Archaeology

Scientists find the earliest evidence of human activity in the Americas

Footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico provide the earliest unequivocal evidence of human activity in the Americas and offer insight...

Prehistoric humans rarely mated with their cousins, shows study

Scientists screened ancient humans that lived during the last 45,000 years to find out how closely related their parents were. The results surprising: ancient humans...

How lead (maybe) caused the downfall of ancient Rome

Ancient Rome's emperors did some pretty bizarre stuff -- bursting into uncontrollable fits of laughter, appointing a horse as a priest, dressing in animal...

‘Dragon man’ fossil may replace Neanderthals as our closest relative

A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University. The largest of known Homo...

Anglo-Saxon ancestry was ‘mixed and mutable’, shows study

The ancestry of early Anglo-Saxons, a subject of some debate, included immigrants from continental Europe as well as people indigenous to Great Britain, according...

Ancient Maya city may have parks

The ancient Maya city of Tikal was a bustling metropolis and home to tens of thousands of people. The city comprised roads, paved plazas, towering...

Humans may have set foot in North America 20,000 years earlier than thought

An unexpected discovery by an Iowa State University researcher suggests that the first humans may have arrived in North America more than 30,000 years...

Scientists discover 3500-year-old honeypot in Africa

Honey is humankind's oldest sweetener - and for thousands of years it was also the only one. Indirect clues about the significance of bees and...

Like it or not, taxes and bureaucracy are cornerstones of democracy, shows history

The media has been rife with stories about democracy in decline: the recent coup in Myanmar, the ascent of strongman Narendra Modi in India,...

First people to enter the Americas likely did so with their dogs

The first people to settle in the Americas likely brought their own canine companions with them, according to new research which sheds more light...