Tag: lost civilizations

Oldest Dog DNA Ever Found Reveals How Ancient Our Friendship Really Is

The discovery of the oldest ever dog DNA suggests they have been our best friends for nearly 16,000 years – 5,000 years earlier than had previously been thought, new research said Wednesday.

Despite being ubiquitous in the homes, backyards and hearts of people across the world, surprisingly little is known about where dogs come from.

“It’s just an interesting mystery,” Swedish geneticist Pontus Skoglund of the UK’s Francis Crick Institute told reporters.

Dogs are most likely a mix of two types of grey wolves, he said. However exactly when dogs diverged from wolves has been difficult to trace, partly because their ancient bones are tricky to tell apart.

That is why scientists behind two new studies published in the journal Nature sequenced the genomes from archaeological remains, shedding light on the elusive origins of our furry friends.

The first study revealed that the world’s oldest canine DNA was discovered in a piece of a skull in Pinarbasi in what is now Turkey.

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A SECOND Sphinx detected in Egypt as scans hint at ‘underground megastructure’

Ancient Egyptians may have left behind a cryptic clue to a hidden second Sphinx,  carved directly into stone more than 3,000 years ago.

The Dream Stele, positioned between the paws of the Great Sphinx, appears to depict two sphinx figures, hinting that the legendary monument may once have had a twin.

Now, Italian researchers who, in 2025, claimed to have uncovered massive underground structures beneath the Giza Plateau believe they have identified the second guardian buried deep beneath the sands. 

Filippo Biondi revealed the discovery on Thursday while speaking on the Matt Beall Limitless podcast, explaining that lines drawn from the pyramids to the known Sphinx point to an identical mirrored location where the buried structure is believed to lie.

‘We are finding precise geometrical correlation, 100 percent of correlation, in this symmetry,’ he said, adding: ‘We are very confident to announce this… we have a confidence about 80 percent.’

Using satellite radar technology capable of detecting subtle ground vibrations, Biondi claimed the data points to a massive structure concealed beneath a 180-foot-high mound of hardened sand, which he said is composed of solidified sand rather than natural bedrock. 

Preliminary scans show vertical shafts and passageways strikingly similar to those already found beneath the original Sphinx, with dense vertical lines believed to represent the solid walls of underground shafts rather than empty voids. 

Beyond the possible second Sphinx, Biondi believes the findings hint at something even larger, an extensive underground complex beneath the Giza Plateau itself.

‘Down underneath the Giza Plateau, there is something very huge that we are measuring,’ he said. ‘There is an underground megastructure.’

The Dream Stele, also known as the Sphinx Stele, was erected between the front paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza by Pharaoh Thutmose IV around 1401 BC, during Egypt’s 18th Dynasty. 

The ancient inscription, like many created during the New Kingdom, was intended to reinforce the ruler’s divine right to the throne.

Legend has it that the stele justified Thutmose IV’s unexpected rise to power by recounting a dream where the Sphinx promised him the throne in exchange for restoring the monument, blending political propaganda with religious legitimacy and documenting early restoration efforts.

However, Biondi and his team believe there is more truth than myth behind the imagery, saying the carvings showing two sphinx figures may not have been symbolic at all, but instead a clue to the layout of the monuments themselves.

 He and his team are not the only researchers to suggest a second Sphinx may be buried beneath the Giza Plateau, as Egyptologist Bassam El Shammaa first raised the theory more than a decade ago.

El Shammaa cited ancient Egyptian records and mythology describing lightning striking the Sphinx, which he believes may refer to a second monument that was later destroyed, possibly after being cursed by one of Egypt’s most powerful deities.

Egypt’s former Minister of Antiquities Zahi Hawass has long dismissed El Shammaa’s theory, noting in 2017 the area has been dug by so many archaeologists, and it yielded nothing.

However, Biondi explained that when they traced a line from the center of the Khafre Pyramid to the existing Sphinx, the alignment created a precise geometric path across the plateau, forming what he described as a mirrored reference line used to identify the second location. 

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Bronze Age Artifact Made from ‘Space Metal’ Unearthed at a Sacrificial Site is Confirmed as the Oldest of Its Kind

A curious Bronze Age artifact unearthed at a ceremonial site in southwestern China has now been identified as the earliest known and the largest of its kind, according to newly published research.

Crafted from meteoritic iron, the rare discovery, described as resembling an “axe-like” instrument, was found at the Sanxingdui site in China’s Sichuan Province, one of the country’s most famous archaeological areas. The confirmation of the artifact’s age offers unique new perspectives on metallurgical practices that occurred early in Bronze Age China.

