbekli Tepe ("Potbelly Hill") in southeastern Turkey, excavations led by Klaus Schmidt uncovered several large megalithic enclosures that date between 10,000 and 8000 B.C.E., the dawn of civilization and the Neolithic age. Each of these circular enclosures, which many have described as Turkey's "Stonehenge," consists of 10 to 12 massive stone pillars surrounding two larger monoliths positioned in the middle of the structure. There are no village remains at or near the Göbekli Tepe ruins, suggesting that the unique site was a ceremonial center exclusively used for the practice of the Neolithic religion of local...

Bread is life, but according to new research, it might be even more than that. A group of archeologists in northeastern Jordan have found the oldest bread in the world, and their findings show that this bread predates the invention of agriculture by at least 4,000 years. According to this discovery, the hunt for better bread ingredients may have triggered the agricultural revolution, which would make bread largely responsible for all of civilization as we know it. Researchers from the University of Copenhagen, University College London and University of Cambridge were excavating an archeological site in Jordan when they discovered...

The recent heatwave in the UK and Ireland has uncovered ancient archaeological sites that, in some cases, have never been seen before. One such discovery is a henge, or circular enclosure, located 1km from the famous Irish megalithic passage tomb, Newgrange. The henge was discovered by historian Anthony Murphy of Mythical Ireland, who was flying his drone over the Boyne Valley when he spotted a circular shape in the field. It is estimated that this henge was built some 5000 years ago. ... snip ... These new discoveries include a Roman fortlet near Magor, which emerged in ripening crops, and...