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The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed with one another within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports. Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East. But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent. The findings are based analysis of the genomes of nine ancient Europeans.

Giant bull, wild boar and red deer bones left at a settlement a mile from Stonehenge prove that Amesbury is the oldest settlement in Britain and has been continually occupied since 8820 BC, according to archaeologists who say the giant monuments were built by indigenous hunters and homemakers rather than Neolithic new builders. Carbon dating of aurochs – a breed twice the size of bulls – predates the settlers responsible for the massive pine posts at Stonehenge, suggesting that people had first lived in Wiltshire around 3,000 years before the site was created in 3000 BC. Experts had previously thought...

Natural Selection Led To Different Features In Europeans As Recent As 5,000 Years Ago, According To Researchers Posted by: Mike Nace March 13, 2014 An increasing volume of archaeological research and effort has come to focus particularly on the genetic evolution and development of human beings since the last Ice Age. While the last glacial period ended about 10,000 years ago, promising, new research suggests that substantial evolution of the human species can now be evidenced even in peoples from as recently as 5,000 years ago — a relative blink of an eye in geological terms — thanks to cutting-edge...

The ABC Publishing Group has announced the publication of the world’s first prehistoric maps of Britain. These maps are based on the recently published book by Robert John Langdon titled ‘The Stonehenge Enigma’ which proves that Britain suffered massive ‘Post Glacial Flooding’ directly after the last Ice Age ten thousand years ago, and that mankind placed their ancient sites on the shorelines of these raised waterways. Stonehenge - surrounded by water on three sides[Credit: ABC Publishing Group] The maps are presented on the old ordnance survey first edition that shows the natural ancient environment to a higher degree of detail...

Gobekli Tepe is located in southern Turkey near the modern-day city of Urfa. It contains at least 20 stone rings (circles within a circle) that date back more than 11,000 years. T-shaped limestone blocks line the circles and reliefs are carved on them. Long ago, people would fill in the outer circle with debris before building a new circle within... Ancient blades made of volcanic rock that were discovered at what may be the world's oldest temple suggest that the site in Turkey was the hub of a pilgrimage that attracted a cosmopolitan group of people some 11,000 years ago....

If National Geographic had more stories like this one, I’d be inclined to subscribe. This is fascinating stuff.Seven thousand years before Stonehenge was Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, where you’ll find ring upon ring of T-shaped stone towers arranged  in a circle. Around 11,600 B.C. hundreds of people gathered on this mound, year after year, possibly for centuries.There are plenty of mysteries on this hill.  Some of the rocks weigh 16 tons, but archaeologists can find no homes, no hearths, no water source, and no sign of a town or village to support the hundreds of workers who built the rings...

Ancient structures uncovered in Turkey and thought to be the world's oldest temples may not have been strictly religious buildings after all, according to an article in the October issue of Current Anthropology. Archaeologist Ted Banning of the University of Toronto argues that the buildings found at Göbekli Tepe may have been houses for people, not...gods. The buildings at Göbekli, a hilltop just outside of the Turkish city of Urfa, were found in 1995 by Klaus Schmidt of the German Archaeological Institute and colleagues from the Şanlıurfa Museum in Turkey. The oldest of the structures at the site are immense...

We used to think agriculture gave rise to cities and later to writing, art, and religion. Now the world’s oldest temple suggests the urge to worship sparked civilization. Every now and then the dawn of civilization is reenacted on a remote hilltop in southern Turkey. The reenactors are busloads of tourists—usually Turkish, sometimes European. The buses (white, air-conditioned, equipped with televisions) blunder over the winding, indifferently paved road to the ridge and dock like dreadnoughts before a stone portal. Visitors flood out, fumbling with water bottles and MP3 players. Guides call out instructions and explanations. Paying no attention, the visitors...

This site is 12,000 years old, the most advanced strutures ever found. Several video's on the link

A temple complex in Turkey that predates even the pyramids is rewriting the story of human evolution. They call it potbelly hill, after the soft, round contour of this final lookout in southeastern Turkey. To the north are forested mountains. East of the hill lies the biblical plain of Harran, and to the south is the Syrian border, visible 20 miles away, pointing toward the ancient lands of Mesopotamia and the Fertile Crescent, the region that gave rise to human civilization. And under our feet, according to archeologist Klaus Schmidt, are the stones that mark the spot—the exact spot—where humans...

Do these mysterious stones mark the site of the Garden of Eden? By TOM COX For the old Kurdish shepherd, it was just another burning hot day in the rolling plains of eastern Turkey. Following his flock over the arid hillsides, he passed the single mulberry tree, which the locals regarded as 'sacred'. The bells on his sheep tinkled in the stillness. Then he spotted something. Crouching down, he brushed away the dust, and exposed a strange, large, oblong stone. The man looked left and right: there were similar stone rectangles, peeping from the sands. Calling his dog to heel,...

