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History / Archeology - Earth Sciences - 02.06.2021

Early Medieval Egyptian blue in laser light
Research team elucidates complex spectrum of trace compounds in the first artificial pigment of mankind Art technologist Dr. Petra Dariz and analytical chemist Dr. Thomas Schmid (School of Analytical Sciences Adlershof SALSA at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Bundesanstalt für Materialforschung und -prüfung BAM) identified Egyptian blue on a monochrome blue mural fragment, which was excavated in the church of St. Peter above Gratsch (South Tyrol, Northern Italy) in the 1970s.

History / Archeology - Social Sciences - 27.05.2021

Jebel Sahaba: A succession of violence rather than a prehistoric war
Since the 1960s, the Jebel Sahaba cemetery (Nile Valley, present-day Sudan) has become the emblem of organised warfare during prehistory. Re-analysis of the data, however, argues for a succession of smaller conflicts. Competition for resources is probably one of the causes of the conflicts witnessed in this cemetery.

History / Archeology - 25.05.2021

Researchers unearth oldest gold find in southwest Germany
Archaeologists working in the district of Tübingen in southwest Germany have discovered the region's earliest gold object to date. It is a spiral ring of gold wire unearthed in autumn 2020 from the grave of an Early Bronze Age woman. It is about 3,800 years old, according to analyses. Precious metal finds from this period are very rare in southwestern Germany.

Agronomy / Food Science - History / Archeology - 18.05.2021

Swiss farmers contributed to the domestication of the opium poppy
Fields of opium poppies once bloomed where the Zurich Opera House underground garage now stands. Through a new analysis of archaeological seeds, researchers at the University of Basel have been able to bolster the hypothesis that prehistoric farmers throughout the Alps participated in domesticating the opium poppy.

Social Sciences - History / Archeology - 06.05.2021

Human burial from 78,000 years ago in Africa
Àfrica Pitarch, Beatriu de Pinós researcher in the Prehistoric Studies and Research Seminar of the UB (SERP-UB) 000 years ago. Researchers found remains of a child aged between 2.5 and 3, in a shallow grave in the site of Panga ya Saidi (Kenya). This burial joins other evidence of the first social complex behaviour seen in Homo Sapiens.

History / Archeology - Career - 06.05.2021

Sydney archaeologist helps reveal oldest human burial in Africa
Dating to 78,000 years ago, the bones of a child were found by a team of archaeologists in Panga ya Saidi, a cave site on the Kenyan coast. It is considered the oldest human burial in Africa. A new study published in Nature by an international team of researchers details the earliest modern human burial in Africa.

History / Archeology - 05.05.2021

Scrap for cash before coins
Researchers including Göttingen University show Bronze Age witnessed revolution in small change across Europe How did people living in the Bronze Age manage their finances before money became widespread? Researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Rome have discovered that bronze scrap found in hoards in Europe circulated as a currency.

History / Archeology - Earth Sciences - 05.05.2021

King Henry VIII’s favourite ship, the Mary Rose, was made up of a multinational crew
The biographies of eight crew found among the remains of the Tudor warship Mary Rose have been revealed using the latest archaeological methods. Cardiff University academics, in partnership with the Mary Rose Trust and the British Geological Survey, used cutting edge scientific techniques to reveal the ancestry, childhood origins and diets of some of the crew who perished on the ship in 1545 AD.

Health - History / Archeology - 30.04.2021

Cancer rates in medieval Britain were around ten times higher than previously thought
CT scanning used to uncover remnants of malignancy hidden inside medieval bones provides new insight into cancer prevalence in a pre-industrial world.

Politics - History / Archeology - 23.04.2021

Immigrants participated in the political life of medieval England
VUB research shows many people came from the Low Countries and were politically active Friday, April 23, 2021 — The question as to what extent newcomers from abroad should have a political say in their new place of residence is one that occupies many minds.

Environment - History / Archeology - 20.04.2021

Scientists look to "hot spot" for longest weather record
Scientists from The Australian National University (ANU) are looking for volunteers to help create Australia's longest daily weather record from a globally recognised climate change "hot spot".  The citizen science project will help scientists reconstruct Perth's daily weather from 1830 to the present day.

