Repudiating the earlier assumption that Kondapur in Andhra Pradesh was a Buddhist site, new archaeological evidence indicates that the Satavahana kings, the rulers of the region between 3rd century BCE and 3rd century CE, practised Tantric worship. Figurinsfrom the Kondapur archaelogical site in Andhra Pradesh [Credit: ASI]“Even though Satavahana kings were under the control of King Ashoka, who...
Unlike most modern humans, the prehistoric people of Europe did not use mind-altering substances simply for their hedonistic pleasure. The use of alcohol and plant drugs -- such as opium poppies and hallucinogenic mushrooms -- was highly regulated and went hand-in-hand with the belief system and sacred burial rituals of many preindustrial societies. Elisa Guerra-Doce of the Universidad de Valladolid...
Most supposed impact indicators at 29 sites are too old or too young to be remnants of an ancient comet that proponents claim sparked climate change at the end of the Ice Age, killed America's earliest people and caused a mass animal extinction. New research shows that a comet didn't spark a qave of climate change at the end of the Ice Age, killing the Clovis peoples and causing mass animal extinction ...
Archaeologists have confirmed the presence of a long-lost Roman military camp deep in eastern Germany. The 18-hectare site, found near the town of Hachelbich in Thuringia, would have sheltered a Roman legion of up to 5000 troops. Its location in a broad valley with few impediments suggests it was a stopover on the way to invade territory further east. Soil marks where Roman soldiers once dug a trench...
The fresco conservation laboratory, housed within the archaeological site at Akrotiri, Thera (Santorini) since 1967, has been closed due to lack of financial means that would keep it open and operating. The fresco conservation lab at Akrotiri, Thera (Santorini) [Credit: Enet.gr]According to Prof. Christos Doumas, the excavation project’s director and direct successor of Spyridon Marinatos (who revealed...
Rare ale tankards and pipes used by drinkers in London more than 650 years ago have been unearthed near the city’s oldest railway station. These timbers are estimated to be around 1,000 years old and were found under London Bridge station [Credit: Daily Mail]As part of the Thameslink Programme, archaeologists near London Bridge station have already uncovered several relics, including an ale flagon....
Buddha’s Word is the first exhibition of Tibetan material in Cambridge. It is also the first time in the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s history that its Buddhist collections will be showcased in an exhibition. Illuminated Buddhist manuscripts [Credit: Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology]Developed in partnership with the Mongolia and Inner Asia Research Unit and with support from...
Lourinha museum announced on Tuesday the discovery of a third new species of sauropod dinosaur in the bones discovered nearby in 1996 and now studies by Portuguese Octávio Mateus and by Brits Philip Mannion and Paul Upchurch. Zby atlanticus [Credit: Simão Mateus]“We thought for a long time that it was a species that was known in Spain, the turiasaurus, but in fact the anatomical differences we began...
Fifty-million-year-old fossil beetles that fed only on palm seeds are giving Simon Fraser University biologists Bruce Archibald and Rolf Mathewes new information about ancient climates. Palm beetle fossil [Credit: Simon Fraser University]According to their research, published online this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, these fossil beetles indicate that during a period...
Because of their far-flung geography and colorful examples including the African ostrich, Australian emu, New Zealand kiwi and long lost giants such as the New Zealand moa, Baker, et. al. have examined a fascinating part in the story of the avian tree of life: flightless birds, or ratites. Scientists have examined a fascinating part in the story of the avian tree of life: flightless birds or...
An Italian astronomer in the 19th century first described them as 'canali' -- on Mars' equatorial region, a conspicuous net-like system of deep gorges known as the Noctis Labyrinthus is clearly visible. The gorge system, in turn, leads into another massive canyon, the Valles Marineris, which is 4,000 km long, 200 km wide and 7 km deep. Both of these together would span the US completely from east to...
Using state of the art computer simulations, a team of French astrophysicists have for the first time explained a long standing mystery: why surges of star formation (so called 'starbursts') take place when galaxies collide. The scientists, led by Florent Renaud of the AIM institute near Paris in France, publish their results in a letter to the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society....
Although Dark Energy and Dark Matter appear to constitute over 95 percent of the universe, nobody knows of which particles they are made up. Astrophysicists now crossed one potential Dark Matter candidate -- the Dark Photon or U boson -- off the list in top position. This is the result of recent HADES experiments, where researchers from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and from 17 other...
A bone from an extinct bird known as "Scotland's dodo" has been uncovered following an archaeological dig in East Lothian. Archaeologists said the find sheds new lights on human habitation of the area in the Middle Ages [Credit: BBC]The bone from the Great Auk, a species last seen in British waters on St Kilda in 1840, was recovered at the Kirk Ness site, now known as North Berwick. It was unearthed...
On Saturday, journalists, photographers and TV anchors flocked to a display hall in the Egyptian Museum in Tahrir Square, trying to catch a glimpse of a special exhibition of recovered stolen artefacts. An exhibition of repatriated historical objects which, according to local media, were stolen during the uprising in Egypt three years ago, takes place at the museum [Credit:Reuters]Egyptian Minister...
The deep gorges which cut across Scandinavian landscapes may have been carved by rivers flowing under ancient glaciers, say scientists. Harspranget subglacial gorge in Sweden [Credit: Bengt A. Lundberg]The new evidence, published in Nature Communications, sheds light onto a long-standing debate over whether the gorges were formed when glaciers still covered the landscape, or after they melted. The...
Collecting fossils helps raise interest in palaeontology and the natural history of Australia, and many important fossil discoveries have been made by members of the public collecting unusual specimens and bringing them to museums for identification. The Lark Quarry dinosaur trackway is the world’s only fossilised dinosaur stampede. But the fossils could fetch a lot of money if sold, so how do...
A new study by researchers at NASA and the University of California, Irvine, finds a rapidly melting section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet appears to be in an irreversible state of decline, with nothing to stop the glaciers in this area from melting into the sea. Thwaites Glacier [Credit: NASA]The study presents multiple lines of evidence, incorporating 40 years of observations that indicate the...
At the surface, Antarctica is a motionless and frozen landscape. Yet hundreds of miles down the Earth is moving at a rapid rate, new research has shown. Antarctic Blue [Credit: Christopher Michel]The study, led by Newcastle University, UK, and published this week in Earth and Planetary Science Letters, explains for the first time why the upward motion of the Earth’s crust in the Northern Antarctic...
Archaeologists from Bulgaria's National History Museum have uncovered the roadside Sostra complex, situated on the Roman cursus publi-cus from Oescus to Philippopolis. The rooms of the roadside station were heated by a hypocaust system where warm air heats not only the floors of buildings, but also their walls [Credit: НИМ]The roadside complex was an important point of rest for dignitaries and even...