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Ancient-Origins Ancient-Origins

This is the Ancient Origins team, and here is our mission: “To inspire open-minded learning about our past for the betterment of our future through the sharing of research, education, and knowledge”.

At Ancient Origins we believe that one of the most important fields of knowledge we can pursue as human beings is our beginnings. And while some people may seem content with the story as it stands, our view is that there exists countless mysteries, scientific anomalies and surprising artifacts that have yet to be discovered and explained .

Our goal is to highlight the very latest archaeological findings, peer-reviewed academic research and evidence, as well as offering alternative viewpoints and explanations of science, archaeology, mythology, religion and history around the globe.

We’re the only Pop Archaeology site combining scientific research with out-of-the-box perspectives.

By bringing together top experts and authors, we explore lost civilizations, examine sacred writings, tour ancient places, and question mysterious happenings. Our open community is dedicated to digging into the origins of our species on planet earth, and question wherever the discoveries might take us. We seek to retell the story of our beginnings.

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Ancient human foraging for berries and edible plants in a dense forest. 	Source: Microgen/Adobe Stock

How Living Like a Hunter-gatherer Could Improve Your Health

By Nicholas Bourne /The Conversation Many of us want to live long, happy and healthy lives. Yet it’s often confusing to know the best way to achieve this, and many aspects of modern, westernized...
Caves and rock shelters dot the mountains in the northwestern highlands of Thailand. Over 40 in Mae Hong Son province contain wooden coffins on stilts, dating back 1,000 - 2,300 years. Source: © Selina Carlhoff/ Max Planck Society

DNA Elucidates Thailand's Iron Age ‘Log Coffin Culture’

Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology A mortuary practice known as ‘Log Coffin culture’ characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,...
Ancient bas-relief on grave stele in Kerameikos in Athens, Greece depicting two wrestlers in action.	Source: National Archaeological Museum of Athens/ CC BY-SA 2.0 DE

From Ancient Greece to Now: the Bravado of Athletes Transcends Centuries

Peter J. Miller /The Conversation “I am the greatest. I said that even before I knew I was. I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I was really the greatest.” This quote...
Statue of Socrates    Source: araelf/Adobe Stock

Did the Ancient Greeks and Romans Experience Alzheimer’s?

Leigh Hopper /University of Southern California You might think age-related dementia has been with us all along, stretching back to the ancient world. But a new analysis of classical Greek and Roman...
Landscape of Rancho Quemado, where the Treasure Cave is located with, inset, the atlatl and two wooden darts, found in Treasure Cave, Querétaro, Mexico        Source: Jesús E. Medina V./ INAH

Hunting Instruments Dating Back 1,900 Years Discovered in Mexican Cave

In a small gallery of the Cueva del Tesoro, in Cadereyta de Montes, Querétaro, authorities have recovered one of the few sets of hunting tools from pre-Hispanic times discovered so far in Mexico. It...
Burial from the Palace of Cortés is that of a Tlahuica woman. Source: INAH

Palace of Cortés Display Burial Is A Pre-Hispanic Woman, Not a Spanish Monk!

For 50 years, the public at the Palacio de Cortés, in Cuernavaca, Mexico, was able to glimpse a burial through an archaeological window, located at the entrance. The identity of this individual was...
A nativity scene showing the scene of Jesus’ birth, now taken to be December 25th. 	Source: itsajoop/Adobe Stock

Celebrating Christmas on December 25 Began As Early As the Second Century AD

By Martinus Ariya Seta /The Conversation Many people, including Christians, believe the origin of the date of Christmas is related to the pagan feasts to worship the solar god Sol Invictus , Saturn’s...
AI representation of Beringia migration with mammoths and humans.            Source: Skrotaa/Adobe Stock

First Americans May Have Arrived by Sea Ice Highway as Early as 24,000 Years Ago

By Liza Lester/AGU One of the hottest debates in archaeology is how and when humans first arrived in North America. Archaeologists have traditionally argued that people walked through an ice-free...
Top, an X-ray image reveals carious lesions on posterior molars. Bottom, a filed hole from the crown of the tooth into the pulp. Source: Carolina Bertilsson and Henrik Lund/PLoS ONE

Viking Age Dental Care Was Surprisingly Good, Says Study

Viking Age teeth from Varnhem bear witness to surprisingly advanced dentistry in the Norse population there. The findings of a study carried out at the University of Gothenburg reveal a complex...
The Roman aqueduct that supplied water to Viminacium, a large city on the Roman frontier, Serbia.	Source: Carles Lalueza-Foz/Cell

How the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire Shifted Populations

Despite the Roman Empire's extensive military and cultural influence on the nearby Balkan peninsula, a DNA analysis of individuals who lived in the region between 1 and 1000 AD found no genetic...
Three-quarter and frontal views of Homo neledi skull from Lesedi Chamber, South Africa. Source: Hawks, J et al/Elife Sciences

Controversial Claims About Homo Naledi Are Stirring Up Evolution Research

Mike W. Morley et al. / The Conversation In June, researchers led by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger published sensational claims about an extinct human species called Homo naledi online and in the...
Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon. Source: Courtesy of Apple / The Conversation

Did Napoleon Really Fire at the Pyramids? The Truth Behind Ridley Scott’s Biopic

Directors of historical feature films face a difficult task. How can they make the characters familiar to an audience without reducing them to caricatures? How can they make sure that knowledge of...
One of the circular earthworks and deep ditches like this one in northern Serbia, which covers at least 40 hectares.      Source: BARRY MOLLOY AND DARJA GROSMAN/ PLoS ONE

Europe’s Bronze Age Megaforts Revealed in Prehistoric Landscape

Archaeologists have uncovered a previously unknown network of massive sites in the heart of Europe that could explain the emergence of the continent’s Bronze Age megaforts – the largest prehistoric...
Turkana stone beads. Credit: Carla Klehm

Turkana Stone Beads Tell a Story of Herder Life in East Africa 5,000 Years Ago

On the shores of Lake Turkana in east Africa, about 5,000 to 4,000 years ago, pastoralists buried their dead in communal cemeteries that were marked by stone circles and pillars. The north-west Kenya...
Traditional cremation ceremony in Bali. Source: Victoria Boroda / Adobe Stock

From India and Taiwan to Tibet, the Living Assist the Dead in their Passage

Many people see death as a rite of a passage : a journey to some new place, or a threshold between two kinds of being. Zoroastrians believe that there is a bridge of judgment that each person who...
Modified tiger shark teeth found in 7,000-year-old layers of Leang Panninge (top) and Leang Bulu’ Sipong 1 (bottom) on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Right; Shark tooth weapons from Kiribati and Hawai’i. Source: M.C. Langley/The Conversation, Right; The Trustees of The British Museum

Bringing a Shark to a Knife Fight: 7,000-year-old Shark-tooth Knives Discovered in Indonesia

Michelle Langley et al./The Conversation Excavations on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi have uncovered two unique and deadly artifacts dating back some 7,000 years – tiger shark teeth that were...

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