Conservators at National Museums Scotland have reconstructed a 1,800-year-old segment of Roman armor that was broken into more than 100 pieces. The completed work will be part of an upcoming exhibition. For several weeks, museum conservators painstakingly pieced together what they’re calling an “ancient jigsaw puzzle.” The second-century brass armor was shattered into dozens of … Read more
A roughly 3,000-year-old stone disk covered with enigmatic markings is actually an ancient celestial map marking the brightest stars in the night sky, researchers claim. The tire-size stone, which was discovered near an ancient hill fort in northeastern Italy a few years ago, features 29 carved markings on its front and back that may represent … Read more
A hidden “entrance to the underworld” built by the ancient Zapotec culture has been discovered beneath a Catholic church in southern Mexico, according to a team of researchers using cutting-edge ground-scanning technology. The complex system of underground chambers and tunnels was built more than a millennium ago by the Zapotec, whose state arose near modern-day … Read more
Archaeologists in England have discovered more than two dozen monumental pits dotting the countryside in Bedfordshire, north of London. Radiocarbon dating of materials retrieved from the prehistoric site revealed that the round, steep-sided holes were created around 7,700 to 8,500 years ago during the Mesolithic, also known as the Middle Stone Age, according to a … Read more
It’s long been assumed that men were hunters and women were gatherers, but a new study reveals that both sexes have been equally adept at hunting in hunter-gatherer cultures. An international team of scientists made the finding after examining data culled from dozens of academic papers, published over the past 100 years, that focused on … Read more
Archaeologists in Germany have unearthed a sword from a Bronze Age burial, and the weapon is in such good condition that it still gleams. The 3,000-year-old sword, discovered in the town of Nördlingen in Bavaria, was found in the burial of a man, woman and child. It appears that the trio were buried in quick … Read more
The Nazca Lines, a group of hundreds of mysterious geoglyphs etched into the desert in Peru, have mystified scientists for nearly a century. People from ancient civilizations made the drawings over a period of hundreds of years, beginning around 200 B.C. By analyzing the style and subject matter of the drawings and the methods used … Read more
Ancient DNA reveals that the Picts, the “painted people” of Scotland who fought off the Romans, weren’t an enigmatic group that migrated from faraway lands. Instead, the Picts had local roots and were related to other Iron Age people in Britain, a new study finds. An analysis of eight skeletons from two Pictish cemeteries, published … Read more
A rare stash of 1,000-year-old ironwork, which sat for 40 years in a family’s basement in Norway, is now seeing the light of day after a woman discovered the hoard during some spring cleaning. The hoard consists of 32 iron ingots that look like small spatulas and date back to the Viking Age (A.D. 793 … Read more
Elite women, perhaps princesses, played a crucial role in holding the Xiongnu, one of the first nomadic empires of the eastern Eurasian Steppe, together, a new study suggests. The Xiongnu, who may have been among the ancient ancestors of the Mongols, formed a confederation of nomadic peoples who controlled much of Central Asia, from present-day … Read more
