As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: The Nazca Lines of Peru

Nazca Lines - Monkey - Deposit Photos

The Nazca Lines, a group of hundreds of mysterious geoglyphs etched into the desert in Peru, have mystified scientists for nearly a century. People from ancient civilizations made the drawings over a period of hundreds of years, beginning around 200 B.C. By analyzing the style and subject matter of the drawings and the methods used … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: Who Were the Picts?

the Picts, the "painted people" of Scotland

Ancient DNA reveals that the Picts, the “painted people” of Scotland who fought off the Romans, weren’t an enigmatic group that migrated from faraway lands. Instead, the Picts had local roots and were related to other Iron Age people in Britain, a new study finds. An analysis of eight skeletons from two Pictish cemeteries, published … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: Is This What Viking Money Looked Like?

The Viking hoard consists of 32 iron ingots, which are all pierced with a hole on one end and may have been grouped together in a bundle. (Image credit: Mildri Een Eide)

A rare stash of 1,000-year-old ironwork, which sat for 40 years in a family’s basement in Norway, is now seeing the light of day after a woman discovered the hoard during some spring cleaning. The hoard consists of 32 iron ingots that look like small spatulas and date back to the Viking Age (A.D. 793 … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: Did Ancient Princesses Build a Vast Empire That Prompted China to Build the Great Wall?

An artist reconstruction of life among the Xiongnu imperial elite, who received rich burials in their multiethnic empire on the Mongolian steppe. (Image credit: DAIRYCULTURES Project)

Elite women, perhaps princesses, played a crucial role in holding the Xiongnu, one of the first nomadic empires of the eastern Eurasian Steppe, together, a new study suggests. The Xiongnu, who may have been among the ancient ancestors of the Mongols, formed a confederation of nomadic peoples who controlled much of Central Asia, from present-day … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: Epic Sea Level Rise Likely Drove the Vikings From Greenland

Viking in the Water - Deposit Photos

The Vikings are remembered as fierce fighters, but even these mighty warriors were no match for climate change. Scientists recently found that ice sheet growth and sea level rise led to massive coastal flooding that inundated Norse farms and ultimately drove the Vikings out of Greenland in the 15th century. The Vikings first established a … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: All About Stonehenge

Stonehenge with Full Moon - Deposit Photos

Stonehenge is a massive stone monument located on Salisbury Plain in southern England. It was built roughly 4,000 to 5,000 years ago and was part of a larger sacred landscape. The bigger stones at Stonehenge, known as sarsens, weigh 25 tons (22.6 metric tons) on average and are widely believed to have been brought from … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: New Video Shows Continents Evolving Over 100 Million Years

Earth's continents

New “unprecedented” animations of the Earth show how the planet’s surface has shifted and changed over the past 100 million years. These animations are the most detailed view of the history of Earth’s topography ever, depicting the rise of mountains, the development of basins, and the transport of large masses of sediments around the globe … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: One of the Biggest Mass Extinctions Has Eerie Parallels to Today

Devonian Period - Deposit Photos

Depleting oxygen and rising hydrogen sulfide levels in the oceans may have been responsible for one of Earth’s most significant mass extinctions more than 350 million years ago, a new study finds. The changes were likely driven by rising sea levels and have some spooky parallels to conditions seen today. Researchers studied samples of black … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: All About the Celts

Celtic Symbol - deposit photos

The ancient Celts were fierce warriors who lived in mainland Europe. But during the Renaissance, an idea took hold that they lived in the British Isles. The term “Celts” is used today to describe the cultures, languages and peoples that are based in Scotland; Ireland; other parts of the British Isles; and Brittany, in France. … Read more

As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.

Writer Fuel: All About the Vikings

viking ship - deposit photos

The Vikings explored, raided and traded across a vast area stretching from North America to the Middle East between roughly the late eighth and mid-11th centuries. In Old Norse, the language the Vikings spoke, “a Viking was a sea-borne raider, and to go-a-viking was to undertake sea-borne raiding,” Angus Somerville and Russell Andrew McDonald, both … Read more