News 2019

Scientists from the University of Bristol and the British Museum, in collaboration with Oxford Archaeology East and Canterbury Archaeological Trust, have, for the first time, identified the use of birch bark tar in medieval England - the use of which was previously thought to be limited to prehistory.

DNA from 75-year old eradicated European malaria parasites uncovers the historical spread of one of the two most common forms of the disease, Plasmodium vivax, from Europe to the Americas during the colonial period, finds a new study co-led by UCL. The research published in Molecular Biology and Evolution reports the genome sequence of a malaria parasite sourced from blood-stained medical microscope slides used in 1944 in Spain, one of the last footholds of malaria in Europe.

In autumn 2017, the archaeological service of the Canton of Berne was amazed when two private individuals delivered a crusted lump of metal. The bronze hand of Prêles, decorated with a ribbon of gold, turned out to be the oldest bronze sculpture of a human body part in Central Europe. But where did the metals of the sensational find come from? Empa researchers were involved in the investigation.

Scholars have been all over Rome for hundreds of years, but it still holds some secrets - for instance, relatively little is known about where the city's denizens actually came from. Now, an international team led by Researchers from the University of Vienna, Stanford University and Sapienza University of Rome, is filling in the gaps with a genetic history that shows just how much the Eternal City's populace mirrored its sometimes tumultuous history.

The genome of an ancient Egyptian wheat has been sequenced for the first time by a UCL-led team, revealing historical patterns of crop movement and domestication. The study was carried out by an international research team, which mapped the genetic code from a sample of wheat harvested over 3,000 years ago, that was excavated in 1924 from the Hememiah North Spur site in Egypt.

The oldest surviving pages of the 13th century's most popular story which feature one of medieval European literature's best-known sex scenes have been identified by an academic from the University of Bristol. Le Roman de la Rose or The Romance of the Rose - famously translated and adapted by Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales, a century later - is a medieval French poem styled as an allegorical dream vision.

On the occasion of the 450th anniversary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's death, the city of Brussels is organising an exhibition on a few of the master's original drawings as well as a unique series of prints based on these drawings.

A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, has found the first evidence that prehistoric babies were fed animal milk using the equivalent of modern-day baby bottles. Possible infant feeding vessels, made from clay, first appear in Europe in the Neolithic (at around 5,000 BC), becoming more commonplace throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages.

Prospective Students Students and Doctorate Alumni and Supporters Continuing Education International research team led by Freie Universität publishes results of a two-year study No 263/2019 from Sep 10, 2019 An international team of researchers led by a team from Freie Universität Berlin has excavated a 9,000-year-old grave and its contents in the south of Jordan and interpreted the findings.

On July 12, 2011, a human bone was discovered jutting from a drainage trench at a construction site at Yale New Haven Hospital. The New Haven police and state coroner were called, but it was no crime scene. Michael Massella, a security officer on duty at the hospital, contacted his co-worker Anthony Griego, a retired New Haven police officer and local historian.

Humans had caused significant landcover change on Earth up to 4000 years earlier than previously thought, University of Queensland researchers have found. The School of Social Sciences ' Dr Andrea Kay said some scientists defined the Anthropocene as starting in the 20th century, but the new research showed human-induced landcover change was globally extensive by 2000BC.

University of Sydney experts are among a global group of 250 archaeologists who have contributed to a groundbreaking assessment of ancient land use. Professor Peter Hiscock and Dr Patrick Faulkner from the University's Department of Archaeology are members of the ArchaeoGLOBE project , a global group of hundreds of archaeologists sharing knowledge on human land use across the globe over the past 10,000 years.

This time-lapse map shows how extensive agriculture (noncontinuous cultivation, or the "beginnings" of farming) spread as a percentage of land use. To highlight land use in Oceania, four groups of islands are represented by icons. Nicolas Gauthier/Arizona State University Humans' ability to transform the natural environment is often considered a modern phenomenon, from increasing deforestation, soil erosion and greenhouse gas emissions.

For more than 20 years, the staff of the Asia Minor Research Centre at the Department of Ancient History of Münster University has been investigating the cultural legacy of the ancient city of Doliche in south-eastern Turkey. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is now funding the project with around 800,000 euros for a further three years.

Used as a propaganda tool by the Nazis and Soviets during the Second World War and Cold War, the remains of a 10th century male, unearthed beneath Prague Castle in 1928, have been the subject of continued debate and archaeological manipulation. The mysterious skeleton and associated grave goods, including a sword and two knives, were identified as Viking by the Nazis, as a Slavonic warrior by the Soviets and became part of the Czech independence movement in more recent years.

Since the earliest civilizations, people have recorded their thoughts and experiences through storytelling, art, philosophy and other forms of expression. Studying these works - collectively known as the humanities - helps us understand the past and ultimately ourselves. Today's humanities scholars are rediscovering the past through traditional ways, such as reexamining an ancient mummy case with a fresh perspective, as well as more modern techniques, which include the use of big data analysis or 3-D and X-ray models.

In contrast to pre-industrial climate fluctuations, current, anthropogenic climate change is occurring across the whole world at the same time. In addition, the speed of global warming is higher than it has been in at least 2,000 years. That's according to two studies from the University of Bern. Many people have a clear picture of the "Little Ice Age" (from approx. 1300 to 1850).

International Research Project Studies Social Significance of Health Resorts No 169/2019 from Jun 12, 2019 A team of researchers from the universities of Amsterdam and Lund, Queen Mary University in London, and Freie Universität Berlin is starting a research project on health resorts as a location of transnational encounter and debate.

A look into the past. It's usually just a metaphor, but archaeologists Jeroen Poblome and Sam Cleymans have made it a physical reality. Together with the University of Burdur, Turkey, they have reconstructed the faces of two centuries-old residents of Sagalassos. For over thirty years, KU Leuven researchers have been examining the archaeological site of Sagalassos with an international and interdisciplinary team.

Centuries-old manuscripts, documents and heraldic images: at first glance, medieval research and artificial intelligence seem to be a contradiction in terms. After all, historical studies and the like were long seen as being subjects greatly removed from the world of IT. However, methods such as machine learning on the part of computer programmes, which learn new things and correct themselves, open up new opportunities for historians doing research.