New facts and archaeological discoveries about the interaction of ancient people and animals
The cave lion may have been a symbolic animal for ancient people in Baikal-Yenisei Siberia. Fossilized bones of an extinct armored mammal give us the latest clue about when humans arrived in South America. The ancient Egyptians regularly mummified crocodiles in elaborate ceremonies to honor their crocodile god Sobek. Unusual wooden figurines depicting animals.
The oldest calendar and the oldest analog computer were discovered in the summer of 2024
Yet these historical monuments were practically before the eyes of scientists. For example, archaeologists recently reinterpreted the markings on a stone pillar at Göbekli Tepe in southern Turkey, the site of one of the oldest ancient farming communities in the world. The Mesopotamian monument is about 12,000 years old, dating back to the early Holocene, which marks the most recent era on Earth since the glaciers retreated. Divers also discovered the wreckage of an ancient ship off the island of Antikythera in 1900. Several masterpieces of ancient sculpture were brought to the surface. Unexpectedly, among the fragments that were initially mistaken for sculptural fragments, they saw gears. The bronze parts were corroded and covered in marine sediment.
The modern Kursk region was covered with elevated sand dunes 21-18 thousand years ago
The life of people of the Stone Age was inextricably linked with the natural environment, so scientists studying their settlements try to understand not only what ancient dwellings and their inhabitants looked like, but also what kind of landscape surrounded people, what the climate was like, what plants and animals existed around, the scientists said.
Traces that can change history
Archaeologists have found 115,000-year-old human footprints where they shouldn’t be. Fossilized footprints in Saudi Arabia show evidence of human movement on the cusp of the next ice age. Study of preserved tracks in New Mexico continues to shed light on the first human movements across North America.
Scientists from the Far East and Siberia have extracted Paleolithic viruses from melting permafrost
Scientists are discovering and resurrecting ancient viruses trapped in permafrost and frozen remains. Trapped in frigid Arctic soils and riverbeds, the world is teeming with ancient microbes. Bacteria and viruses that existed thousands of years ago are frozen in time within prehistoric layers of permafrost. Rising temperatures could cause much of the ice to melt, freeing these microbes from their icy prisons. The viruses found are harmless, but other microbes, as yet unknown, could be released and infect humans or other animals.
New archaeological discoveries have shown that humans are capable of surviving in the most extreme conditions
The fossilized bones of a giant, extinct armored mammal provide the latest clue about when humans arrived in South America. At the time, in the late Pleistocene, numerous large animals inhabited the harsh, cold landscape, including giant sloths, mastodons, and saber-toothed cats. Humans were well-adapted to drought and resource scarcity, able to move along dry riverbeds in search of pools and the prey that grazed around them. The authors call this a “blue highway” that operated during the harshest periods.
The Gunung Padang archaeological site in western Java was built by a civilization 25,000 years ago
Researchers from Indonesia claim that the archaeological site of Gunung Padang in western Java was built by a powerful civilization 25,000 years ago. The scientific community is arguing fiercely about the hypothesis because of a fundamental error. The authors of the sensational article insist that they are right. And the publisher’s withdrawal of the research results is called censorship that contradicts the principles of science.