The Scent of Patchouli Perfume Filled the Air in the Roman Empire
After analyzing chemical traces found in a small vessel recovered from an ancient Roman site in the city of Carmona, Spain, a team of researchers from the University of Cordoba has identified elements of a Roman perfume that was worn more than 2,000 years ago. The scientists have concluded that the ancient Roman perfume was […]
20,000-year-old Rings Cleverly Deduced to be Prehistoric Spear-thrower Grips
Archaeologists digging at certain sites in France have unearthed some curious ring-shaped artifacts over the years that seemed to have no clear purpose. Dating back to the Upper Paleolithic  period (50,000 to 12,000 years ago), the assumption has been that these rings, which are open at one end, were somehow attached to clothing or worn […]
Copious Copper Supplies Made Cyprus a Trading Center 3,500 Years Ago
In the earliest period of international trade in the Mediterranean region, the island of Cyprus was a surprisingly busy trading hub. Its exalted status during the Late Bronze Age (1,500 to 1,150 BC) was made possible by its huge supplies of pure Cyprus copper, which was mined in copious quantities near the ancient Cypriot village […]
Plea to Protect Predynastic Rock Art to Save the Deep Past of Egypt
In some of the harshest landscapes found anywhere in Egypt, archaeologists have discovered a stunning collection of petroglyphs (rock art) and inscriptions that date from the fifth millennium BC up through the first millennium AD. The former images are especially remarkable, since they show that the roots of the revered ancient Egyptian culture can be […]
âDead Nailsâ Used in Roman Grave to Protect the Living from Restless Dead
Belgian archaeologists digging at the site of the ancient Roman city of Sagalassos in southwestern Turkey recently unearthed a most unusual burial. The tomb held the cremated remains of a man whoâd lived in the second century AD, and what made this burial so remarkable is that it was sealed with two dozen bricks and […]
âAncient Stone Toolsâ Accidentally Made by Modern Monkeys
Archaeologists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology have announced their discovery of stone fragments that closely resemble ancient stone tools made by prehistoric humans. What is notable is that these apparently worked stone objects were actually made unintentionally by old world monkeys living in the forests of Thailand. Does this have implications for […]
Bronze Age Iberians Made Steel Tools 1,000 Years Before the Romans!
A study of elaborate 2,900-year-old carvings in stone monuments found in Portugal has revealed a rather amazing fact. It seems these Late Bronze Age engravings could only have been made with hardened steel tools, of a type that had previously been found only in excavations from later times. The use of tempered steel tools or […]
Medieval Hoard of Gold and Silver Unearthed in the Netherlands
An astonishing collection of gold and silver jewelry and coins, some of which are at least 1,000 years old, has just gone on display at the Rijksmuseum Van Oudheden (RMO) museum in the city of Leiden in the Netherlands, the Dutch News reports. The priceless precious metal treasure includes four gold ornaments shaped like earrings, […]
Why Some Ancient Mesoamerican Cities Endured for Centuries
A captivating question has long intrigued historians and archaeologists: why did some ancient cities last for centuries or even millennia, while others vanished rapidly or were forgotten over time? To solve this riddle, a team of researchers from the United States conducted a comprehensive and innovative study, recently published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution […]
Iron Age Comb Made from Human Skull Discovered Near Cambridge
While sorting through some 280,000 artifacts excavated from land reserved for a highway construction project running from Cambridge to the village of Huntingdon in eastern England, archaeologists affiliated with the Museum of London Archaeology (MOLA) discovered a miniature comb that was incredibly ancient and also made from a most unusual material. Now dated to Britainâs […]