This is a picture of Hvalsey Church, a Norse ruin from a settlement in Greenland that was abandoned in the 1400s. Scientists and historians have recently amended their ideas about what caused the collapse of this culture. In the late 900s, some Vikings from Iceland migrated to Greenland, setting up small communities that lasted […]
My world history class today looked at the Mongols, and Jared Diehl brought in his actual Mongolian Composite Bow to show the class! It was really cool — I was surprised how lightweight it was. The fabric wrappings and the lines of the wood were also very elegant. Thanks, Jared!!
Jared Diehl and their Mongolian Composite Bow Read More »
In the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia, the almost 8,000 ft-peak Burkhan Khaldun lies: it is the legendary burial place of Genghis Khan, one of Eurasia’s most ambitious and brutal rulers. From a distance of 800 years, it is easy to allow awe rather than horror to surface as the primary estimation of the Mongolian warlord.
The Khentii Mountains, Resting Place of Genghis Khan Read More »
Yesterday’s post was about a legend of green people who lived in Medieval England. Today I bring to you the true story of blue people who lived in the United States in the 19th-21st centuries. The first group come from a family of Kentucky folks who stemmed from a common ancestor named Martin Fugate. He
The Blue Fugate Family Read More »
VIKING HOARD ALERT! Not, like, the immanent threat of hoards of Vikings coming to invade, but the other sort of hoard — as in, the stashed treasures from Viking-age Scandinavia and Britain, buried for safekeeping but never reclaimed by their owners. Hundreds of such hoards have been discovered in modern times, many by amateur treasure-seekers
Scottish Viking Hoard Read More »
This is a set of bone sewing needles found in the Cave of Courbet near Toulouse, France, dating to around 13,000 years ago. Trace the history of the sewing needle and you will trace one of the key technologies that enabled Homo sapiens to migrate around the planet, and to outlast our closest human relatives,
The History of Sewing Read More »
The Ancient Greeks were right to have the story of how Prometheus brought fire to the human race front-and-center in their mythology. Fire is an amazing thing — most vertebrates flee from it when it happens in the natural world. But we humans learned to control it, and that revolutionized our existence. The control of
Fire and Evolution Read More »
I’ve done loads of posts on human cannibalism, which might bring about some self-disgust for our species. Would it cheer you up to know, then, that it’s not just us moderns who’ve a legacy of eating each other?. Turns out, humans have a very long history of self-consumption, stemming back a million years to the
Ancestral Cannibals Read More »
See the Vulcan “live long and prosper” sign on this tombstone from 1819? It really is, and this isn’t like the History Channel’s claims that aliens built the pyramids. But Spock, rather, borrowed from an actual human custom originating in Jewish tradition. Leonard Nimoy’s hand signal is half of a sacred gesture made by the
The Jewish Origins of the Vulcan Greeting Read More »
This is a mouflon, a type of mostly wild sheep that is a likely ancestor of all the domesticated sheep on earth today. Even if most of our clothing isn’t made of wool and most of our food isn’t lamb, human life wouldn’t be the same without this animal. Sheep and goats were the first
The Domestication of Sheep Read More »
This is a fanciful rendition of the Spanish _conquistador_ Hernán Cortés (d. 1547), dressed as an Ancient Roman centurion. The imagery is unusual for a number of reasons: first, Cortés was the main player that brought about the destruction of the Aztec Empire, which happened over a thousand years past Ancient Rome’s heyday. The artist
Hernán Cortés in New Codex Read More »
Paleo-anthropologists have recently analyzed the skeletons of two humans dating over 2,300 years ago from Ancient China which suggest that deliberate amputation of the limbs of one leg might have been done as a type of legal punishment. The skeletons came from the former Eastern Zhou Dynasty (771-256 BCE) near the modern city of Sanmenxia.
Amputations in the Eastern Zhao Dynasty Read More »
In the US, Mother’s Day is this Sunday, so I thought it appropriate to introduce this fine specimen, representative of what many Paleo-anthropologists consider the earliest known mother of all hominids (including us Homo sapiens). This is the Ardipithecus ramidus, and she lived about 4.4 million years ago in what is now modern Ethiopia. Her
Ardipithecus ramidus Read More »
Check out these Viking-era teeth, dating between 972 and 1025 CE. Discovered in 2009 in Dorset, England, they came from a burial pit of Scandinavian men who had all been decapitated after suffering violent deaths, as in, a mass execution (51 skulls were in the grave, and many of their accompanying bones were adjacent). These
Viking Dental Work Read More »
As per my usual holiday tradition, I wrote an historically themed Christmas carol! This one is to the tune of “I Saw Three Ships”, and it’s called “I saw three hominids”. I had been lacking a tune about prehistory! I saw three hominids come inNeanderthal, Den’snovianGenus Homo all are kinHurray for evolution I spoke with
“I Saw Three Hominids” Historical Christmas Carol Read More »
One of the joys about cutting-edge studies that merge scientific data with the discipline of history is the chance to answer questions that we never thought we’d be able to. This photo of Greenland’s ice sheet gets at the way that climate scientists are trying to understand one of the most transformative aspects of earth
Younger Dryas Cold Snap Read More »
This reconstruction of a Swedish woman from 7,000 years ago (using DNA as well as bone and archaeological burial remains) tells us she died when she was between 30-40 years old. Despite this relatively young age by modern standards, it is likely the female members of her community were healthier than many of her global
This is a photo of The Cave of Hands in Argentina, which is about 10,000 years old. The crowding of the hands is reflective of the way that humans for a long time have formed large communities. What is fascinating is that many anthropologists think they know just how large these average societies were. And
Here you see a modern artist’s rendition of a mythical Malaysian evil tiger spirit called “hantu belian,” which the Malay peoples believed would possess a person’s body and make them commit great violence while they were unconsious. This belief in hantu belian’s destructive powers was pervasive enough that they formed the origin story of the
Hantu Belian and Running Amok Read More »
This statue of a worshipping man is from the third millennium BCE is from Ancient Sumeria, and I like the way his lips are pursed, almost like he has a half-smile. Judging his age by the long beard, I think his IRL corresponding figures would have had good reason to smile: they, unlike most other
