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In a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), archaeologists have found that a straight stone causeway on Mount Ttlaloc aligns with the rising sun on February 23rd/24th.Mount Ttlaloc is an eroded stratovolcano, located in the State of Mexico, in the municipalities of Ixtapaluca and Texcoco.The mountain was worshiped by the Aztecs, who associated it with the rain god Tlaloc as one of his earthly dwelling places, called Tlalocan...The researchers found that if an observer stands in the lower part of the stone causeway on Mount Tlaloc, looking upwards on the 23rd/24th of February, they...

Stone tools found in a 4,000-year-old grave near Stonehenge have traces of gold on their surfaces that indicate they were used to fashion gold ornaments. In 1801, archaeologists found the assemblage of Bronze Age artifacts, including the stone tools, in a barrow or burial mound from about 1800 B.C. near the village of Upton Lovell, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Stonehenge. The assemblage(opens in new tab) includes flint axes, a necklace of beads of polished stone and dozens of bone points — possibly from another necklace and the fringe of a garment. The collection, which is now on...

THE Moon destroyed a forest on Earth just by wobbling, according to a new study. The theory solves a mystery from 2015 which involved tens of millions of mangrove trees dying in Australia.... ...The researchers used 30 years of national satellite data to conduct their research and correlate the Moon's behavior with the mass tree death. This helped them spot a pattern of trees dying every 18 to 19 years, which is in keeping with the Moon wobble timeline....

Upon closer inspection, you would find that this is no random collection of bones, but rather is a deliberately constructed roadway delineated by the towering rib bones (some in excess of five metres high and weighing 300 kg), and dotted with huge whale skulls and large square pits dug into the permafrost. It would be a perplexing sight indeed.

The president of the Portuguese Association of Archeological Research (APIA), Nuno Ribeiro, revealed Monday having found rock art on the island of Terceira, supporting his believe that human occupation of the Azores predates the arrival of the Portuguese by many thousands of years, Lusa reported. "We have found a rock art site with representations we believe can be dated back to the Bronze Age," Ribeiro told Lusa in Ponta Delgada, at a presentation in University of the Azores on the topic of early human occupation of the Azores. The oldest cave art known in Europe is of prehistoric origin, dating...

New research looks set to answer a long-standing question about the status of a mysterious tomb-like structure uncovered in Cork Harbour many years ago. Archaeologists have been split as to whether it was prehistoric or a more recent 19th-century “folly”. However, Connemara-based archaeologist Michael Gibbons now says there is conclusive evidence the Carraig á Mhaistin stone structure at Rostellan on the eastern shore of Cork Harbour is a megalithic dolmen. Mr Gibbons has also discovered a previously unrecognised cairn close to the dolmen which would have been concealed by rising sea levels, and which he is reporting to the National...

Fire has damaged Easter Island's iconic megalith statues known as moai. An unknown number of the nearly 1,000 stone-carved statues were affected. Ariki Tepano, director of the Ma'u Henua community in charge of management and maintenance at the UNESCO heritage site Rapa Nui Natural Park, said the damage is "irreparable and with consequences beyond what your eyes can see." "The moai are totally charred and you can see the effect of the fire upon them," Tepano said in a social media post. The city of Rapa Nui said in the post that the site is closed to visitors while investigations...

Consider, for example, the Japanese stone circles from Ōyu and Isedotai in northern Japan. While not the imposing monoliths of Stonehenge, the two circles, made of thousands of smooth river stones, line up with the sun during the summer and winter solstices, and they were both used in burial rites. And for both monuments, collecting materials and completing construction would have taken enormous community effort. The similarities could also be related to topography: Japan and the United Kingdom are along the same latitude, sharing a similar climate and access to natural resources. But while the Neolithic people living near Stonehenge...

Archaeologists digging near Prague have discovered the remains of a Stone Age structure that’s older than Stonehenge and even the Egyptian pyramids: an enigmatic complex known as a roundel. Nearly 7,000 years ago during the late Neolithic, or New Stone Age, a local farming community may have gathered in this circular building, although its true purpose is unknown. The excavated roundel is large — about 180 feet (55 meters) in diameter, or about as long as the Leaning Tower of Pisa is tall, Radio Prague International reported. And while “it is too early to say anything about the people building...

Explanation: If you went outside at the same time every day and took a picture that included the Sun, how would the Sun's position change? A more visual answer to that question is an analemma, a composite image taken from the same spot at the same time over the course of a year. The featured analemma was composed from images taken every few days at noon near the village of Callanish in the Outer Hebrides in Scotland, UK. In the foreground are the Callanish Stones, a stone circle built around 2700 BC during humanity's Bronze Age. It is not known...

