Tom Metcalfe

Live Science Contributor

Tom Metcalfe is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor who is based in London in the United Kingdom. Tom writes mainly about science, space, archaeology, the Earth and the oceans. He has also written for the BBC, NBC News, National Geographic, Scientific American, Air & Space, and many others.


Articles by: Tom Metcalfe

The god house was strongly built of beams and walls of wood; some lasted for hundreds of years. It included a central tower, patterned on Christian churches seen in lands further south.

1,200-year-old pagan temple to Thor and Odin unearthed in Norway

By Tom Metcalfe published

The remains of a 1,200-year-old pagan temple to the Old Norse gods such as Thor and Odin have been discovered in Norway.

No lives were lost in the sinking of the USS Grenadier, but the crew were taken prisoners of war and suffered brutal tortures by the Japanese military.

Divers discover lost WWII submarine wreck off Southeast Asia

By Tom Metcalfe published

Divers in Southeast Asia have located the lost wreck of what's thought to be a U.S. Navy submarine that sank in 1943 after it was attacked by Japanese aircraft.

The Nebra Sky Disk of bronze decorated with gold is one of Germany's most famous archaeological artifacts. But a new study suggests it dates from the Iron Age, at least 1000 years later than the Bronze Age date which has been assumed.

Study casts doubt on 'sky disk' thought to be oldest representation of the heavens

By Tom Metcalfe published

Fierce debate over the Nebra Sky Disk has been reignited by a new study that suggests it is at least 1,000 years younger than previously thought.

The discoverers say the shipwreck of the Karlsruhe is lying upright on its keel beneath about 490 metres ( 1600 feet) of seawater near Norway's southern coast.

Wreck of WWII warship with Nazi symbol discovered off Norway

By Tom Metcalfe published

The wreck of a German warship torpedoed and sunk by a British submarine in 1940 has been discovered in deep water off the North Sea coast of southern Norway.

The small "bluestones" at Stonehenge were moved around by ancient people over the centuries. But the changes didn't make much difference to the sound, which was dominated by the outer circle of large upright "sarsens."

'Spinal Tap'-size Stonehenge reveals how the ancient monument really sounded

By Tom Metcalfe published

It took 9 months to build the perfectly scaled model.

an image of etchings that may be Britain's oldest artwork

Britain's oldest artwork may depict mammoths from a drowned land

By Tom Metcalfe published

Britain's oldest artworks have been unearthed on the Channel Island of Jersey, showing what apperar to be Ice Age scenes of mammoths in ancient lands now drowned by the sea.

One of the distinctive stone tools, made with an ancient flint-knapping technology known as Nubian Levallois, found at the archaeological site in the Negev Desert.

Ancient stone 'breadcrumbs' reveal early human migration out of Africa

By Tom Metcalfe published

Little Grey and Little White were caught near Russia when they were about one year-old; they are now 12, and this will be the first time in more than 10 years they will experience the sea.

2 captive beluga whales finally freed to a seawater sanctuary in Iceland

By Tom Metcalfe published

Two young beluga whales that were on show in an aquarium in Shanghai have now arrived at a seawater sanctuary off Iceland. This is the first time they've seen the sea in more than a decade.

The new research reveals the origin of most of the largest stones at Stonehenge, the Neolithic monument built on England's Salisbury Plain about 4500 years ago.

Returned chunk of Stonehenge solves long-standing monument mystery

By Tom Metcalfe published

A restoration worker kept a chunk of Stonehenge more than 60 years ago. He returned it last year and now the stone has solved a long-standing mystery.

The ancient skeleton of a man, believed to be about 2500 years old, was found face-down with his hands apparently bound in front of him.

Iron age 'murder' victim unearthed outside of London

By Tom Metcalfe published

Skeleton of man was thrown face-down into a ditch with his hands bound.

Archaeologists now think the Neolithic flint artifacts found at Kharaysin in Jordan are the earliest-known portrayals of real human beings in the Near East.

Lumpy flint figurines may be some of the earliest depictions of real people

By Tom Metcalfe published

Da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" is thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine cloth merchant.

Did Leonardo da Vinci's 'quick eye' help him capture Mona Lisa's fleeting smile?

By Tom Metcalfe published

The oldest of the two Viking longhouses at Stöð dates from around A.D. 800, several decades before the commonly accepted date of the settlement of Iceland in A.D. 874.

