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Mysteries

This flint arrowhead was found embedded in a human rib at the Roc de les Orenetes site in northeastern Spain.

An Archer Shot This Bronze Age Human in the Back. 4,000 Years Later, the Arrow Is Still Embedded in the Victim’s Rib Bone

The attack took place during a period of conflict between groups living in the Pyrenees mountains in modern-day Spain

Archaeologists found the battlefield on private land a few miles away from Fort Ligonier in Pennsylvania.

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover Site Where George Washington Stopped a Friendly Fire Incident by Blocking Muskets With His Sword

In 1758, during the French and Indian War, the future president saved lives by stepping into the middle of a deadly skirmish in Pennsylvania

The manuscript that contains excerpts from The Song of Wade

New Research

A Tiny Typo May Explain a Centuries-Old Mystery About Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ and ‘Troilus and Criseyde’

The medieval writer made puzzling references to a story called “The Song of Wade,” which has been lost to history. Only a few lines quoted—or perhaps misquoted—in a 12th-century sermon survive

Photos of the violin taken before it was stolen

Have Eagle-Eyed Experts Found This 316-Year-Old Stradivarius Violin That Was Looted During World War II?

Eight decades after the 1709 violin known as the “Small Mendelssohn” disappeared, experts think they’ve located it in Japan

A NASA astronaut captured this odd weather phenomenon, called a red sprite, from the International Space Station.

Mysterious ‘Red Sprite’ Appears in NASA Astronaut Photo From the Space Station. What Is This Strange Electrical Flare?

Red sprites are among a class of enigmatic weather phenomena that appear over thunderstorms, known as Transient Luminous Events

One of the lion's head discs discovered in the grave

Cool Finds

Four Bewildering Bronze Lions’ Heads With Slightly Different Facial Expressions Found in Ancient Roman Grave in Israel

Similar examples of ancient lion artifacts appear to have been used as door knockers. But the newly discovered discs may have served a different purpose

The new study analyzed 131 skeletons dated to between 7100 and 5950 B.C.E.

Ancient DNA Reveals That Men Moved in With Their Brides’ Families in This Neolithic Settlement

A new study suggests that a 9,000-year-old society in Catalhoyuk, a proto-city in southern Anatolia, may have established a “female-centered” social structure

Relay 2 was an American communications satellite launched in 1964.

Astronomers Detected a Mysterious Radio Burst. It Turned Out to Be From a Dead NASA Satellite

The signal detected last year came from Relay 2, a communications satellite that has been defunct since 1967

NASA's ANITA experiment is lifted above Antarctica by a balloon and seeks to detect radio pulses connected to neutrinos.

Mysterious Radio Pulses Found in Antarctica Seem to Defy Physics, and Researchers Are Trying to Trace Their Origins

Strange signals detected by a NASA instrument more than a decade ago have continued to confound scientists, but a new paper rules out cosmic neutrinos as a source

These gold coins, known as cobs, date to 1707, the year before the San José sank.

Cool Finds

These Gold Coins May Solve the Mystery of the ‘World’s Richest Shipwreck,’ Confirming Its Identity as a Legendary 18th-Century Galleon

Minted in Peru in 1707, the money bolsters the evidence that the wreck is the Spanish ship “San José,” which sank off the Colombian coast in 1708 with treasure worth billions on board

The fading pages of the manuscript were sitting in a screened-in porch at a home in Barrington, Rhode Island, for years.

Untold Stories of American History

Tattered Pages Discovered in Storage Reveal an Enslaved Man’s Daring Bid for Freedom—and His Second Life at Sea

Historians are investigating the haunting handwritten manuscript, which chronicles Thomas White’s escape from slavery in Maryland and adventures around the world nearly 200 years ago

An ancient wooden falcon decorated with Egyptian blue alongside one of the newly developed pigments

New Research

Archaeologists Are Recreating the Long-Lost Recipe for Egyptian Blue, the World’s Oldest Known Synthetic Pigment

Created 5,000 years ago, the mysterious color has been found on artworks and artifacts throughout the ancient world. But the pigment’s recipe was eventually lost to history

Oklahoma Cheyenne, Joseph Henry Sharp, circa 1915 (left) and Victor Higgins, Aspens, circa 1932 (right)

Stolen Paintings Linked to Retired Couple Who Supposedly Moonlighted as Art Thieves Returned to New Mexico Museum After 40 Years

Victor Higgins’ “Aspens” and Joseph Henry Sharp’s “Oklahoma Cheyenne” had been missing since March 1985, when they were snatched in broad daylight

Conservation work at Gran Pajatén

Cool Finds

Archaeologists Discover More Than 100 Structures Linked to a Mysterious Pre-Columbian Civilization in the Remote Peruvian Andes

Based in high-altitude urban centers, the Chachapoya resisted conquest by the Inca Empire for centuries

The new Banksy mural is on a wall beside a covered street in Marseille, France.

Banksy Unveils New Lighthouse Mural With the Words ‘I Want to Be What You Saw in Me’ in France

The anonymous street artist announced the uncharacteristically personal artwork on May 29. It’s located on a wall in the French city of Marseille

The Bromeswell Bucket, restored its original form, is on display in the High Hall at Sutton Hoo.

New Research

This Bewildering Byzantine Bucket Stumped Archaeologists for Decades. Now, They’ve Finally Discovered Its Purpose

Fragments of the bucket were first found at England’s Sutton Hoo burial site in 1986. New research has revealed that the 1,500-year-old artifact was probably used as a cremation vessel

Ever since its departure from England exactly 180 years ago, on May 19, 1845, the Franklin expedition has captivated the public’s imagination.

The Shipwrecks From John Franklin’s Doomed Arctic Expedition Were Exactly Where the Inuit Said They Would Be

In May 1845, 129 British officers and crew members set out in search of the Northwest Passage on HMS “Erebus” and HMS “Terror.” None returned

The scroll previously known only as PHerc. 172 was written by the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus.

Cool Finds

These Ancient Scrolls Have Been a Tantalizing Mystery for 2,000 Years. Researchers Just Deciphered a Title for the First Time

Mount Vesuvius’ eruption preserved the Herculaneum scrolls beneath a blanket of ash. Two millennia later, X-ray scans show that one of them is a philosophical text called “On Vice”

Mourning doves, European starlings, crows and other common backyard species have been found dead on a residential street in Richmond, California, in recent months.

Birds Are Dying Mysterious, Violent Deaths in This Northern California Neighborhood—and No One Can Explain Why

Residents of Richmond, a city in the Bay Area, say they have watched dozens of birds drop dead in recent months

Dumbo octopuses, like the Opisthoteuthis agassizii seen here during a 2019 dive, are the deepest-living group of octopuses known.

Humans Have Seen Only 0.001 Percent of the World’s Deep Seas, Leaving Most of the Planet a Vast Mystery

Researchers argue that expanding deep-sea exploration is vital to understanding and managing these marine habitats

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