Tag: lost civilizations

Jerf el-Ahmar and Göbeklitepe: Connecting Neolithic Symbolism and Architecture

During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period in the Near East, spanning approximately 10,000 to 8,000 BCE, people underwent a transformative shift from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to more settled agricultural communities. Among the myriad archaeological sites from this period, Jerf el-Ahmar in northern Syria and Göbeklitepe in southeastern Türkiye stand out as pivotal locales that offer profound insights into early Neolithic societal transformations.​

Göbeklitepe features monumental stone pillars arranged in circular enclosures, decorated with intricate carvings of animals and abstract symbols. These structures, likely among the earliest known temples, indicate that PPN communities placed a strong emphasis on ritual and communal gatherings.The site’s complexity and scale indicate a high degree of social organization and cooperation, challenging previous notions that such architectural feats were beyond the capabilities of pre-agricultural societies.

Jerf el-Ahmar: A Shift in Neolithic Architecture and Community Life

Early Communal Architecture and Storage

Jerf el-Ahmar provides a different yet complementary perspective on PPN life. The site features communal architecture, including large, circular buildings that likely served as centers for community activities and storage. Notably, these structures exhibit early examples of rectilinear architecture, marking a transition from round to rectangular building designs that became prevalent in later Neolithic periods. The presence of communal storage facilities at Jerf el-Ahmar underscores the emerging importance of food surplus management and collective resource sharing in early agricultural communities.

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Mass Grave of Roman Soldiers Discovered Beneath Vienna Soccer Field

During routine renovations of a Vienna soccer field in October, construction crews stumbled upon an astonishing find: an ancient mass grave filled with intertwined skeletal remains, from what were clearly dozens of bodies. This discovery became even more noteworthy when archaeologists dated the bodies back to the first-century Roman Empire.

The mass burial, likely the result of a violent clash between the Romans and Germanic tribes, has been analyzed by experts from Stadtarchäologie Wien (Vienna City Archaeology) in collaboration with the private firm Novetus GmbH. Following months of study, experts from the Vienna Museum have now publicly unveiled their findings, linking the site to a catastrophic military conflict—the first known ancient battle ever recorded in this region.

The mass grave, located in Vienna’s Simmering district, contains the confirmed remains of 129 individuals. However, archaeologists believe that the total number of victims exceeds 150 (many of the bones re jumbled), making this an unparalleled discovery in Central Europe.

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Hidden tomb discovered by scientists investigating vast city beneath Giza pyramid

A ‘sarcophagus’ hidden more than 600 feet below the surface in Egypt is the latest discovery from the team that uncovered a ‘vast city’ beneath the Giza pyramids.

Italian researchers told DailyMail.com that they identified an unknown chamber under the Tomb of Osiris, which is believed to be a symbolic burial site dedicated to the Egyptian god of the afterlife.

Last week, the team announced the discovery of wells and chambers more than 2,000 feet below the Khafre Pyramid. If confirmed, these findings could rewrite human history.

Many independent experts have called the claims ‘outlandish,’ noting that using radar pulses to create images deep below the structure lacks scientific basis.

An image produced by the technology revealed the known levels within the Tomb of Osiris, descending 114 feet below the surface, along with a vertical shaft followed by three distinct steps.

It also detected a previously unknown structure, which ‘appears to reach an empty chamber’ 656 feet below the surface.

‘There is also a sarcophagus (?), which remains surrounded by running water,’ said the team.

However, Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who specializes in archaeology and was not involved in the study, said the technology cannot penetrate to such depths.

‘Maybe 30 or 40 feet, depending on the wavelength they’re using. But they’re not even telling us that. All of this is very speculative,’ he added

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A ‘landmark finding’: Homo naledi buried their dead 250,000 years ago, according to newly updated research

Homo naledi, an extinct relative of modern humans whose brain was one-third the size of ours, buried their dead and engraved cave walls about 250,000 years ago, according to new research.

The findings are overturning long-held theories that only modern humans and our Neanderthal cousins could do these complex activities.

Evidence of burial practices in this early hominin would be a “landmark finding,” according to a team of researchers who published their hypothesis in the journal eLife in 2023. But their theory became controversial, with numerous experts saying the evidence wasn’t enough to conclude that H. naledi buried or memorialized their dead.

In a revised study published Friday (March 28) in eLife, the researchers laid out 250 pages’ worth of proof of purposeful burial that they say has convinced more people.

