Archaeologists in Berlin have uncovered the remains of 188 figurines that were used as reliquaries — objects that held the bones of people who were considered to be saints or worthy of veneration. The reliquaries were found during excavations of the Molkenmarkt, meaning “whey market,” which is the oldest square in Berlin. The figurines date […]
A building renovation in the Netherlands has led to a bone-chilling discovery: a centuries-old tile floor that’s partly filled with sawed-off bones. The bones aren’t human, though — they’re from dozens of cows. The discovery, which has puzzled archaeologists, was made in Alkmaar, a municipality in the Netherlands known for its traditional cheese market. Archaeologists […]
More than 4,000 years ago, nearly 40 people died extremely violent deaths in what is now England, with a modern analysis of their bones revealing scalping, tongue removal, decapitation, defleshing, evisceration and cannibalism. “It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected,” Rick Schultingan archaeologist at the University of Oxford, […]
Early Indigenous Americans relied heavily on meat from mammoths to survive, according to a new study, which suggests they were top-notch experts at hunting the massive beasts. The findings, reported in a study published Wednesday (Dec. 4) in the journal Science Advancesare based on chemical analyses of the bones of an 18-month-old boy — dubbed […]
Riley Black Science Correspondent Mammals are familiar beasts. From a squirrel on a power line to a blue whale swimming through the sea, we share the world with more than 6,000 mammal species of all shapes and sizes. While we can easily distinguish a creature like a jaguar from a reptile or a bird in […]
A skeleton excavated from a Roman-era cremation cemetery in Belgium surprised archaeologists when they found it was actually 2,500 years older than they had assumed. Looking closely at the skeleton, the archaeologists discovered something even more unexpected: It was made up of bones from at least five people who lived three millennia apart. “I think […]
A violent attack on a Vietnamese fishing boat tests Hanoi’s muted but resolute approach to China’s aggression in the South China Sea.