It's more than twice as old as the Pyramids, or even the written word. When it was built, saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths still roamed, and the Ice Age had just ended. The elaborate temple at Gobelki Tepe in southeastern Turkey, near the Syrian border, is staggeringly ancient: 11,500 years old, from a time just before humans learned to farm grains and domesticate animals. According to the German archaeologist in charge of excavations at the site, it might be the birthplace of agriculture, of organized religion — of civilization itself.

Predating Stonehenge by 6,000 years, Turkey's stunning Gobekli Tepe upends the conventional view of the rise of civilization Six miles from Urfa, an ancient city in southeastern Turkey, Klaus Schmidt has made one of the most startling archaeological discoveries of our time: massive carved stones about 11,000 years old, crafted and arranged by prehistoric people who had not yet developed metal tools or even pottery. The megaliths predate Stonehenge by some 6,000 years. The place is called Gobekli Tepe, and Schmidt, a German archaeologist who has been working here more than a decade, is convinced it's the site of the...

Running until the end of October at the Palazzo della Cancelleria in the Vatican, the exhibition, "Cucuteni-Trypillia: A Great Civilization of Old Europe," introduces a mysterious Neolithic people who are now believed to have forged Europe's first civilization... Archaeologists have named them "Cucuteni-Trypillians" after the villages of Cucuteni, near Lasi, Romania and Trypillia, near Kiev, Ukraine, where the first discoveries of this ancient civilization were made more than 100 years ago. The excavated treasures -- fired clay statuettes and op art-like pottery dating from 5000 to 3000 B.C. -- immediately posed a riddle to archaeologists... "Despite recent extensive excavations, no...

Turkish site a Neolithic 'supernova' By Nicholas Birch April 21, 2008 Archaeologist Klaus Schmidt was among the first to realize the significance of the Gobekli Tepe site, which is 7,000 years older than Stonehenge. URFA, Turkey - As a child, Klaus Schmidt used to grub around in caves in his native Germany in the hope of finding prehistoric paintings. Thirty years later, as a member of the German Archaeological Institute, he found something infinitely more important: a temple complex almost twice as old as anything comparable. "This place is a supernova," said Mr. Schmidt, standing under a lone tree on...

A journey to 9,000 years ago Thursday, January 17, 2008VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News Çatalhöyük Research Project Director Ian Hodder says goddess icons do not, contrary to assumptions, point to a matriarchal society in Çatalhöyük. Findings in Çatalhöyük show that men and women had equal social status. According to Hodder, who also has been following the Göbeklitepe excavations in Şanlıurfa, meticulous archaeological excavation in southeastern Anatolia can change all scientific archaeological assumptions Clues as to when mankind really began living in urban patterns lie in the Neolithic layers of Çatalhöyük. Çatalhöyük is within the borders of Cumra district...

The statue turned out to be part of a larger discovery: of a Neolithic temple. This and the statue have now been dated to 10,000BC, making the 'Snowman' possibly the oldest statue in the world. The veracity of this claim depends on semantics. What is a 'statue'? The Venus of Willendorf dates back to 20,000BC. But the Venus is just 11cm long: surely not a statue. So the Balikli Gol Snowman is the first sizeable sculpture of a man. Arguably, it is the oldest sculptural representation of humanity, the oldest self-portrait in stone. In the accepted sense of the word,...

An archaeological dig may have uncovered ‘Eden’ in Turkey, says sean thomas I am standing above an archaeological dig, on a hillside in southern Turkey. Beneath me, workmen are unearthing a sculpture of some sort of reptile (right). It is delicate and breathtaking. It is also part of the world's oldest temple. If this sounds remarkable, it gets better. The archaeologist in charge of the dig believes that this artwork once stood in Eden. The archaeologist is Klaus Schmidt; the site is called Gobekli Tepe. In academic circles, the astonishing discoveries at Gobekli Tepe have long been a talking...

Þanlýurfa to shed more light on history of civilization Saturday, June 24, 2006 Þanlýurfa to shed more light on history of civilization ANKARA - Turkish Daily News The southeastern Anatolian province of Þanlýurfa, considered to be the cradle of agriculture as well as hosting numerous examples of ancient architecture, promises new discoveries to shed light on the history of human evolution in the region. Harran University Assistant Professor Cihan Kürkçüoðlu noted that every archaeological excavation to be carried out in Þanlýurfa would provide new information on the history of civilization in the region. Kürkçüoðlu reminded the Anatolia news agency that...

German paper reports world’s oldest temple is in Þanlýurfa Saturday, January 21, 2006 ANKARA - Turkish Daily News One of Germany's leading newspapers, Die Welt, reported this week that the world's oldest temple, dating back around 12,000 years, is located on Göbekli Hill in Turkey's province of Þanlýurfa, said the Anatolia news agency. According to an article titled “Holy Hill of the Hunters,” the temple was discovered by German archaeologist Klaus Schmidt, standing around 15 meters in height and located on a hill upon which a single tree stands. Defining the area as the “cradle of civilization,” the paper said...