One of the world's oldest turds has been given the royal science treatment, with ancient Arctic ground squirrel droppings offering a smorgasbord of DNA from other animals and plants dating back up to 700,000 years.
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Category: Biology, Science
Tags: McMaster University, DNA, Wildlife, Animal science, Animals, ancient, Wooly mammoth
Toby Kovacs, University of Sydney/The Conversation
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Category: Environment, Science
Tags: University of Sydney, Koala, Australia, ancient, Climate, Extinction
There’s no doubt about it – burning stuff is what makes us human. Aside from the fact that fire makes food safer, tastier, and more digestible, burning a few sticks pushes back the darkness, keeps predators at bay, and keeps us toasty warm.
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Category: Archaeology, Science
Tags: Fire, ancient, Human, Cave, Evolution, Archeology
The earliest records of winemaking date back to 6000 BCE, and the oldest known winery — now referred to as Areni-1 — was in operation as far back as 4100 BCE. The oldest wineries that still exist today, however, weren’t established until the Common Era. For this roundup of the world’s longest-running wineries, we looked to the oldest winery that still exists today in 10 different countries. Many…
Few of us enjoy the dentist – but next time you're in the chair, think about how lucky you are not to have been visiting a Neanderthal tooth doctor. New research on a single tooth from a Russian cave has found that its center is marked with the kind of grooves made by stone tools used as rudimentary drills.
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Category: Archaeology, Science
Tags: Archeology, Neanderthal,…
Inhabiting the land now known as southern Iraq between the 5th and 1st millennium BCE, the ancient Sumerians were known for their... Get the full story
The post Five Amazing Inventions From the Ancient Sumerians That Honestly Weren’t as Impressive as the N64 Rumble Pak appeared first on Hard Drive.
At the risk of sounding like Colman Domingo’s character in a recent SNL sketch: did you know that ancient societies had observatories of their own? While their technology was not quite at the level of producing high-powered telescopes, they also didn’t have to worry about light pollution nearly as much as we do. Ancient people […]
The post Scientists Reveal History of an Ancient Peruvian…
Beneath the expansive concrete overpass amid the bustling hub of Causeway Bay, you'll find a bizarre and enduring tradition in Hong Kong – "villain hitting." Here, elderly women perform an elaborate ritual that involves bashing a name written on paper with a shoe, while chanting, to free people from someone causing them grief and encourage fortune and peace in their place.
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Cracking open a cold one is a common post-work ritual across many cultures today, but archaeologists discovered the practice dates back at least 4,000 years. The National Museum of Denmark has been home to a robust collection of tablets inscribed in now-extinct languages from early Middle Eastern civilizations for over a century, but archaeologists there, along with colleagues from the University…