news 2013

A new documentary to be broadcast on Channel 4 this weekend is largely based on research carried out by a team from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, in collaboration with colleagues at the Emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum Site Museum in China. New Secrets of the Terracotta Warriors is the first public presentation of some of the work led by Dr Xiuzhen Janice Li, Dr Andrew Bevan, Professor Marcos Martinón-Torres and their team, which involves a number of innovative scientific methods and unexpected results.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. Archaeologists find more bodies at Durham University site Durham University archaeologists have found the remains of many more human bodies at a dig on the City's World Heritage Site, providing clear evidence of a centuries-old mass grave.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. Archaeological discoveries confirm early date of Buddha's life Archaeologists working in Nepal have uncovered evidence of a structure at the birthplace of the Buddha dating to the sixth century B.C. This is the first archaeological material linking the life of the Buddha - and thus the first flowering of Buddhism - to a specific century.

Latest research shows that the presence of the genetic mutation for lighter skin - found in "almost 100%" of Europeans - broadly conforms to many cultural and linguistic differences, as well as ancestral, in the wider Indian population. In India, this genetic variant doesn't just follow a 'classical' theory of natural selection Mircea Iliescu The genetic mutation in SLC24A5 is known to be pivotal in the evolution of light skin, and is responsible for a significant part of the skin colour differences between Europeans and Africans.

It's an everyday material we take for granted but now the secrets of how we came to benefit from the many uses of the most unique of substances.. glass, are revealed in a new book by a world-leading archaeologist from The University of Nottingham. The beautifully illustrated Cambridge University Press volume, 'Ancient Glass', by Professor Julian Henderson , is the first monograph of this versatile composite material to combine forensic investigational techniques from both the sciences and the humanities.

Scientists have misunderstood one of the most fundamental processes in the life of plants because they have been looking at the wrong flower, according to University of Leeds researchers. Arabidopsis thaliana —also known as thale cress or mouse-ear cress—grows abundantly in cracks in pavements all over Europe and Asia, but the small white flower leads a second life as the lab rat of the plant world.

A record of Neanderthal archaeology, thought to be long lost, has been re-discovered by UCL scientists working in the Channel island of Jersey. The study, published in the Journal of Quaternary Science, reveals that a key archaeological site has preserved geological deposits which were thought to have been lost through excavation 100 years ago.

Hunter-gatherers and immigrant farmers lived side-by-side for more than 2,000 years in Central Europe, before the hunter-gatherer communities died out or were absorbed into the farming population. In a paper , researchers describe their analysis of DNA and isotopes from human bones found in the 'Blätterhöhle' cave near Hagen in Germany, where both hunter-gatherers and farmers were buried.

The introduction of farming into Western Europe 7,500 years ago led to dramatic population collapse on a similar scale to the Black Death, according to researchers at UCL. The study, which is published , is the first to show the existence of a 'boom-and-bust' pattern, with decreases in population size as great as 60 per cent following rapid initial population increases of up to three or four times previous levels.

Architectural remains from a Roman theatre buried beneath the Italian countryside are providing new clues as to the importance of a town abandoned by civilisation 1,500 years ago.

A team of scientists and archaeologists, including UCL's Professor David Wengrow and Dr Alice Stevenson, have been able to set a robust timeline for the first eight dynastic rulers of ancient Egypt. The study, which is published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A, shows that Egypt formed far more rapidly than was previously thought and also updates the techniques first developed by Flinders Petrie over 100 years ago,.

For the first time, a team of scientists and archaeologists has been able to set a robust timeline for the first eight dynastic rulers of Egypt. Until now there have been no verifiable chronological records for this period or the process leading up to the formation of the Egyptian state. The chronology of Early Egypt between 4500 and 2800 BC has been reset by building mathematical models that combine new radiocarbon dates with established archaeological evidence.

Declassified spy photography has uncovered a lost Roman Eastern frontier, dating from the second century AD. Research by archaeologists at the Universities of Glasgow and Exeter has identified a long wall that ran 60 kilometers from the Danube to the Black Sea over what is modern Romania. It is considered the most easterly example of a man-made frontier barrier system in the Roman Empire.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. European hunter-gatherers owned pigs as early as 4600BC European hunter-gatherers acquired domesticated pigs from nearby farmers as early as 4600BC, according to new evidence.

The Faroe Islands were colonised much earlier than previously believed, and it wasn't by the Vikings, according to new research. New archaeological evidence places human colonisation in the 4 th to 6 th centuries AD, at least 300-500 years earlier than previously demonstrated. The research, directed by Dr Mike J Church from Durham University and Símun V Arge from the National Museum of the Faroe Islands as part of the multidisciplinary project "Heart of the Atlantic", is published in the Quaternary Science Reviews.

Researchers have shown that ancient Egyptian iron beads held at the UCL Petrie Museum were hammered from pieces of meteorites, rather than iron ore. The objects, which trace their origins to outer space, also predate the emergence of iron smelting by two millennia. Carefully hammered into thin sheets before being rolled into tubes, the nine beads - which are over 5000 years-old - were originally strung into a necklace together with other exotic minerals such as gold and gemstones, revealing the high value of this exotic material in ancient times.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. You can change your cookie settings at any time. Otherwise, we'll assume you're OK to continue. The Faroe Islands were colonised much earlier than previously believed, and it wasn't by the Vikings, according to new research.

A new study suggests that mothers who breastfeed run a lower risk of developing Alzheimer's, with longer periods of breastfeeding further reducing the risk. In the future, we expect Alzheimer's to spread most in low and middle-income countries, so it is vital that we develop low-cost, large-scale strategies to protect people against it.

A 30-million-year-old fossil has revealed how remoras - also called sharksuckers - evolved the sucker that enables them to stick to other fish and 'hitch a ride'. Previous evidence, such as the segmented structure of the sucker and how it develops in a similar way to fins in normal fish, led scientists to believe that it must be a modified dorsal fin - the fin located on the back of normal fish.

British archaeology experts have discovered what they believe to be the world's oldest 'calendar', created by hunter-gatherer societies and dating back to around 8,000 BC. The Mesolithic monument was originally excavated in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, by the National Trust for Scotland in 2004. Now analysis by a team led by the University of Birmingham, published today (July 15, 2013) in the journal Internet Archaeology, sheds remarkable new light on the luni-solar device, which pre-dates the first formal time-measuring devices known to Man, found in the Near East, by nearly 5,000 years.