DNA from Neanderthal bones found in a cave in Russia have revealed the first known family of Neanderthals – a father, his teenage daughter, and others who were probably cousins. A 2020 study...
While it’s not what I’d do, legend has it that when King Louis XVI was beheaded in 1793, onlookers in Paris rushed to the scene to dip their handkerchiefs in the dead king’s blood. Years later, one...
The executions of both Marie Antoinette and King Louis XVI have acquired legendary status. Surprisingly, the fate of their son, and the dozens of imposters who came out of the woodwork claiming to be...
In the lead up to the 2020 US presidential election and the party primaries, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren led President Donald Trump by four percentage points in the polls . Warren fared...
Hundreds of thousands of peer-reviewed papers in genetics employ a method called Principal Component Analysis. But new research shows this method is highly biased. This means that multitudes of major...
It is no secret that in dating, timing is everything. When studying the past, whether finding coins, bones, or pathogens buried in a mound – the question of when they are from makes the difference...
It is generally accepted among historians that kissing had no one point of origin, but the habit began as a human trend in different regions. The earliest known written record of romantic saliva...
Genome sequencing of a human Late Pleistocene Fossil in southwest China dating back around 14,000 years is helping shed light on the ancestry of the very first Americans . The mystery surrounding the...
2022 is shaping up to be a big year for colonial era discoveries in Central and South America. Only in May Ancient Origins covered the story of archaeologists studying “42 syphilis-ridden colonial...
The skeletons of a man and woman discovered around 100 years ago, as they were trying to survive the notorious Mount Vesuvius eruption of 79 AD, have been put under the scanner by scientists. Using...
Mongol Emperor Genghis Khan (1162 – 1227 AD) was not just an infamously ruthless warrior, and founder of the largest contiguous empire in history, but was also a prolific father as well, siring so...
What were the origins of the first farmers? Where did they come from and where did they go? This question was recently asked by a team of scientists studying the genomes of Europe's first farmers...
A new study presents the first whole genome sequences of Uruguayan indigenous peoples, whose last remnants were wiped out in the 18th century through a series of targeted European military campaigns...
So where exactly did the building blocks for life (DNA and its chemical precursors) come from? This is a question that has both puzzled and fascinated scientists for decades, and a couple of possible...
Researchers from Oxford University’s Big Data Institute have engaged in the most Herculean of tasks and combined ancient and modern DNA to record the largest family tree ever made , dating back a...
Ancient Eastern European and Central Asian archaeology are characterized by a burial practice known as kurgan burials, wherein mounds of earth and stone are raised over a single or multiple graves...
In an intriguing discovery, the remains of an African man who died just 350 years ago have been found buried in a prehistoric shell midden in Amoreira in Portugal. The middens in Amoreira and other...
The year 2021 was filled with all kinds of human evolution discoveries and scientific progress. From the 250,000-year-old skeletal remains of a Homo naledi child in South Africa, to the smiley face...
The scientific understanding of ancient South American ancestry and the future of DNA research just got a whole lot clearer thanks to mummy hair lice. Two thousand years ago the pre-Columbian Ansilta...
The idea that scientists might be able to recover dinosaur DNA from fossilized remains seems absurd. But now, the concept has moved beyond the realms of the absurd to the absolutely possible, thanks...
The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel have been considered lost for over 3,000 years, but recent evidence demonstrates that they were not lost, they had merely been scattered around the world and had...
Sitting Bull was the brave Native American leader who defeated the forces of General Custer in 1876. After analyzing DNA from a lock of the legendary warrior’s hair, scientists have now identified...
Located in northwestern China’s Xinjiang region, the Tarim Basin is a rich confluence of geology, history, and culture. In fact, it is speculated that this region may be one of the last to be...
The myths and legends of classical Greece told of a Golden Age of Heroes, of mighty kings, glorious palaces and warriors who fought courageously in fierce battles. This age that inspired the...