Discovery at Sanxingdui

Sanxingdui, which archaeologists believe was active from 2800 to 600 BCE, is renowned for the early evidence of industrial practices they have uncovered there, as well as its ancient sacrificial pits and other ceremonial features.

A range of items crafted from bronze have been recovered as well, and in the case of the meteoritic iron blade, analysis has shown that the object was crafted in a period that predates the use of iron smelting in this part of the world.

A key indication of the extraterrestrial origin of the metal used to craft the artifact is its high concentrations of nickel and iron, which appear to rule out the use of early smelting techniques.

While this strongly supports that the object was crafted from meteoritic iron, Dr. Zishu Yang, the co-author of a recent study detailing the discovery, recently said in a statement that current analysis is “insufficient to definitively classify the specific type of meteorite,” and that the exact variety of meteorite the material was sourced from remains unknown.

Going forward, additional analysis that Yang and his colleagues plan to undertake may help reveal further clues, including possible correlations between the unique artifact, its discovery location, and ancient Chinese historical records that may document meteorite impacts from which the iron could have been sourced.

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Archaeologists achieve a historic milestone by dating French cave paintings with carbon-14 for the first time

A team led by a researcher from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) has achieved a milestone in prehistoric archaeology by confirming through absolute dating the age of several parietal representations from the Font-de-Gaume cave, located in Dordogne, France.

The results, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), represent the first time precise dates have been obtained for Paleolithic rock art in this region using the carbon-14 technique, something that until now had been considered unfeasible due to the chemical composition traditionally attributed to the pigments.

Until this study, there had been a widespread technical impossibility in reliably dating the cave paintings of the region, including the famous ones from Lascaux. The main reason lay in the assumption that the black lines had been made exclusively using iron and manganese oxides, mineral compounds that do not contain carbon and therefore cannot be dated through radiocarbon methods.

However, the research team found that no systematic empirical verification had ever been carried out to confirm the complete absence of carbon-based materials in those paintings. To resolve this uncertainty, the scientists decided to apply a non-invasive analysis protocol to two specific black motifs from the Font-de-Gaume cave: the figure of a bison and a design interpreted as a possible anthropomorph or mask.

The methodology used combined two advanced chemical characterization techniques. On the one hand, the researchers employed Raman microspectrometry, a technique that allows the identification of the molecular composition of materials through the interaction of light with the chemical bonds of the sample. On the other hand, hyperspectral imaging was used, a technology that measures the reflectance of light at every point on the analyzed surface and makes it possible to deduce the chemical composition of the coloring compounds present.

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Paleolithic chic: 500,000 years ago, Israel’s ancient toolmakers had a taste for sparkle

Ancient humans who lived in northern Israel around 500,000 years ago intentionally selected special stones with fossilized animals or crystal formations to craft beautiful tools featuring them as decorations, a new study published in the peer-reviewed Tel Aviv Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University (TAU) on Tuesday has shown.

The study presents the results of a survey of the Sakhnin Valley in the Lower Galilee, where hundreds of Lower Paleolithic hand axes have been found, including some 15 that exhibit special features, TAU Prof. Ran Barkai, lead author of the paper, told The Times of Israel in a video interview.

According to Barkai, the number is especially remarkable, since only a handful of individual artifacts with this kind of characteristic had previously been unearthed worldwide.

Barkai believes that these tools prove that those ancient humans were interested in their tools not just for their functionality. Rather, they displayed a sense of aesthetic or symbolic belief system, as the special geological features remain visible in a prominent position at the center of each hand ax, suggesting that the knapping process was carried out in a way to highlight them.

The artifacts were discovered by chance by the co-author of the paper, Muataz Shalata, a resident of the Arab town of Sakhnin in northern Israel.

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A Mysterious Ancient Egyptian Text Reveals Evidence of Advanced Medicine 1000 Years Earlier Than Once Thought

It was 1862, and the American Egyptologist Edwin Smith had just made a fascinating discovery in Luxor, Egypt, the site of ancient Thebes.

This was no archaeological mystery unearthed from the country’s time-worn sands, however. Instead, Smith’s acquisition came from an Egyptian dealer, Mustafa Agha, who sold him an unusual papyrus that seemed to describe medical practices from Egypt’s Second Intermediate Period.

Smith kept the papyrus until his death in 1906, largely unaware of its contents, as his understanding of hieratic was limited and he was unable to translate it. After Smith’s passing, many of the items in his collection, including the mysterious papyrus, were given to the New York Historical Society by his daughter, where they quietly remained for several more years.

It wasn’t until 1920 that the ancient treatise came to the attention of the classical archaeologist and Egyptologist Caroline Ransom Williams, who brought it to the attention of noted archaeologist James Henry Breasted.

