As a Native American culture, the Chickasaw people broadly trace their ancestry back to the migratory peoples of the Paleo-Indian period, which spanned from roughly 10,000 BC - 8500 BC. Legend has it that the Chickasaws migrated for generations from “the place in the West” to settle in what is now the Southeast. The climate was drier and colder than today in the centuries after humans first migrated to the Americas and glaciers covered the northern lands. Paleo-Indian era people roamed the country in small extended family bands and hunted herds of mammoth, mastodon, giant bison, horse, groun ..read more

From northeastern France’s Alsace region, bordering Germany, a 5.5 hectares site called Pfulgriesheim has yielded ancient remnants and structures dating back thousands of years—from the Late Neolithic period all the way to the Early Middle Ages. Subject of an extensive excavation ahead of planned urban development, the site has turned out to be a rich bowl of human activity, with one of the more exciting discoveries being a Late Neolithic period storage system, made of large silos dug into the loess-rich soil! Sea Monsters in the Desert? Remains of Cuddly Sea Cow Discovered in Egypt Medieva ..read more

John Stewart & Jeremy Searle/The Conversation Humans seem to have been adapted to the last ice age in similar ways to wolves and bears, according to our recent study, challenging longstanding theories about how and where our ancestors lived during this glacial period. Previous studies have supported the view of most archaeologists that modern humans retreated into southern Europe during the height of the last ice age and expanded during the later increase in global temperatures. But our study is the first to use genetic data to show that at least some humans stayed in central E ..read more

Armenia’s storied tryst with Christianity continues. The country that was the first to officially adopt Christianity as its state religion in 301 AD, has now added a new discovery from the ancient city of Artaxata, showing a previously unknown early Christian church! The church consists of an octagonal building with cruciform extensions, a design aligning with early Christian memorial structures. Octogonal Churches and Eary Christian Symbolism In the cross-shaped extensions, researchers uncovered remnants of wooden platforms that have been radiocarbon dated to the mid-4th century AD, firmly ..read more

The lives of ancient Egyptians were inextricably intertwined with magic. It was present in everything from religion to politics, and from birth to death. Magic was such a prevalent force that in the early third century AD, the Christian theologian and philosopher Titus Flavius Clemens, better known as Clement of Alexandria, declared that: “Egypt was the mother of magicians.” Up until the Roman period, Heka was the ancient Egyptian word for magic, but that word was not so clearly defined for the ancient Egyptians, and it could be seen as a force of nature which could also assimilate ..read more

India is renowned for having distinctive religious practices that coexist with one another. The numerous shrines and monuments allow one to contemplate the importance of faith for many. One of the well-known and frequented sacred places is the Manikarnika Ghat in Varanasi.   Manikarnika Ghat is also one of the oldest and most sacred Ghats for Hindu religion and mythology. It is said that cremation at this site ensures that one’s soul rests in perpetual peace upon their earthly demise. For centuries, a funerary rite at Manikarnika Ghat has been thought to provide one with immediate liber ..read more

A hidden tomb containing the remains of at least 12 individuals and an artifact resembling the 'Holy Grail' has been discovered under Petra’s famous Al Khazneh, one of the Middle East's greatest monuments and an iconic filming location for the 1989 film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Unlike other tombs previously unearthed in Petra, which were largely empty, this tomb contained well-preserved skeletal remains and artifacts that are believed to be over 2,000 years old, reports The Times of Israel. The discovery sheds new light on the lives of the Nabataeans, a sophisticated civilization ..read more

More than 6,500 volunteers have supported the accurate identification of approximately 1,000 prehistoric burial mounds in the Netherlands in just four months, proving the value of involving volunteers in archaeology. In 2018, the Heritage Quest project was launched to harness the power of citizen scientists, utilizing crowd-sourcing to identify archaeological features on lidar imagery of the central Netherlands. Through the involvement of thousands of people online, prehistoric burial mounds were identified across the region in a short amount of time. However, the accuracy of crowd ..read more

By Liz Fuller-Wright/Princeton University Ever since the first Neanderthal bones were discovered, people have wondered about these ancient hominins. How are they different from us? How much are they like us? Did our ancestors get along with them? Fight them? Love them? The recent discovery of a group called Denisovans, a Neanderthal-like group who populated Asia and Oceania, added its own set of questions. Now, an international team of geneticists and AI experts are adding whole new chapters to our shared hominin history. Under the leadership of Joshua Akey, a professor in Princeton’s L ..read more

Confucius, a name synonymous with ancient Chinese philosophy, remains one of the most influential thinkers not only in China but also throughout the world. Born in 551 BC during a time of social and political turmoil, Confucius developed a system of thought that sought to bring about harmony, moral integrity, and effective governance. His teachings, collectively referred to as Confucianism, have shaped the core of Chinese culture, politics, and social behavior for over two millennia. The lasting influence of Confucian ideals on Chinese society is not only evident in its historical developmen ..read more