Archaeologists first discovered the remains of H. naledi in South Africa’s Rising Star cave system in 2013. Since then, over 1,500 bones from multiple individuals have been found throughout the 2.5-mile-long (4 kilometers) system.

The anatomy of H. naledi is well known due to the remarkable preservation of the remains. They were bipedal, stood around 5 feet (1.5 meters) tall and weighed about 100 pounds (45 kilograms). They had dexterous hands and small-but-complex brains — traits that have led to a debate about the complexity of their behavior.

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Experts now even more confident a ‘vast city’ exists under Giza Pyramids in Egypt after new discovery

Scientists on a mission to prove a ‘vast city’ sits more than 4,000 feet below Egypt‘s Giza Pyramids have released a new analysis they say proves the findings to be true.

Last week, the team in Italy presented bombshell research that claimed to have discovered multi-thousand-foot-tall wells and chambers under the Khafre Pyramid.

If true, it would turn Egyptian – and human – history on its head, though independent experts have said the discovery is ‘completely wrong’ and lacked any scientific basis.

Researchers said they determined ‘a confidence level well above 85 percent’ that the ‘structures identified beneath the Pyramid of Khafre, as well as those beneath other pyramids on the Giza Plateau,’ exist.

The wells and chambers were identified by sending ‘high-frequency electromagnetic waves’ into the subsurface, and the way signals bounced back allowed researchers to map structures beneath the pyramid.

The team used ‘a specialized algorithm’ to process the data and create the images that showed what looked like wells with spiral formations leading to enormous chambers.

They cross checked the structures with known architectural forms, ‘specifically those accessible to us today, such as the Pozzo di San Patrizio in Italy,’ Niccole Ciccole, the project’s spokesperson, shared with Dailymail.com.

Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who focuses on archaeology and was not involved in the study, said: ‘To make correlation confidence levels there needs to be something to correlate to or compare to. 

‘What could that be here? Without that, these percentages are meaningless scientifically.’

However, Professor Conyers suggested that it is conceivable that small structures, such as shafts and chambers, may exist beneath the pyramids, having been there before the pyramids were built, because the site was ‘special to ancient people.’

He highlighted how ‘the Mayans and other peoples in ancient Mesoamerica often built pyramids on top of the entrances to caves or caverns that had ceremonial significance to them.’

The team claimed they found eight wells and two enormous enclosures more than 2,000 feet below the base of the Khafre pyramid and ‘an entire hidden world of many structures’ another 2,000 feet below those

‘I am skeptical of the deeper claims. If their ‘algorithms’ can do what they say (I can’t comment on those), then perhaps this will hold up,’ Professor Conyers said.

‘A ‘well’ or ‘tunnel’ is what I would expect under a pyramid.’

The work by Corrado Malanga from Italy’s University of Pisa, Filippo Biondi with the University of Strathclyde in Scotland and Egyptologist Armando Mei has not yet been published in a scientific journal for the review of independent experts. 

The team sent the analysis to DailyMail.com, where they admitted ‘further validation is recommended through additional tomographic scans and in-situ verification.’

To determine if anything was hiding below the Pyramid of Khafre, they sent high-frequency waves (similar to how radar works) into the ground beneath the pyramid.

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Scientists who made ‘vast city’ discovery beneath Egypt’s Giza pyramid claim it was built by a long-lost advanced civilization

A purported ‘vast underground city’ in Egypt is tens of thousands of years older than the Giza pyramids, scientists have shockingly claimed.

If true, it would turn Egyptian – and human – history on its head, though independent experts have called it ‘outlandish’ and ‘crazy talk.’

Last week, researchers in Italy presented bombshell research which claimed to have discovered multi-thousand-foot tall wells and chambers underground beneath the Khafre Pyramid. 

The Giza pyramids are believed to have been built around 4,500 years ago and considered a remarkable feat given their immense scale and the precision of their construction, which remains a mystery for the time period.

However, researchers behind the new study claim that the hidden structures, spanning 4,000 feet, are approximately 38,000 years old — which predates the oldest known man-made structure of its kind by tens of thousands of years.

The team has based these claims on ancient Egyptian text that they interpreted as historical records of a pre-existing civilization that was destroyed during a cataclysmic event.

Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who focuses on archaeology and was not involved in the study, told DailyMail.com: ‘That is a really outlandish idea.’