“The papyrus is probably the most valuable one owned by the Society,” Williams wrote to Breasted at the time, “and I am ready to waive my interest in it, in the hope that it may be published sooner and better than I could do it.” Recognized as the first chair in Egyptology and Oriental History in the United States at the University of Chicago, Breasted was immediately fascinated by the ancient text and set to work deciphering it.

One decade later, Breasted had finally completed the task of interpreting the obscure ancient document in its entirety, a translation of which was published in 1930. The result was a fundamental shift in our understanding of the ancient history of medical science and its early beginnings, revealing evidence for advanced medical knowledge in ancient Egypt as much as 1000 years before what scholars had commonly accepted at the time.

The Edwin Smith Papyrus: Obscure Origins and a Cliffhanger Ending

The document, known today as the Edwin Smith Papyrus, was cut into one-column pages at some point in the last century. It features Egyptian hieratic written in ink of two different colors: most of the text is black, while some portions with addenda to the primary document appear in red.

Little is known about the author of the papyrus, although scholars agree that the version that exists today is likely the work of a single scholar, and probably also represents a copy of an even older manuscript from Egypt’s Old Kingdom.

Several clues point to this possibility: despite the document’s physical age, scholars note the inclusion of archaic forms of Egyptian words and grammar, suggesting the papyrus is a copy of a much earlier document. Equally tantalizing is that the document ends in mid-sentence, suggesting that, in addition to being a copy, the surviving version is an incomplete work.

From Ancient Magic to Medical Science

Most intriguing of all is the information the document contains. Outlined in an illustrated survey of 48 case histories, the Edwin Smith Papyrus presents a remarkable ancient Egyptian perspective on various injuries and their treatments. Each case details a different region of the body and/or a specific organ and discusses each injury systematically, even including references to the original doctor’s notes on ailments “which I will treat,” suggesting a physician logging their diagnoses of conditions afflicting their patients.

From descriptions of human anatomy to treatments for bleeding, curing infections, and closing wounds, the medical knowledge outlined in the papyrus is remarkably advanced for the period in which it is believed to have originated. Additionally, discussions of medicines featured in the document reveal a level of understanding that exceeds that previously known to have existed at the time by a significant margin, even going beyond medicinal knowledge first recorded by the Greek physician Hippocrates, close to 1000 years later.

Perhaps most significant of all, the document’s precocious discussion of medical knowledge marks a significant shift away from the use of spells and incantations, which are widely believed to have been commonly used for the treatment of a variety of ailments during Egypt’s Old Kingdom. Although the Edwin Smith Papyrus does still contain some references to magic—there are eight magic spells that appear on its “verso” (back left-hand) side—it is believed that these magical references may have represented a sort of “last effort” in cases where all forms of medical treatment had proven ineffective.

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Modern humans arrived in Australia 60,000 years ago and may have interbred with archaic humans such as ‘hobbits’

A new study of nearly 2,500 genomes may have finally settled the debate about when modern humans arrived in Australia. Using a diverse database of DNA from ancient and contemporary Aboriginal people throughout Oceania, researchers have determined that people began to settle northern Australia by 60,000 years ago and that they arrived via two distinct routes.

Experts have long debated the date that humans first arrived in Australia, a feat that required the invention of watercraft. While some researchers have used genetic models to support a “short chronology” of 47,000 to 51,000 years ago for the arrival, others have marshaled archaeological evidence and Aboriginal knowledge in support of the “long chronology,” in which the first arrivals happened 60,000 to 65,000 years ago.

In the new study, published Friday (Nov. 28) in the journal Science Advances, researchers analyzed an “unprecedentedly large” dataset of 2,456 human genomes to answer the question of when humans journeyed from Sunda (the ancient landmass, also known as Sundaland, that included what are today Indonesia, the Philippines and the Malaysian Peninsula) to Sahul (a paleocontinent that included modern-day Australia, Tasmania and New Guinea).

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Controversial Study Challenges Age of Famous Monte Verde Site, Reigniting One of Archaeology’s Greatest Debates

It began like many archaeological discoveries in the Americas: woodcutters working along the banks of Chinchihuapi Creek, a tributary of the Maullín River about 36 miles from the Pacific coast of southern Chile near Puerto Montt, observed the bones of very large animals protruding from an eroded bank.

The investigations that followed, however, beginning in the 1970s at what became known as the Monte Verde archaeological site, revealed more than just the dwelling place of some of Chile’s earliest residents. Findings there, including radiocarbon dates indicating a human presence as early as 14,500 years ago, led to a controversy that shook the foundations of American anthropology, upending past thinking on not only who had been the first to arrive at sites like this one—now a proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site—but more fundamentally, whether people initially migrated into the Americas far earlier than previously ever imagined.

