Free Republic

A decade ago, archaeologists made a grisly discovery when they unearthed two Neolithic mass graves at the sites of Bergheim and Achenheim in northeastern France. The pits contained severed limbs and human skeletons, evidence of excessive violence and mutilation that did not match normal Neolithic patterns. Some deceased individuals buried in other nearby graves, however, showed no signs of brutality. A new study has recently analyzed the chilling remains to try and reconstruct the identities of the individuals and determine why some were treated so cruelly, according to a statement released by the University of Oxford. Researchers conducted multi-isotopic analysis...

The Herald Scotland reports that prior to the construction of a new housing development in Guardbridge, Fife, archaeological excavations uncovered traces of some 10,000 years of local history. The historic village takes its name from a sixteenth-century bridge that led pilgrims across the River Eden to St. Andrews, but a team from GUARD Archaeology recently unearthed evidence that the site was a hotspot of human occupation far earlier than that. During the Upper Paleolithic period, some of Scotland's first inhabitants made flint tools at the site. Later, early Neolithic farmers left many pits across the area, which contained burnt cereal...

While the development of agriculture is often associated with the Fertile Crescent, past research has shown that farming actually developed independently at different times and places around the world, including Africa, the Americas, and eastern Asia. New evidence from a cave in southern Uzbekistan continues to show that the advent and spread of agricultural technology is more complicated than originally thought, according to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology. Recent archaeological work in Toda Cave uncovered evidence that the region's inhabitants were already engaging in sophisticated harvesting practices 9,200 years ago. Wear patterns on stone tools...

Ever wondered why this Church (knowlton) was plonked into a Henge? Whilst you might think the answer is obvious, what was found 2 miles away could reveal all! Knowlton Church... Explained by a discovery 2 miles away! | 9:45 Paul Whitewick | 197K subscribers | 132,486 views | July 20, 2025

During the Neolithic Revolution, the development of agriculture led to an epic shift in the way human societies lived. As agricultural technology spread out from the Near East, traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyles diminished in favor of more sedentary farming communities. This transition was usually accompanied by a dramatic shift in diet. However, according to a statement released by the University of York, this was not necessarily the case in Japan. Agriculture, rice, and millet were introduced to the Japanese islands from the Korean Peninsula around 3,000 years ago. Research conducted by archaeologists from the University of York, the University of Cambridge,...

When the well-preserved body of the famous Ötzi the Iceman was recovered from the ice in the Austrian-Italian Alps in 1991, his remains provided archaeologists with a wealth of information about life in Europe more than 5,000 years ago. Surprisingly, sequencing of his genome indicated that he shared a very high proportion of his ancestry with early farmers who lived in Anatolia. Science News Today reports that a groundbreaking new study analyzed the DNA of 47 other individuals who lived alongside Ötzi in the Austrian Tyrol between 6400 and 1300 b.c. to determine if they shared genomic similarities. The research...

New research in northwest Saudi Arabia has identified the existence of a network of previously unknown fortified enclosures, La Brújula Verde reports. Known as Walled Oasis Complexes, these settlements consisted of large defensive walls encircling desert oases that helped shelter and protect crops, water sources, and herds of goats and sheep. Relying on satellite imagery and ground reconnaissance, the study located four previously unknown complexes at Dumat al-Jandal, Hait, Huwayyit, and Khaybar dating back thousands of years. The discovery changes the perception of Arabia as a desert dominated by Bedouins and demonstrates that there were complex sedentary societies as many...

What does it really mean to have German ancestry? If you’ve taken a DNA test and seen the "Germanic" label, your story is far richer, older, and more dynamic than any single result. Groundbreaking genetic research reveals that Germans descend from a tapestry of Ice Age hunters, early farmers, horse-riding steppe migrants, Celtic warriors, and global travelers. Each left its enduring mark, blending survival, innovation, and migration into the DNA of modern Germans. Why German Genetic Origins is Different | 22:17 Evo Inception | 52.4K subscribers | 47,642 views | July 18, 202500:00 – Introduction: Beyond the "Germanic" Label 00:21...

Scottish archaeologists recently unearthed the largest ancient timber building ever found in the country, reports The Herald Scotland. The discovery was made by a team from GUARD Archaeology working at a construction site for the local high school's new soccer fields. The monumental 115-foot-long hall dates to around 4000 b.c., making it 1,000 years older than Stonehenge. Its design features wattle-and-daub walls, huge roof beams, and an interior space divided by postholes and narrow channels. Researchers believe that it was built by one of the earliest groups of farmers to colonize today's Scottish territory. It may have been used for...

For thousands of years, animal teeth have been used as jewelry or ornaments on clothing by human societies around the world. Until now, however, archaeologists have given little thought to the process of how people obtained these animal teeth, especially since keeping them unbroken was difficult but essential. According to a statement released by the University of Helsinki, researchers recently used experimental archaeology to determine the methods likely used thousands of years ago before modern tools. The team examined evidence from the Zvejnieki cemetery in Latvia, where more than 2,000 animal teeth were found in graves dating to between 7500...