History / Archeology - Environment - 15.04.2021

To improve climate models, an international team with the participation of UPF turns to archaeological data
The project, called LandCover6k, offers a new classification system that the researchers hope will improve predications about the planet's future and fill in gaps about its past. .Published in PLOS ONE , the study includes the participation of researchers from the universities of Pennsylvania, Pompeu Fabra and Glasgow, including Marco Madella, ICREA research professor of the Department of Humanities at UPF, who is one of the project leaders.

History / Archeology - 14.04.2021

Revealing the routes of the Hanseatic era online
Research team led by University of Göttingen reconstructs late medieval trade routes digitally The Hanseatic League was a confederation of merchant guilds and market towns in Northwestern and Central Europe, which came to dominate trade in the region for three hundred years. A digital platform has now been built which reveals the long-distance trade routes in Northern Europe between 1350 and 1650.

History / Archeology - Chemistry - 14.04.2021

Ancient pottery reveals the first evidence for honey hunting in prehistoric West Africa
A team of scientists, led by the University of Bristol, with colleagues from Goethe University, Frankfurt, has found the first evidence for ancient honey hunting, locked inside pottery fragments from prehistoric West Africa, dating back some 3,500 years ago. Honeybees are an iconic species, being the world's most important pollinator of food crops.

Life Sciences - History / Archeology - 25.03.2021

The origin and uniqueness of basque genetics revealed
A new study reveals that the genetic uniqueness of the Basque population is not due to its external origin in respect of other Iberian populations, but reduced contacts as of the Iron Age. The genomic analysis points to the language barrier as a possible bastion which led to the isolation of the people.

History / Archeology - 24.03.2021

Older than expected: Teeth reveal the origin of the tiger shark
With a total length of up to 5.5m, the tiger shark is one of the largest predatory sharks known today. This shark is a cosmopolitan species occurring in all oceans worldwide. It is characterized by a striped pattern on its back, which is well marked in juveniles but usually fades in adults.

History / Archeology - Life Sciences - 10.03.2021

Medieval ’birthing girdle’ parchment was worn during labour
Scientists have used proteomic techniques to find evidence of vaginal fluid, along with honey and milk, on a rare manuscript from the late 15th century.    There are suggestions that due to the dimensions of the object - long and narrow - they were worn like a chastity belt, to help support the pregnant women both physically and spiritually Sarah Fiddyment Researchers have found direct evidence that a 500-year-old manuscript was worn during childbirth by using "biomolecular analysis" to detect ancient proteins from cervico-vaginal fluid within the weave of the parchment.

History / Archeology - Life Sciences - 10.03.2021

Medieval parchment was worn as ’birthing girdle’ during labour
Scientists have used proteomic techniques to find evidence of vaginal fluid, along with honey and milk, in a rare manuscript from the late 15th century.    There are suggestions that due to the dimensions of the object - long and narrow - they were worn like a chastity belt, to help support the pregnant women both physically and spiritually Sarah Fiddyment Researchers have found direct evidence that a 500-year-old manuscript was worn during childbirth by using "biomolecular analysis" to detect ancient proteins from cervico-vaginal fluid within the weave of the parchment.

History / Archeology - Social Sciences - 10.03.2021

Ancient group once considered nomadic stayed local
As far back as the Greek historian Herodotus, a group of people called the Scythians were considered highly mobile warrior nomads. Scythian-era people lived across Eurasia from about 700 BCE to 200 BCE, and have long been considered highly mobile warriors who ranged widely across the steppe grasslands.

Earth Sciences - History / Archeology - 17.02.2021

Stonehenge first stood in Wales
Professor Mike Parker Pearson (UCL Institute of Archaeology) discusses his research which has found a dismantled stone circle in west Wales which was moved to Salisbury Plain and rebuilt as Stonehenge. According to Geoffrey of Monmouth, whose History of the Kings of Britain was written in 1136, the mysterious monoliths at Stonehenge were first spirited there by the wizard Merlin, whose army stole them from a mythical Irish stone circle called the Giants' Dance.