Oldest Viking settlement possibly unearthed in Iceland

By Tom Metcalfe published

Archaeologists have unearthed what may be the oldest Viking settlement in Iceland.

The Newgrange passage tomb is one of the earliest and most elaborate Neolithic monuments in Ireland, but several hundred others are found throughout the country.

Famous Irish tomb yields a surprise — a king born of brother-sister incest

By Tom Metcalfe published

Human bones in the famous Newgrange tomb in Ireland belonged to king born of first-degree incest, researchers say.

The excavations also revealed two brick beer cellars, which are thought to have belonged to an inn at the site.

London's 'oldest theater,' built just 3 years after Shakespeare's birth, discovered

By Tom Metcalfe published

The "Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito" was thought to be a living "world tree" for ancestral Puebloans. But researchers have found that it grew 50 miles away and was dead when it was hauled there.

Chaco Canyon's famous 'tree of life' might have just been a bench

By Tom Metcalfe published

New research reveals that the "Plaza Tree of Pueblo Bonito," once thought to be a living "tree of life," may have been just a big, dead tree that came from somewhere else.

Sonar scans show the wreck is broken in two parts on the seafloor. This scan shows the submarine's conning tower and bow section.

Explorers find Cold War-era submarine wreck off the coast of Oahu

By Tom Metcalfe published

A team of explorers have found the wreck of a United States Navy submarine that sank more than 60 years ago in deep water near the Hawaiian island of Oahu.

Precautions have prevented coronavirus reaching the German icebreaker Polarstern, drifting with Arctic sea ice near the North Pole.

How a research ship drifting near the North Pole avoided a coronavirus disaster

By Tom Metcalfe published

Archaeologists and volunteers are working to preserve human bones exposed by recent storms in an ancient cemetery above a beach on the Orkney Islands.

Scottish storms unearth 1,500-year-old Viking-era cemetery

By Tom Metcalfe published

Powerful storms on Scotland's Orkney Islands exposed ancient human remains in a Pictish and Viking cemetery.

The sword was mistakenly thought to be medieval. It is now thought to come from eastern Anatolia and to be about 5000 years-old – one of the oldest swords ever found.

Student discovers 5,000-year-old sword hidden in Venetian monastery

By Tom Metcalfe published

A keen-eyed archaeology student made the find of a lifetime when she spotted one of the oldest swords on record, mistakenly grouped with medieval artifacts in a secluded Italian monastery.

Archaeologists have surveyed the Mayan road with airborne LIDAR technology to reveal the ancient structures along its length.

Maya warrior queen may have built the longest 'white road' in the Yucatán

By Tom Metcalfe published

A ruthless Maya warrior queen may have ordered the building of an elaborate road more than 1,000 years ago to invade a distant city and to counter the rising power of another.

The remains of the RMS Titanic are rapidly corroding at the bottom of the North Atlantic. But a proposal to cut the ship’s telegraph machine from the wreck has drawn fierce criticism.

Titanic's iconic telegraph 'voice' may be recovered. But some say the salvager is a 'greedy treasure hunter.'

By Tom Metcalfe published

Frantic distress messages were sent over the machine after the cruise liner slammed into an iceberg in 1912.

The temple at Lachish is the first ancient Canaanite temple found in more than 50 years and is extraordinarily well preserved, say archaeologists.

3,000-year-old Canaanite temple discovered in buried city in Israel

By Tom Metcalfe published

A 3,000-year-old temple, built by the Canaanites around the time of the ancient Israelite invasion, has been unearthed in southern Israel.

A 3D laser scan image showing the location of the tomb (in yellow) buried beneath the steps to the Curia Julia, or Senate House, in the Roman Forum.

Tomb of Rome's mythical founder Romulus unearthed

By Tom Metcalfe published

A tomb that was buried thousands of years ago and revered by ancient Romans as the resting place of their city's mythical founder Romulus has now been rediscovered beneath the Forum in Rome.

The cave of Els Trocs in the Spanish Pyrenees, indicated here by an arrow, was the scene of a brutal massacre about 7,300 years ago.

Bones of Neolithic immigrants killed in massacre found in Spanish cave

By Tom Metcalfe published

Vicious attack has the hallmarks of a "xenophobic" clash between enemy groups.

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