Aux origines

While on routine inspection at Mit-Rahina, the Tourism and Antiquities Police uncovered on Tuesday a plastic bag concealing Ancient Egyptian artefacts. The bag was found half-buried in the botanical area behind the Hathor Temple archaeological site, located 24 km south of Cairo. The Mit-Rahina archaeological site [Credit: AhramOnline] Minister of State for Antiquities (MSA) Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online that the bag contains...

The ancestor of all creatures with jaws and a backbone was not a sleek, shark-like beast but a toothless, armoured fish, said a study Wednesday that rewrites Man's evolutionary history. This 419-million-year-old fossil prompts scientists to rethink how the living groups of jawed vertebrates acquired their characteristic features [Credit: Brian Choo] Scientists said they had found a 419-million-year-old fish fossil in China which...

Archaeologists have unearthed a 5,000-year-old leopard trap in the Negev Desert in Israel. The trap, which was found along with a 1,600-year-old trap, was originally thought to be just a few hundred years old, and is nearly identical to traps that have been used by desert-dwelling Bedouins in the area in the last century. The trap is designed to lure leopards in through the front with some bait, before slamming shut behind it...

About 10,000 years ago, the Neolithic age ushered in one of the most dramatic periods of human cultural and technological transition, where independently, different world populations developed the domestication of plants and animals. The hunter-gatherers gave rise to herders and farmers. Changes to a more sedentary lifestyle and larger settlements are widely thought to have contributed to a worldwide human population explosion, from an...

Archaeologists were helped by local people to "re-discover" the feature, laid between two of the Hurlers stone circles on Bodmin Moor, Cornwall.

The 4,000-year-old pavement has been described as "unique" by archaeologists. They hope it will give a better understanding of early civilisations.

If you have always been intrigued by the mysterious moai - the giant stone statues of Rapa Nui, also known as Easter Island - and they are on your must-do list, do not delay. Seven moai of Au Akivi [Credit: ABC/Greg Wilesmith] Make your way, whenever you can, to this small, rocky, triangular-shaped and extremely isolated island in the South Pacific, 9,354 kilometres due east of Brisbane. "These objects are very friable,...

Une nouvelle tombe à couloir trouvée en Irlande grâce au Lidar.

The fossilized remains of a reptile closely related to lizards are the oldest yet to be discovered.

Des traces d’activité humaine datant de 8000 ans ont été découvertes dans le massif des Alpes à des altitudes dépassant les 2000 mètres.

Anthropology researchers from The University of Texas at Austin have confirmed a direct link between upright two-legged (bipedal) walking and the position of the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull that transmits the spinal cord. Comparison of the skeletons of three bipedal mammals: an Egyptian jerboa, an eastern gray kangaroo and a human [Credit: University of Texas at Austin] The study, published in a forthcoming...

Archaeologists believe they have found the remains of a Bronze Age boat building community in Monmouth. An artist's impression of how the channels could have been left in the ground at Monmouth [Credit: Peter Bere/BBC] Excavations show 100ft-long (30m) channels in the clay along which experts think vessels were dragged into a long-gone prehistoric lake. Monmouth Archaeological Society started to unearth new findings when work...

An international team of archaeologists led by experts from the University of York has uncovered evidence of human activity in the high slopes of the French Alps dating back over 8000 years. Sampling work at one of the high altitude alpine lakes [Credit: University of York] The 14-year study in the Parc National des Eicrins in the southern Alps is one of the most detailed archaeological investigations carried out at high...

Oxygen appeared in the atmosphere up to 700 million years earlier than we previously thought, according to research published today in the journal Nature, raising new questions about the evolution of early life. Some of the rocks that Crowe and his colleagues studied [Credit: Nic Beukes] Researchers from the University of Copenhagen and University of British Columbia examined the chemical composition of three-billion-year-old...

Nine megalithic graves said to be from the Stone Age were discovered at villages of Hosaagrahara, Chunchanakatte, Kasaba and Mirle hoblis of K R Nagar taluk in the district on Monday.

Archaeologists have uncovered evidence of human activity in the high slopes of the French Alps dating back over 8000 years.

Until now, science has believed that oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere has been around for roughly 2.3 billion years, or roughly half way back along our planet's 4.6 billion year timeline.

Nine megalithic graves said to be from the Stone Age were discovered at villages of Hosaagrahara, Chunchanakatte, Kasaba and Mirle hoblis of K R Nagar taluk in the district on Monday. A menhir in a ruined megalithic site in Rohma [Credit: Subhashis Das/Megalithic India] The rocks were found during a fieldwork carried out by S G Ramadasareddy, Prof M K Mruthyunjaya and others of Government First Grade College, Kuvempunagar. The...

Another day, another fascinating archaeological discovery out of northern Peru. Excavators working at the Saltur archaeological complex have found a number of tombs, including an intact tomb of a female noble.  The intact tomb of a female noble unearthed at the Saltur archaeological complex [Credit: Andina] According to Peru21, the woman buried in the tomb was around 30 at the time of her death, and was interred with a...

The question of how human societies evolve from small groups to the huge, anonymous and complex societies of today has been answered mathematically, accurately matching the historical record on the emergence of complex states in the ancient world. Mongol horsemen. Intense warfare is the evolutionary driver of large complex societies, according to a new mathematical model whose findings accurately match those of the historical...

n the prehistoric settlement of Dikili Tash were discovered the oldest samples of wine that were ever recorded in Europe. The samples date back to 4200 BC and reverse existing data regarding the way of living during the Neolithic period.