Stonehenge is a massive stone monument located on Salisbury Plain in southern England. It was built roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago and was part of a larger sacred landscape. The bigger stones at Stonehenge, known as sarsens, weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average and are widely believed to have been brought from … Read more
A “replica” sword that has been part of the collection at the Field Museum in Chicago for nearly a century is actually a 3,000-year-old artifact from the Bronze Age. Curators made the shocking discovery while preparing for an upcoming exhibition called “First Kings of Europe.” The 3-foot-long (91 centimeters) bronze sword had been in storage … Read more
Geologists in northern Guatemala have discovered a massive Maya site that stretches approximately 650 square miles (1,700 square kilometers) and dates to the Middle and Late Preclassic period (roughly 1000 B.C. to 250 B.C.). The findings were the result of an aerial survey that researchers conducted via airplane using lidar (light detection and ranging), in … Read more
Archaeologists have unearthed the pyramid of a never-before known ancient Egyptian queen; a cache of coffins, mummies and artifacts; and a series of interconnected tunnels. For the past two years, archaeologists have been working at Saqqara, an archaeological site in Giza, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Cairo. Recently, they discovered a trove of … Read more
Archaeologists in the east of England have unearthed the remains of an elaborate hall that Anglo-Saxon monarchs and warriors feasted in roughly 1,400 years ago. The remains of the royal hall — near the village of Rendlesham in Suffolk, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) northeast of London — are only a few miles north of … Read more
The CIA is funding research into resurrecting extinct animals — including the woolly mammoth and tiger-like thylacine — according to news reports. Via a venture capital investment firm called In-Q-Tel, which the CIA funds, the American intelligence agency has pledged money to the Texas-based tech company Colossal Biosciences. According to Colossal’s website, the company’s goal … Read more
Just as waterfront mansions are status symbols for today’s rich and famous, ancient artificial islands in the British Isles known as crannogs may have been used by elites to display their power and wealth through elaborate parties, a new study finds. A crannog is “an artificial island within a lake, wetland, or estuary,” Antony Brown … Read more
Countless civilizations have risen and fallen over the millennia. But which one is the oldest on record? About 30 years ago, this question seemed to have a straightforward answer. Around 4000 B.C., the earliest phase of the Sumerian culture arose as the oldest civilization in the Mesopotamia region, in what is now mostly Iraq. The … Read more
The mysterious 6,500-year-old burial of a woman and several arrowheads in northern France may reveal details of how women were regarded in that society during the Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, a new study finds. The researchers investigated giant graves known as “long barrows” — large earthen mounds, often hundreds of feet long and … Read more
A mysterious stone tomb in western England — known as Arthur’s Stone because of its links to the mythical King Arthur — originated almost 6,000 years ago as part of an elaborate “ceremonial landscape” across the whole area, according to archaeologists. Excavations this year near the ancient stone structure in rural Herefordshire, just east of … Read more
