History & Archaeology

What culture invented the horned helmets?

The horned helmet motif existed long before the Vikings. (Image: Michael Burrell / iStock) The horned helmet is often considered the typical headgear of...

Lignite was already burned in the Bronze Age

In the vicinity of the Mycenaean castle of Tiryns, lignite apparently burned in the ovens for the production of bronzes and ceramics. (Image:...

A Raetian settlement in sight

An Austrian team of archaeologists is on the trail of the secrets of a settlement that was enthroned on a hill southwest of Innsbruck...

First human victim of the Thera disaster discovered

Skeleton of the Bronze Age tsunami victim. (Image: Vasıf Şahoğlu) The eruption of the Thera volcano in the Aegean Sea was one of the...

On the trail of exciting DNA in sediments

Sampling from an impregnated sediment block for the analysis of old DNA. (Image: MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology) How has the genetic material survived the...

THEN Podcast, episode 37: El Cid

In the 11th century, a multitude of political forces competed on the Iberian Peninsula. The front lines between the Christian empires in the...

The unknown songs of Byzantium

Notation for the beginning of Psalm 103: 28 from around 1400. (Image: Austrian National Library) In the Byzantine Empire, religious rituals and the associated psalm...

This is – as far as we know now – the first giant to inhabit the earth

Researchers have unearthed the fossilized remains of an as-yet-unknown marine reptile, measuring up to 17 meters in length from caudal fin to snout! While dinosaurs...

Giant Viking longhouse discovered in Norway

With a length of 60 meters it is one of the largest longhouses ever found in Scandinavia. Vikings are known to build so-called longhouses; ...

The blood eagle, a sickening Viking method of execution, was anatomically possible

Does this mean that the cruel torture ritual described in the Viking saga was actually performed…? For decades, historians have debated whether a notoriously violent...

Centipede the size of a car discovered in Britain

The terrifying beast is the oldest and largest Arthropleura ever found. Quite a few giants have passed in review in the history of the earth....

Perfectly preserved dinosaur embryo discovered

The embryo reveals the surprising way tiny dinosaurs folded inside their eggs. Quite a few fossilized dinosaur eggs have been recovered over the past century....

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