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
A new look at more than 1,000 “bog bodies” — human remains preserved in low-oxygen places with wet and spongy soils — reveals that the tradition of leaving bodies in European mires spans millennia, from the Stone Age to modern times, and that these individuals often met violent ends. However, all of these bodies didn’t … Read more
A lethal pulse of ultraviolet (UV) radiation may have played a role in Earth’s biggest mass extinction event, fossilized pollen grains reveal. Pollen that dates to the time of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction event, roughly 250 million years ago, produced “sunscreen” compounds that shielded against harmful UV-B radiation, the analysis found. At that time, approximately … Read more
The oldest known writing dates back more than 5,000 years to ancient Mesopotamia, in what is now mostly present-day Iraq. But who was the first author known by name? Archaeological discoveries have revealed the earliest known writing was invented about 3400 B.C. in an ancient Mesopotamian area known as Sumer, near the Persian Gulf, according … 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
Satan is often shown in popular depictions with horns on its head, furry legs and cloven hooves of a goat. But just why is the devil depicted with horns and hooves? It turns out that historians don’t agree on when this depiction of the devil became popular and where it came from. The devil’s appearance … Read more
In the late 18th century, a man was buried in Griswold, Connecticut, with his femur bones arranged in a criss-cross manner — a placement indicating that locals thought he was a vampire. However, little else was known about him. More than 200 years later, DNA evidence is revealing what he may have looked like. (And yes, he … Read more
A series of sudden and colossal spikes in radiation levels across Earth’s history could have come from a series of unknown, unpredictable and potentially catastrophic cosmic events, a new study has revealed. Named Miyake events after the lead author of the first study to describe them, the spikes occur roughly once every 1,000 years or … Read more
Scholars may have just discovered a fragment of the world’s oldest complete star map. The map segment, which was found beneath the text on a sheet of medieval parchment, is thought to be a copy of the long-lost star catalog of the second century B.C. Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who made the earliest known attempt to … 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
