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An ancient Roman cemetery in northern England is home to 80 corpses of strong, muscular men who quite literally lost their heads. These decapitated skeletons leave behind a 2000-year-old archaeological mystery that spans all of Europe. More »
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Silbury Hill is a huge artificial mound in southern England, about 130 feet high and covering five acres. Europe's largest artificial mound, it may have been built by the makers of Stonehenge...but they definitely weren't the last to use it. More »
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The ultimate fate of the Neanderthals remains a major mystery. We know they went extinct, but why did they die out when our ancestors thrived? New evidence suggests massive, deadly volcanoes killed off the Neanderthals while completely sparing our ancestors. More »
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Of all the continents, the human settlement of Oceania remains the most mysterious. We know that ancient humans walked across the now sunken continent of Sahul to reach Australia, and now some ancient trees reveal when they did it. More »
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Vikings raided and plundered Ireland for much of the ninth century, eventually establishing two outposts. The fates of those two settlements couldn't be more different. The Dúbh Linn outpost became, well, Dublin, but the other was lost forever... until now. More »
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Current genetic evidence says the ancestors of modern humans left Africa 60,000 years ago. But recently discovered stone tools in the Arabian peninsula and India suggest humans actually started exploring the world as much as 120,000 years ago. More »
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The ancient world was home to many accomplished astronomers, included the Greeks, Mayans, Polynesians, and maybe Stonehenge's mysterious builders. But perhaps more than 10,000 years before these cultures looked to the sky, Australian Aborigines were the world's first stargazers. More »
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For the living, doctor/patient confidentiality is considered a basic right, something violated by only the most ethically bankrupt. Yet King Tutankhamen's deadly diseases, incestuous habits, and missing penis make international headlines. Should researchers reveal all this intimate, embarrassing information? More »
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Otzi the Iceman, the 5300-year-old frozen body discovered in the Alps in 1991, was thought to be a prehistoric murder victim. But a revolutionary map of his belongings overturns that theory, suggesting his "murder" scene is actually a ceremonial burial. More »
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Even thousands of years ago, written messages were sent over long distances. Unfortunately, the concept of including your return address hadn't been invented yet, so we don't know where ancient letters came from (and which cultures were talking)...until now. More »
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This shoe is so old that when the Great Pyramid was built, it had already been sitting in a cave for 1,000 years. And it's so well preserved that you can see a toe-print inside. More »
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The Roman city of Altinum, progenitor to Venice, has been covered over by farmland for thousands of years. But when a drought thinned crops covering the city's ancient grid, scientists snapped photographs that revealed the town's vanished footprint. More »
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The oldest remains of a person accused of being a vampire have been found outside Venice, buried in a mass grave of plague victims. More »
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When archeologists opened the tomb of a Gushi shaman in northwest China, they found his stash. The 2,700 year-old corpse had been buried with just under a kilo of marijuana, the oldest known use of cannabis for purposes other than food or clothing. And researchers believe that he was entombed with the plant so he could enjoy its psychoactive properties in the afterlife. More »
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The people who settled the Caribbean Islands over 1500 years ago brought with them special ceramic bowls (similar to those pictured) for holding hallucinogenic drugs that they sniffed through long, ceramic straws. More surprising than their modern drug ritual, however, is the fact that these "sniffing bowls" were already hundreds of years old when the colonists arrived in the West Indies. It turns out that one of the most ancient forms of the family heirloom was a bowl used for taking drugs. More »
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The mystery of Stonehenge used to be a "how" thing. Visitors and scientists wondered how people 4500 years ago dragged extremely heavy rocks over 200 miles from their Welsh quarry to the legendary pagan holy place. But now it's been established that there were many ways that locals might have gotten the rocks into place using relatively primitive tools. The question now is "why." Why this spot? And also, when exactly was the spot established? A new archaeological dig at Stonehenge — the first in half a century — is already providing hints. More »
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