Ancient Cultures
Mayan Pyramid Destroyed to Get Rocks for Road Project
The construction company building the road appears to have extracted crushed rocks from the pyramid to use as road fill
May 14, 2013 |
By Rose Eveleth
Scientists Map Britain’s Most Famous Underwater City
Researchers have created a 3D visualization of Dunwich using acoustic imaging
May 13, 2013 |
By Rose Eveleth
The Great(est) Gatsby Playlist
Baz Luhrmann may have his take, but Smithsonian Folkways offers its own streaming soundtrack for the novel-turned-movie
May 10, 2013 |
By Leah Binkovitz
U.S. Gives Mongolia Its Tyrannosauras Skeleton Back
The U.S. government is returning a Tyrannosaurus skeleton to Mongolia and the Metropolitan Museum of Art is giving two statues back to Cambodia
May 07, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Ancient Australia’s First Settlers Probably Came There On Purpose
Rather some chance encounter with the continent down under, researchers think that the original migrants set out to deliberately colonize Australia
April 25, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Ancient Maya Were Cultural Sponges
Rather than the Maya influencing the Olmec or vice versus, similarities between their cultures represent a general shift in ancient Mesoamerica
April 25, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
How Do You Say ‘Star Wars’ In Navajo?
The Navajo Nation teamed up with Lucasfilm to translate the classic space opera
April 25, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
Almost All That Remains of This Woman, Perhaps the First Queen of Windsor, Is Her Jewelry
Though her clothes long since decomposed and her bones are almost completely decayed, her lavish jewelry remains behind, giving hints to her identity
April 24, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Chechnya, Dagestan, and the North Caucasus: A Very Brief History
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hails from Dagestan, a war-torn Russian region in the North Caucasus.
April 19, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
Our Closest Ape-Like Ancestor Is Reshuffling Thinking About Human Evolution
Australopithecus sediba included a strange mix of both modern Homo and ape-like australopith features
April 15, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Chins Prove There’s No Such Thing As Universal Beauty
Dartmouth researchers studied chin shapes of 180 recently deceased male and female skeletons from Australia, Africa, Asia and Europe. Chin shapes, they found, differ significantly in all of these regions
April 11, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Thousands of Roman Artifacts Have Just Been Sitting Under London’s Financial District
A trove of Roman artifacts, dug up from a London construction site
April 11, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
Shroud 2.0: A High-Tech Look at One of Christianity’s Most Important Artifacts
The Shroud of Turin? There's an app for that
April 01, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
Maybe Cleopatra Didn’t Commit Suicide
Her murder, one author thinks, was covered up behind a veil of propaganda and lies put forth by the Roman Empire
March 29, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
How Does One Actually Shrink a Head?
How does one take a regular sized human skull and miniaturize it?
March 20, 2013 |
By Rose Eveleth
The Vengeance of Ivarr the Boneless
Did he, and other Vikings, really use a brutal method of ritual execution called the "blood eagle"?
March 18, 2013 |
By Mike Dash
Black Plague Death Pit Dug Up in London
Dug up during London construction, the bodies of those killed by the black plague
March 18, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
Six Centuries Ago, Chinese Explorers Left This Coin Behind in Africa
Emperor Yongle was perhaps best know for starting the initial construction of Beijing's Forbidden City, but he also sent huge fleets of ships, under the command of admiral Zheng He, out across the ocean to faraway lands
March 15, 2013 |
By Rachel Nuwer
Cannibals of the Past Had Plenty of Reasons to Eat People
For a long time cannibalism was a survival technique, a cultural practice, and a legitimate source of protein
March 14, 2013 |
By Rose Eveleth
The Sun Can Heal the Cracks in This New Type of Concrete
When the sun lights the concrete jungle, this new material can heal its wounds
March 07, 2013 |
By Colin Schultz
