Smart News History & Archaeology

Cool Finds

How British Soldiers’ Gear Has Changed Over the Last 1,000 Years

Photographer Thom Atkinson traces the evolution of wooden spears to sniper rifles

New Research

People in the Stone Age Were Fans of Escargot

A new study pushes back the date of land snails being consumed in the Mediterranean

A typical 15th century banquet.

New Research

Before He Died, Richard III Lived Large

Bone chemistry sheds light on the monarch's shifting diet throughout his brief life

The bottle recovered from a shipwreck off the coast of Poland

Cool Finds

200-Year-Old Alcohol Found in Shipwreck Is Still Drinkable

Researchers found the liquid, originally thought to be mineral water, was actually over-aged booze

David Graham, rear, with John Tee-Van, front, with one of the young pandas.

Cool Finds

How an American Missionary Helped Capture the First Panda Given to the U.S.

"Missionaries sometimes have to tackle strange and unusual jobs," David Graham wrote.

Cool Finds

America’s Tumbleweeds Are Actually Russian Invaders

Some say the tumbleweed's takeover of the American West was the most aggressive weed invasion in our country's history

Flax yarn recovered from late Neolithic graves, heavily laden with resin.

New Research

The First Ancient Egyptian Mummies Might Have Appeared 1,500 Years Earlier Than Egyptologists Thought

Egyptians were embalming their dead as far back as 4,100 B.C.

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Cool Finds

Watch How the Cultural Hubs of Civilization Have Shifted Over Centuries

A study follows the births and deaths of notable people

New evidence shows that Rock Doves (an ancestor to today's feral pigeons) were eaten by Neanderthals

New Research

Evidence Shows Neanderthals Ate Birds

Squab was apparently on the neanderthal menu for over 40,000 years in Gibraltar

Looking across old town towards The Citadel

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Irbil, the Iraqi City the US Is Now Defending, Is One of the Oldest Continuously Inhabited Places in the World

Irbil, Iraq, has a long, long, long history

New Research

Humanity’s Legacy Might Be The Holes We Leave Behind

The last remnants of human civilizations might be the holes we carve into the earth

The Flores hobbit skull (left) compared to another H. sapiens skull recovered on the island that dates to around 4,000 years ago (right).

New Research

The Flores "Hobbit" Might Not Be a New Species at All

A long-standing debate on the original findings has been reignited

Siegfried Sassoon

Cool Finds

These Diaries, of Poet Siegfried Sassoon, Capture the Chaos of WWI

Siegfried Sassoon's poems captured life in the trenches of WWI

New Research

Mummies From Around the World Had Hardened Arteries

Mummies from cultures across the globe have one thing in common—plaque in their arteries

Cool Finds

How Big Were Romans' Feet?

A bioarchaeologist proposes one method to answer that question

The London as it looked before it blew up

Cool Finds

In 1665, a British Warship Mysteriously Blew Up—And Soon We Might Know Why

349 years ago, the warship The London exploded in the Thames Estuary. Now archaeologists are trying to figure out why

The Enola Gay crew (Van Kirk is standing, second from left).

Trending Today

The Last Crew Member Who Dropped the Atomic Bomb on Hiroshima Died

Theodore "Dutch" Van Kirk said he never regretted his involvement in the bombing

Natural Chocolate Is Actually a Reddish Color

Chocolate didn't turn brown until chemists got their hands on it

Lead from mining operations in Broken Hill, Australia, reached Antarctica before humans did.

Cool Finds

Pollution Beat People to the South Pole

Before people ever made it to the South Pole, a pollutant had beaten us there

Giant pandas Hsing-Hsing (left) and Ling-Ling frolic at the National Zoological Park near Washington, DC. Photo circa 1974.

Cool Finds

Don't Worry Mr. Nixon, the National Zoo's Pandas Figured Out How to Have Sex

President Nixon wanted to make sure Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing had enough time to "learn the ropes"

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