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'Curse tablet' with oldest Hebrew name of god is actually a fishing weight, experts argueResearchers say they see no sign of an inscription on a tablet previously thought to contain the Hebrew name for the god Yahweh.
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7 extraordinary African kingdoms from ancient times to centuries agoThere's much more to ancient Africa than Egypt.
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2,000-year-old coin stash discovered at ancient Buddhist shrine in PakistanResearchers think the coins are from a Buddhist shrine established amid much older ruins.
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Chiseled obsidian recovered from Neolithic shipwreck near Capri's 'Blue Grotto'Divers off the coast of Naples, Italy have recovered a large chunk of chiseled obsidian that likely went down in a Stone Age shipwreck more than 5,000 years ago.
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Indigenous Mexicans migrated to California 5,200 years ago, likely bringing their languages with them, ancient DNA revealsThe research challenges the idea that languages from prehistoric Mexico spread along with maize farming in California.
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2,800-year-old ivory carved with sphinx discovered in TurkeyThe artifact is from an Iron Age settlement at Hattusa that was established after the city was abandoned by the Hittites.
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Stone Age Europeans mastered spear-throwers 10,000 years earlier than we thought, study suggestsThe researchers say their study pushes back the dates for the use of spear-throwers in Europe by more than 10,000 years.
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'Magical' Roman wind chime with phallus, believed to ward off evil eye, unearthed in SerbiaPhallic objects like this were common in the Roman world to ward off evil.
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500-year-old Hebrew note reveals 'lost' earthquake swarm in ItalyA Hebrew note found in the Vatican Library describes a 1446 earthquake swarm previously unknown to seismologists.
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Remains of 2,000-year-old sheep-drawn chariot discovered near 'Terracotta Army' in ChinaOnly the sheep's skeletons remain, but such vehicles appear in Chinese lore.
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500-year-old lion drawing in Puerto Rican cave may have been made by an enslaved AfricanThere were no lions in 16th-century Puerto Rico — so was the cave drawing made by someone who'd actually seen one?
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Dozens of centuries-old stone grenades from Ming dynasty discovered at Great Wall of ChinaThe weapons are among a variety of explosive devices used in China during the Ming dynasty.
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'World-class aquifer' enabled ancient African kingdom to thrive in the Sahara for hundreds of yearsThe rise and fall of the Garamantes in what is now Libya is a cautionary tale for regions that rely on ancient groundwater.
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Cannibalism was a common funerary rite in northwest Europe near end of last ice ageResearch suggests cannibalism was a funerary rite for the Magdalenian people in northwest Europe, but others preferred to bury their dead.
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2nd-century Alexander the Great statue with lion's-mane hairstyle unearthed in TurkeyThe discovery shows the popularity of the ancient ruler hundreds of years after his death.
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Norwegian family finds 1,200-year-old Viking treasure while searching for a lost earring in their yardThe discovery includes two roughly 1,200-year-old brooches, made from bronze and once gilded with gold, that may have belonged to an aristocratic woman.
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1,400-year-old tomb of emperor in China reveals evidence of royal power struggle among brothers and a warlordAn inscription on the 1,400-year-old tomb shows the dead man, who was posthumously declared emperor, was buried as a duke.
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'Ritual text' from lost Indo-European language discovered on ancient clay tablet in TurkeyResearchers are still studying the ancient text of an unknown language, written in cuneiform on a clay tablet.
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Cup crafted from prehistoric human skull discovered in cave in SpainA new study suggests that Spain's ancient peoples shared complex beliefs about death and the afterlife.
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Early medieval warrior found buried with his weapons in GermanyArchaeologists think the man died during the Merovingian period, an early stage of the Germanic-speaking empire of the Franks.
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14th-century shipboard cannon that fired 'stone shots' may be Europe's oldest on recordAn analysis of cloth found inside the cannon suggests that it dates to the 14th century and that the weapon was charged with gunpowder and ready to fire.
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Early human relatives purposefully crafted stones into spheres 1.4 million years ago, study claimsThe stone spheres were crafted by early hominins who were trying to create symmetry in the objects, a new study suggests.
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Who were the first farmers?Farming fundamentally altered the way humans live, eventually changing people from nomadic hunter-gatherers to sedentary city-dwellers.
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Divers recover US airman's remains from WWII bomber wreck near MaltaThe remains have been identified as those of a gunner killed when the badly damaged aircraft crashed into the sea in 1943.
