ancient

A mysterious ancient graveyard that has flummoxed Finnish archaeologists for decades could be one of the largest Stone Age cemeteries in northern Europe, a new study suggests.Located on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Tainiaro, a place of long and bitter winters, the site was first unearthed in 1959 and studied again in the late 1980s, but the findings of those excavations never saw the light of day.Thousands of artifacts were described, and archeologists later discovered the sandy soils were tinged with ash and…

Researchers at Tokyo Institute of Technology propose a novel pathway for pentose synthesis on early Earth, bridging the gap between prebiotic chemistry and the building blocks of life, with implications for our understanding of biochemistry and astrobiology. Scientists investigate the possible chemical pathways by which pentoses could have formed on early Earth. Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability during early Earth is unclear since these molecules are…

Credit: Antiquity (2023). DOI: 10.15184/aqy.2023.160 Just south of the Arctic Circle, within the vast forests of northern Finland, lies a sandy field dotted with dozens of "unusual" pits. Workers stumbled upon the site, known as Tainiaro, six decades ago, and since then, its origins have remained elusive. But now, upon conducting a…

NGC 2210, a globular cluster in the Large Magellanic Cloud approximately 157,000 light-years from Earth, is an intriguing astronomical subject. It’s about 11.6 billion years old, slightly younger than the universe, and younger than other clusters in both the LMC and the Milky Way. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, A. Sarajedini, F. Niederhofer NGC 2210 in the Large Magellanic Cloud is a notable globular cluster around 11.6 billion years old, offering insights into the age and formation of ancient stellar clusters. Its dense…

From bringing ancient ruins to life through augmented reality (AR) to 3D-printing centuries-old artefacts, cultural heritage startups are transforming the landscape of heritage preservation and education. By leveraging technology to foster a deeper connection with our past, this breed of companies help safeguard some of the most defining elements of human history. TNW spoke with three innovative startups in the space to find out how they’re using tech to bridge the gap between past and…

(A–N) Reef lithology and biota. Thin-section photomicrographs unless otherwise indicated. (A–D) Reef zone 1; (E–I) reef zone 2; (J–N) reef zone 3. (A) Reef exposure. (B) Outcrop example of reef framework. Dark-gray masses contain Tubiphytes. Light-gray to white masses are early marine cement. (C) Zone 1 Tubiphytes and cement boundstone. (D) Detail of yellow rectangle in C. (E) Zone 2 boundstone with denser occurrences of larger Tubiphytes specimens. (F)…

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Nineteen million years ago, during a time known as the early Miocene, massive ice sheets in Antarctica rapidly and repeatedly grew and receded. The Miocene is widely considered a potential analog for Earth's climate in the coming century, should humanity remain on its current carbon emissions trajectory. …

A study in Nature Geosciences reveals that oceanic anoxia significantly contributed to marine extinctions during the Triassic–Jurassic period, with current levels of deoxygenation mirroring those of the past. This discovery highlights the sensitivity of marine ecosystems to local and global environmental changes. Scientists have discovered a pivotal role of oceanic anoxia in the Triassic–Jurassic mass extinction, indicating that even localized deoxygenation can lead to widespread ecosystem collapse. This research…

Elagabalus ruled as Roman emperor for just four years before being murdered in AD 222. He was still a teenager when he died. Despite his short reign, Elagabalus is counted among the most infamous of Roman emperors, often listed alongside Caligula and Nero. His indiscretions, recorded by the Roman chroniclers, include: marrying a vestal virgin, the most chaste of Roman priestesses, twice; dressing up as a female…

The ultimate aim of space scientists is to discover the origins of life and then figure out how things may move in the future in a better, more predicatble, way. Easier said than done, but scientists across the globe are hard at work on it. In 2023, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft made a groundbreaking discovery on asteroid Bennu, shedding light on the building blocks of life on Earth. This remarkable finding adds to our understanding of how Earth became a life-sustaining planet.NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission unveiled evidence…