Archaeologists in Prague are currently uncovering a monumental building from the Stone Age. The so-called roundel, built around 7,000 years ago, is located in the district of Vinoř on the outskirts of the city. Experts are hoping that the research will reveal more information about these mysterious ancient structures.Roundels are large circular structures from the Neolithic period, that were constructed between 4600–4900 BC. That makes them the oldest monumental buildings in Europe, far older than the Egyptian pyramids or England’s Stonehenge.One such roundel is currently being examined in Prague’s district of Vinoř. So far, research has shown that the structure...

An Irish archaeological photographer has discovered a remarkable series of prehistoric carvings at the Grange Stone Circle in Lough Gur, County Limerick.Ken Williams, a leading Irish archaeological photographer, has developed methods of lighting stones so that they can be photographed to maximum effect, allowing him to find a series of carvings over the past few years.Williams was returning to check the stones at Grange Stone Circle as part of his research when he discovered the new carvings.The new carvings are particularly spectacular due to the presence of concentric circles and arcs found on the back and sides of a stone...

Secrets of the Stone Age (1/2)July 12, 2018 | DW Documentary

A new phenomenon of constructing distinctive funerary monuments, collectively known as megalithic tombs, emerged around 4500 BCE along the Atlantic façade. The megalithic phenomenon has attracted interest and speculation since medieval times. In particular, the origin, dispersal dynamics, and the role of these constructions within the societies that built them have been debated. We generate genome sequence data from 24 individuals buried in five megaliths and investigate the population history and social dynamics of the groups that buried their dead in megalithic monuments across northwestern Europe in the fourth millennium BCE. Our results show kin relations among the buried individuals...

The authors combine pollen, spores, sedimentary DNA, and animal remains to characterize the pre-Neolithic habitat of the site, inferring partially open woodland conditions, which would have been beneficial to large grazing herbivores like aurochs, as well as hunter-gatherer communities. This study supports previous evidence that the Stonehenge region was not covered in closed canopy forest at this time, as has previously been proposed.This study also provides date estimates for human activity at Blick Mead. Results indicate that hunter-gatherers used this site for 4,000 years up until the time of the earliest known farmers and monument-builders in the region, who would...

Motya, a small island that covers an area of just under 100 acres (40 hectares), sits off the western coast of Sicily. Bronze and Iron Age populations thrived there due to the abundant supply of fish, salt, fresh water and its protected location within a lagoon, Nigro wrote in the study. In the eighth century B.C., Phoenicians began settling there and integrating with locals, bringing their distinctive West Phoenician culture to the island.Just 100 years later, the settlement had grown into a bustling port city with a trade network stretching across the central and western Mediterranean. This brought Motya into...

Long before the Incas rose to power in Peru and began to celebrate their sun god, a little known civilization was building the earliest known astronomical observatory in the Americas. While not quite as old as sites like Stonehenge, these ancient ruins, known as Chankillo, are considered a "masterpiece of human creative genius", holding unique features not seen anywhere else in the world. Based in the coastal desert of Peru, the archaeological site famously contains a row of 13 stone towers, which together trace the horizon of a hill, north to south, like a toothy bottom grin. 1920px ThirteenTowersOfChanquilloFromFortress The...

Stonehenge was damaged during the Winter Solstice, with chewing gum stuck to the ancient monument, it has been disclosed. A report The Heritage Journal also revealed graffiti was sprayed on the stones, people tried to light fires on them and someone dripped a line of oil on several of them in December. Conservationists are calling for a ban to be put in place preventing people from walking among the stones on both the longest and shortest days of the year. It comes as it emerged volunteers and staff at the site were "left in tears" following the last summer solstice...

"Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide." "The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-scale hunting trap. The giant game traps the model represents -- so-called "desert kites" -- were made of long walls that converge to corral running gazelles into enclosures or holes for slaughter. Similar structures of two or more stone walls, some several kilometres (miles) long, have been found in...

Fig. 1. Map of the Harrat in Syria, Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Stephan F.J. Kempe1, Ahmad Al-Malbeh21: Technische Universität Darmstadt, Germany; 2: Hashemite University Zarka, Jordan The eastern “panhandle” of the kingdom of Jordan is partly covered by a vast and rugged lava desert, the Harrat, covering about ca. 11.400 km2 (Fig. 1). Scoured by wind in winter and scorched dry by the sun in summer, the surface is covered by black basalt stones, making this area seem as uninviting, hostile and inaccessible as is imaginable.Nevertheless this modern day desolate desert proves to be as rich in archaeological heritage...