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Advanced Imaging Reveals a Computer 1,500 Years Ahead of Its Time

X-rays and advanced photography have uncovered the true complexity of the mysterious Antikythera mechanism, a device so astonishing that its discovery is like finding a functional Buick in medieval Europe. In 1900, some divers found the wreck of a Roman vessel off the Greek island of Antikythera. Among the other treasures remanded to the Greek … Continued

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500 Years Ago, A Giant Eagle In New Zealand Was Possibly Eating Children

In a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, scientists make the case that an extinct giant predatory eagle might have been eating children. The eagle was not a scavenger, as some believed, but a deadly hunter. Of course, the paper’s main conclusion isn’t that the 40-pound predator of the sky was eating children. … Continued

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34,000-Year-Old Twine Woven by Ancient Humans Discovered

Humans who lived 34 thousand years ago in a cave in the Republic of Georgia were making clothing from dyed, woven fibers. Scientists who discovered the fibers say they are the oldest known examples of human-made cloth and rope. The fibers were made from woven flax, which the paleolithic humans gathered in the wild outside … Continued

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Were Prehistoric Britons Cannibals?

British scientists think that they may have uncovered an explanation behind unusual marks on a 9000-year-old human bone recently excavated in Devon… but that the explanation may involve their ancestors having been prehistoric cannibals. The Guardian newspaper reports on research carried out by Oxford University scientists on a fragment of bone discovered near Torquay in … Continued

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Neanderthals Far Lonelier Than Previously Believed

For thousands of years, two intelligent hominid species shared the European continent: early humans and Neanderthals. About 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals went extinct. Now one study suggests a possible reason: The Neanderthal population was very small, and very interrelated. In the new study published today in Science, a group of European researchers sequenced five mitochondrial … Continued

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A New Look at the Controversial “Hobbit” Fossil Skeleton

Here you can see the skeleton of a Homo floresiensis, one of the so-called Hobbits who lived about 20,000 years ago in Indonesia. New evidence shows it probably is a new species. The tiny remains – which revealed a hominid who stood a little over 3 feet when fully grown – was brought in to … Continued

Tech News

3D Laser Scanners Capture and Translate the Alhambra Fortress’s 10,000 Arabic Inscriptions

The Alhambra in Granada is so vast and covered with carved Arabic writing that nobody has ever had the ability to catalog it all. Finally, using modern technology, it’s doable. According to the Guardian and the Independent, experts are hard at work collecting over 10,000 inscriptions that nobody has translated in over 500 years since … Continued

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Blackbeard the Pirate’s Sword and Booty Discovered

Blackbeard’s beloved ship Queen Anne’s Revenge sank off the coast of North Carolina in the 18th Century, and now researchers have recovered a sword handle and some gold stashed aboard. The sword guard you see above would have rested between the sword and the handle, and an x-ray revealed a little hole bored in it … Continued

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Black Plague “Vampire Skull” Found in Venice

The oldest remains of a person accused of being a vampire have been found outside Venice, buried in a mass grave of plague victims. Between 1630 and 1631, the plague killed one third of Venice’s population, wiping out 50,000 people out of a population of 150,000 in just one year. The panicked population, trying to … Continued

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World’s Oldest Pot Stash Offered an Afterlife High

When archeologists opened the tomb of a Gushi shaman in northwest China, they found his stash. The 2,700 year-old corpse had been buried with just under a kilo of marijuana, the oldest known use of cannabis for purposes other than food or clothing. And researchers believe that he was entombed with the plant so he … Continued

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2,900-Year-Old Gravestone Reveals Ancient Belief System

Click to view A 2,900-year-old gravestone from the ancient kingdom of Sam’al, located in what is today southeastern Turkey, has shed light on an ancient religious belief heretofore unknown. The gravestone, called a stele, is in nearly pristine condition and archaeologists were able to translate all the writing on it. Now they’ve gained new insight … Continued

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Humans Built Fires 500 Thousand Years Before They Could Speak

Though the ability to make fires is considered one of the great breakthroughs in human civilization, it may have been a more primitive activity than we thought. A new archaeological study has revealed that homo sapiens’ ancestors were regularly making fires about 790 thousand years ago. Even by the most conservative estimates, that’s least 590 … Continued

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People Have Been Visiting Stonehenge for 9,000 Years, Say Archaeologists

A new dig at pagan holy zone Stonehenge in England has revealed that people have been flocking to the spot for at least 9 millennia. Researchers determined this by dating rocks chipped by human hands, as well as the remnants of fires. Though it’s not clear what drew visitors through the ages, anthropologists now believe … Continued

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George Lucas Explains Why You’ll Hate Indy IV

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will be hitting theater screens on May 22nd, marking nineteen years since we’ve seen the whip-swinging archeaologist going after mysterious antiquities and occasionally teaching school. However, George Lucas thinks that both critics and fans alike will hate the movie. Find out why he told Vanity Fair … Continued

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Giant 800-Year-Old Pyramid Discovered Under Mexico City

Fragments of an enormous pyramid built by ancient Aztecs have been uncovered right in the heart of Mexico City. The finding suggest Aztecs moved into the area nearly a thousand years ago, and makes Mexico City into one seriously ancient urban development. The pyramid is about 35 feet high, and its ruins include a statue … Continued

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Indiana Jones and the Old Man Pants

Harrison Ford, Shia LeBouf and Steven Spielberg are currently filming Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, although these photos make us think it might be better titled Indiana Jones and the Old Man Pants. Just check out the waistline on Indy’s pants. Then note that the cobwebs on his hat might not be fake at … Continued

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The Truth About Prehistoric Potatoes and Mini Skirts

Our ancestors loved to dress up nice and go out for tubers, according to two new studies of ancient human living areas. So thousands of years ago we weren’t going all 2001, with guys in ratty cloaks grunting. In fact, the prehistoric world wasn’t full of guys with spears hunting meat at all, but instead … Continued

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Did We Have Sex With Neanderthals Or Not?

Now that everybody is talking about that show Cavemen, the question that genomics experts have been researching for the past couple of years is more relevant than ever: Do we have elements of homo neanderthalis in our present-day homo sapiens genomes? In plain English: are we the results of love matches between ancient humans and … Continued

Tech News

Ancient Computer Found, Can’t Play Doom

They did have computers back in the days before The Beatles, around the second century B.C., and now scientists have used high-rez imaging and 3D technology to decipher the contraption’s function, showing us that civilization in those days was a lot more technically proficient than we all thought. Carefully examining artifacts found on a shipwreck … Continued