Newgrange sits in Ireland's Boyne Valley, about 30 miles north of Dublin. Built around 3200 B.C., this massive stone monument features a long passage leading to a central chamber, all covered by a circular mound of earth and stones. For over 300 years, treasure hunters and antiquarians ransacked the site, making it nearly impossible to know exactly where artifacts originally came from.This historical looting creates a major problem for the "king" theory. The skull fragment NG10 was found during proper archaeological excavations in the 1960s, but researchers can't definitively say it was originally placed in the tomb's supposedly "prestigious" right-hand...

Jordan: The mysterious Stone Age village | 42:26DW Documentary | 6.11M subscribers | 2,706,845 views | October 20, 2022

Researchers have determined that a nearly five-inch-tall limestone figurine of a woman found by a farmer near the city of Kołobrzeg in 2022 dates to more than 6,000 years ago, according to a report in The Art Newspaper. The statuette was dubbed the "Venus of Kołobrzeg," a reference to similar Neolithic figurines with accentuated breasts unearthed throughout Europe that scholars believe were fertility symbols. The oldest known example, which was found in 2008 at southern Germany's Hohle Fels Cave, is some 40,000 years old. The Kołobrzeg Venus is the only such figurine discovered north of the Carpathian Mountains. Researchers noted...

Oxford Cotswold Archaeology (OCA) is currently conducting one of the largest projects ever undertaken in the east of England at a site known as Sizewell C. According to the East Anglian Daily Times, the team recently unearthed hundreds of earthen pits, a discovery which has provided new clues -- and posed some questions -- about daily life in Neolithic Britain. The mysterious pits are around 6,000 years old and range in size from shallow craters measuring three feet in diameter to large cavities 10 feet across and six feet deep. Analysis of pottery fragments revealed that almost all of the...

A recent study published last year in the journal Cell has identified the ancient origins of a genetic mutation that confers resistance to HIV, and how it first appeared in an individual who lived near the Black Sea between 6,700 and 9,000 years ago. Named CCR5 delta 32, the uncommon genetic variant disables a key immune protein used by a large majority of strains of the HIV virus to enter human cells and therefore "locks out" the virus in individuals who carry two copies of the mutation.HIV is a relatively new disease. It was only identified in the last century,...

Among the most surprising finds is that the inhabitants of the earliest cities of the Bronze Age (3500–1200 b.c.) were enthusiastic pig eaters, and that even later Iron Age (1200–586 b.c.) residents of Jerusalem enjoyed the occasional pork feast. Yet despite a wealth of data and new techniques including ancient DNA analysis, archaeologists still wrestle with many porcine mysteries, including why the once plentiful animal gradually became scarce long before religious taboos were enacted...In the 1990s, at the site of Hallan Çemi in southeastern Anatolia, archaeologists unearthed 51,000 animal bones dating to about 10,000 b.c. Of these, boar bones made...

Welcome to the story of the Causewayed Enclosure [Windmill Hill, Avebury]. These are quite the monuments. But do we know what they were originally constructed for? Defensive, demarcation, meeting place... lets see if we can find out, as once again I find myself in a ditch. Britain's OLDEST Ancient Monument that Still Confuses us! | 13:17 Paul Whitewick | 177K subscribers | 10,178 views | June 1, 2025

Approximately 14,000 years ago, the unprecedented solar event—now judged to be the most powerful known to have occurred—marked Earth’s transition into the Holocene epoch, according to the findings of an international team of scientists. The team traces the event to around 12,350 BC using a new climate-chemistry model specifically designed to reconstruct ancient solar particle activity. This expands the known timeline for ancient solar storms and raises the bar on the upper boundaries of their intensity. Although the event in question was already known from past observations of radiocarbon spikes in ancient wood samples, its scale and magnitude remained unknown....

Archaeologists excavating the site of a future golf course were surprised to find evidence of a prehistoric village — including a rare chariot wheel dating back millennia. The excavation took place near Inverness, Scotland, at the site of the future Old Petty Championship Golf Course at Cabot Highlands. Experts working for Avon Archaeology Highland also found a Bronze Age cremation urn estimated to be 3,500 years old, along with flint tools and quern stones, which were used to grind grains. Remnants of at least 25 Neolithic-era wooden buildings were also uncovered at the site, according to the BBC. Archaeologists told...

A recent study has uncovered the existence of ancient lakes, rivers, and a massive water-formed valley beneath Arabia’s vast desert. ***************************************************************************** A recent study has uncovered a long-forgotten landscape hidden beneath the vast expanse of Arabia’s Empty Quarter—one of the driest and most desolate regions in the world today. The groundbreaking research, published in Communications Earth & Environment, reveals that the desert was once home to ancient lakes, rivers, and valleys, formed during periods of high rainfall between 11,000 and 5,500 years ago. This discovery sheds new light on the dramatic environmental shifts that occurred in the region during the...