Picture this: you’re hiking through a remote forest when you stumble upon something that makes your heart race and your mind question everything you thought you knew about history. A medieval sword buried deep in American soil, centuries before Europeans supposedly arrived. An ancient Roman coin discovered in a Japanese archaeological site. These aren’t scenes ...
Imagine stumbling upon a massive skull buried in the earth, its teeth longer than your forearm and eye sockets that could swallow your fist. For ancient peoples who had no concept of extinction or deep time, these discoveries must have felt like glimpses into another world entirely. What we now know as dinosaur fossils were ...
Picture this: a respected physician in 17th-century Germany stumbles upon mysterious bones in a cave, convinced he’s discovered the remains of a legendary unicorn. The year was 1663, and Otto von Guericke’s “find” would spark one of paleontology’s most enduring controversies. What seemed like a mythical creature’s skeleton would later reveal itself as something far ...
A strange ceramic vessel shaped like a penguin stands out in the dry deserts of southern Peru, where the Nazca culture thrived between 100 BCE and 800 CE. It shows how curious and aware they were of their surroundings. This 1,600-year-old “Penguin Vessel,” which is now in the Art Institute of Chicago, makes us wonder: ...
Imagine walking through a forest where every tree, every bird, every insect suddenly vanished forever. That’s exactly what happened 252 million years ago during the Permian-Triassic extinction event. Scientists call it “The Great Dying” for good reason – it wiped out 96% of marine species and 70% of land animals in what many consider Earth’s ...
Picture this: a creature with the body of a crocodile, the running style of a greyhound, and the hunting instincts of a wolf. This isn’t science fiction or a modern genetic experiment gone wrong. This was reality 200 million years ago when Effigia roamed the ancient landscapes of what we now call North America. While ...
While massive dinosaurs thundered across ancient continents, the oceans of the Mesozoic Era harbored creatures that were equally spectacular and terrifying. The seas during the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods weren’t just vast expanses of water – they were alien underwater worlds teeming with marine reptiles that would make today’s great white sharks look like minnows. ...
A team of scientists has recently sequenced the oldest and most complete genome from the Egypt known as the “Ruler of Nekhen”. The man lived between 4500–4800 years ago which is contemporaneous with the dawn of the Old Kingdom. His groundbreaking findings show he was genotypically linked with North Africa and greatly associated with Mesopotamia, ...
The recent find in Germany rewrites the book on Neanderthal sophistication. Archaeologists have found a “fat factory” site where Neanderthals processed bones to extract grease which dated back to about 125,000 years ago. This discovery indicates that the need to extract calories for survival from animal fats was a full 100,000 years more advanced than ...
Deep beneath the limestone hills of Somerset, England, lies one of the most mysterious archaeological discoveries of recent decades. Wookey Hole Cave, famous for its legendary witch and dramatic underground chambers, has revealed something far more ancient and puzzling than folklore ever suggested. Carved into the cave’s walls are hundreds of peculiar symbols – crosses, ...
Amy King, BSc Microbiology and Physiology
Jen Fitschen, Author, BSc Computer Science and Oceanography