He added that at that time in human history people ‘were mostly living in caves’ 38,000 years ago. ‘People did not start living in what we now call cities until about 9,000 years ago,’ he said. ‘There were a few large villages before that but those only go back a few thousand years from that time.’

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Archaeologists Claim They Have Found a ‘Vast Underground City’ Underneath Egypt’s Giza Pyramids

Archaeologists believe they have uncovered evidence of a massive underground city lying beneath Egypt’s famous Giza pyramids.

Researchers from Italy and Scotland used advanced radar technology to produce detailed images from deep below the surface, revealing possible hidden structures 10 times the size of the pyramids themselves.

The report highlights eight distinct vertical, cylinder-shaped formations stretching over 2,100 feet beneath the pyramids, along with a series of additional unidentified structures located another 4,000 feet further down.

However, some experts remain skeptical of the claim, insisting that such a feat would be structurally impossible.

Mail Online reported:

Professor Lawrence Conyers, a radar expert at the University of Denver who focuses on archaeology, told DailyMail.com that it is not possible for the technology to penetrate that deeply into the ground, making the idea of an underground city ‘a huge exaggeration.’

Professor Conyers said it is conceivable there are small structures, such as shafts and chambers, beneath the pyramids that existed before they were built because the site was ‘special to ancient people.’

He highlighted how ‘the Mayans and other people in ancient Mesoamerica often built pyramids on top of the entrances of caves or caverns that had ceremonial meaning to them.’

The work by Corrado Malanga, from Italy’s University of Pisa, and Filippo Biondi with the University of Strathclyde in Scotland has only been released during an in-person  briefing in Italy this week and is yet to be published in a scientific journal, where it would need to be analyzed by independent experts.

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Genetic Study Reveals Hidden Chapter in Story of Human Evolution

Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the globe.

Using advanced analysis based on full genome sequences, researchers from the University of Cambridge have found evidence that modern humans are the result of a genetic mixing event between two ancient populations that diverged around 1.5 million years ago. About 300,000 years ago, these groups came back together, with one group contributing 80% of the genetic makeup of modern humans and the other contributing 20%.

For the last two decades, the prevailing view in human evolutionary genetics has been that Homo sapiens first appeared in Africa around 200,000 to 300,000 years ago, and descended from a single lineage. However, these latest results, reported in the journal  Nature Genetics, suggest a more complex story.

“The question of where we come from is one that has fascinated humans for centuries,” said first author Dr Trevor Cousins from Cambridge’s Department of Genetics. “For a long time, it’s been assumed that we evolved from a single continuous ancestral lineage, but the exact details of our origins are uncertain.”

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Oldest Rock Art: 200,000-Year-Old Carvings Found on Stone in Marbella, Spain

Archaeologists have made a groundbreaking discovery in Marbella, Spain, unearthing a stone with ancient engravings on its face that could rewrite the history of prehistoric art. The find suggests that early humans may have been engaging in symbolic expression far earlier than previously believed, as this ancient rock art may predate the previous oldest samples in Europe by more than 100,000 years.

The stone was discovered at the Coto Correa site in the Las Chapas neighborhood of Marbella, which is located in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia. Researchers currently estimate that the engravings are more than 200,000 years old, a timeframe that places them deep within the Lower Paleolithic era. The maker of the engravings would have been part of an early wave of human migrants to leave Africa and move into Europe, with much larger waves destined to duplicate this journey later on.

If these estimates are confirmed, this could be one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in Spain’s history, as it will literally require the rewriting of textbooks and other official resources that discuss the development of art as a form of human self-expression.

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Did an Advanced Civilization Thrive 10,000 Years Ago? Mind-Blowing Evidence Is Stacking Up

What if everything we’ve been taught about the dawn of civilization is a lie—or at least a half-truth? Picture this: more than 10,000 years ago, while the last Ice Age glaciers retreated, a sophisticated society flourished—cities of stone rising from the earth, astronomers charting the heavens, engineers bending nature to their will. Not a ragtag band of hunter-gatherers fumbling with flint, but a lost civilization rivalling Egypt or Mesopotamia, erased by time and catastrophe.

Mainstream archaeology has long scoffed at the notion, relegating it to the realm of crackpot fantasy. Yet a cascade of recent discoveries—monuments older than history itself, submerged ruins whispering of drowned worlds, artifacts that defy explanation—is prying open the coffin of conventional wisdom. Could an advanced civilization have thrived millennia before we dared to dream? The evidence is growing, and it’s turning our past into a tantalizing enigma.

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