bce

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A team of archaeologists from Tel Aviv University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority has found a way to reconstruct a fire in a single building in Jerusalem burned by the Babylonians in 586 BCE. In their study, reported in Journal of Archaeological Science, the group analyzed magnetic signals in shards of pottery recovered from the site to learn more about…

Researchers poring over genomes of people who lived during the Copper Age have found older cultural contacts between ancient groups than previously known.Threads Needs These Five Missing Features to Be a Twitter KillerThe early contacts—about a millennium earlier than expected—may clarify when technology and cultural exchanges occured between groups in the North Caucasus and the northwestern edge of the Black Sea. The team’s research was published today in Nature.“The surprising finding was that the genetically mixed…

Red junglefowl, the species from which the chicken was domesticated. Credit: Masaki Eda Conclusive evidence of chicken breeding in the Yayoi period of Japan has been discovered from the Karako-Kagi site. The chicken is one of the most common domesticated animals, with a current estimated population of over 33 billion individuals.…

Archaeologists have unearthed the ancient burial of a woman lying on a bronze bed near the city of Kozani in northern Greece. It dates to the first century BCE. Depictions of mermaids decorate the posts of the bed. The bed also displays an image of a bird holding a snake in its mouth, a symbol of the ancient Greek god Apollo.  The woman's head was covered with gold laurel leaves that likely were part of a wreath, Areti Chondrogianni-Metoki, director of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Kozani, told Live Science in an…

Stonehenge has been intensively studied for centuries. Yet even now, we are still discovering new aspects of the famous site.An archaeological 'biopsy' of the surrounding landscape has revealed a hidden network of large pits encircling the stone structure.  The study is the first extensive electromagnetic induction survey of the region, and it has helped archaeologists uncover hundreds of large pits, each over 2.4 meters (7.8 ft) wide. Some of these were most certainly made by human hands thousands of years ago.What…