Legend has it that King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table were busy heroes, with tales of them slaying a giant, organizing a successful search for the Holy Grail, and ruling a kingdom from a city called Camelot. Some stories say Arthur was conceived or born at Tintagel, a site in Cornwall, England, … Read more
Today, trans people face politicization of their lives and vilification from politicians, media and parts of broader society. But in some of history’s earliest civilizations, gender-diverse people were recognized and understood in a wholly different way. As early as 4,500 years ago in ancient Mesopotamia, for instance, gender-diverse people held important roles in society with … Read more
Scientists say they may have extracted Leonardo da Vinci’s DNA from a Renaissance-era drawing for the very first time. The trace DNA, embedded in a red chalk sketch called the “Holy Child” that some claim was made by da Vinci, shows similarities with genetic material recovered from a letter penned in the 1400s by Frosino … Read more
Roman concrete is pretty amazing stuff. It’s among the main reasons we know so much about Roman architecture today. So many structures built by the Romans still survive, in some form, thanks to their ingenious concrete and construction techniques. However, there’s a lot we still don’t understand about exactly how the Romans made such strong … Read more
An unknown volcanic eruption in the mid-14th century may have set the stage for the spread of the Black Death in Europe, according to a new study. By triggering a cool and overcast period in the Mediterranean, the eruption started a domino effect that led to a downturn in agricultural production, which required merchants to … Read more
An international research team has created a new map of the Roman Empire — and it expands the ancient road network by more than 60,000 miles (100,000 kilometers). The saying goes, of course, that “all roads lead to Rome.” But while it’s true that many of the Empire’s major cities were linked via main roads … Read more
When scientists sequenced the Neanderthal genome in 2010, they learned that Neanderthals interbred with human ancestors before mysteriously going extinct. As a result, many people alive today share up to 4% of their DNA with Neanderthals. This genetic breakthrough yielded powerful new information about the evolutionary history of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, but it also … Read more
Around 66 million years ago, the reign of the dinosaurs came to a fiery end. An asteroid about 7 miles (12 kilometers) wide, flying at 27,000 mph (43,000 km/h), slammed directly into Earth. The impact triggered a cascade of deadly events that led to the fifth mass extinction that eliminated dinosaurs, with the exception of … Read more
Survivors of the volcanic eruption that destroyed Pompeii in A.D. 79 returned to the ash-covered Roman city in the centuries after the blast and lived on the upper floors of buildings, new excavations confirm. They were likely joined by opportunists and destitute people from nearby towns who came to the ruins in search of valuables … Read more
Scientists have found new evidence that a massive comet trail may have caused climate upheaval on Earth more than 12,000 years ago. Tiny particles detected in ocean sediment cores suggest that dust from a large, disintegrating comet entered Earth’s atmosphere around the beginning of the Younger Dryas event, a period of abrupt cooling that caused … Read more