For many years, the debate over whether sites like Monte Verde provided unequivocal evidence that there were people in the New World prior to the appearance of the Clovis culture—long recognized as the oldest confirmed cultural manifestation in the Americas, and dating to no earlier than around 13,500 years ago—remained one of American archaeology’s most challenging questions.

With time, however, and a growing number of similar discoveries at sites in North and South America that would follow, the debate appeared to have been settled: pre-Clovis had become the accepted paradigm, and the scientific data first uncovered by archaeologist Tom Dillehay, Ph.D, at Monte Verde clearly showed it.

However, that doesn’t mean there haven’t been a few holdouts who continue to argue that the once widely accepted “Clovis horizon” may still be closer to the mark, in terms of when the first large-scale migrations into the Americas began. While their numbers have diminished somewhat within the 21st century, some archaeologists like Dr. Todd Surovell, a Professor and Department Head of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wyoming, have kept the debate alive by challenging what he and a few colleagues view as a kind of new orthodoxy that has slowly emerged out of what was once considered a fringe idea in American archaeology.

Now, as evidenced by a recent study by Surovell and several co-authors published in Science, not only is the debate still burning after many decades, but the enigmatic Monte Verde archaeological site appears to have maintained its place at the center of the controversy.

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Neanderthals may have used birch tar for its anti-bacterial properties, experiments suggest

Neanderthals probably used birch tar for multiple functions, including treating their wounds, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by a team of researchers led by Tjaark Siemssen of the University of Cologne, Germany, and the University of Oxford, U.K.

Birch tar is commonly found at Neanderthal archaeological sites, and in some cases this tar is known to have been used as an adhesive to assemble tools.

Recently, some researchers have raised the question of whether Neanderthals had multiple uses for this substance. For instance, Indigenous communities in northern Europe and Canada use birch tar to treat wounds, and there is growing evidence that Neanderthals also employed a variety of medical practices.

To investigate the medicinal potential of birch tar, Siemssen and colleagues extracted tar from modern birch tree bark, specifically targeting species known from Neanderthal sites.

They used multiple extraction methods, including distillation of tar in a clay pit and condensation of tar against a stone surface, both of which would have been methods available to Neanderthals. When exposed to different strains of bacteria, all of the tar samples were found to be effective at hindering the growth of Staphylococcus bacteria known to cause wound infections.

These experiments not only support the efficacy of Indigenous medicinal practices, but also reinforce the possibility that Neanderthals used birch tar to treat wounds.

The authors note that there are other potential uses of birch tar, such as insect repellent, as well as other plants to which Neanderthals had access. Further exploration of the multiple potential uses of these natural ingredients will enable a more thorough understanding of Neanderthal culture.

The authors add, “We found that the birch tar produced by Neanderthals and early humans had antibacterial properties. This has important implications for how Neanderthals may have mitigated disease burden during the last Ice Ages, and adds to a growing set of evidence on health care in these early human communities.”

“By bringing together research on indigenous pharmacology and experimental archaeology, we begin to understand the medicinal practices of our distant human ancestors and their closest cousins. Additionally, this study of ‘palaeopharmacology‘ can contribute to the rediscovery of antibiotic remedies while we face an ever more pressing antimicrobial resistance crisis.”

“The messiness of birch tar production deserves a special mention. Every step of the production is a sensory experience in itself, and getting the tar off our hands after spending hours at the fire has been a challenge every time.”

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2,000-year-old artifact may be evidence that Romans found New World — a thousand years before Columbus

Was there a New World order we didn’t know about?

The discovery of a 2,000-year-old Roman artifact in Mexico could upend our understanding of the New World, raising the possibility that Italians arrived in the Americas long before Christopher Columbus.

Dubbed the Tecaxic-Calixtlahuaca Head, this terracotta sculpture of a bearded man was exhumed by Mexican archaeologist José García Payón in 1933 from its eponymous repository near Mexico City, Arkeonews reported.

The figure was buried in a sealed tomb beneath three intact floor layers of the pyramidal structure, alongside pottery shards, gold ornaments, bone artifacts, and pieces of rock crystal.

While these materials were typical of the time period and region, the noggin was anything but, boasting striking features that skewed more ancient Mediterranean than Mesoamerica.

Then, in 1990, German archaeologist Bernard Andreae suggested that the bust was “without any doubt, Roman,” claiming its hairstyle and beard shape harked back to that of the emperors from the Severan period (193–235 BC).

This was more than just a passing resemblance, too. Through thermoluminescence dating — heating an object and measuring the light it emits from energy stored over time — researchers were able to determine that the relic dated back to between the 9th century BC and the 13th century AD, long before Columbus landed in the Americas in 1492.

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