History

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest evidence of artificial structures made of wood, dating back almost half a million years – predating the appearance of our own species and suggesting our relatives settled down much earlier than we thought.

Time capsules are a fun way to get a glimpse into life in the past, and now scientists have opened one from almost 3,000 years ago. The team successfully extracted DNA from inside an ancient clay brick, revealing the area's ecosystem at the time.

Ötzi the Iceman is one of the most well-studied individuals in human history, but there always seems to be more to learn about him. A new genomic study has now found that he looked very different from the way previous studies had imagined him.

New analysis of a tool that dates back 300,000 years has revealed that our ancestors were skilled craftspeople that made useful hunting weapons designed for comfort, efficiency and longevity. Some of these skills are still seen in woodwork today.

Researchers from University College London's Institute of Archaeology have uncovered a cache of 800 stone artefacts dating to more than 300,000 years ago. The find includes one of the largest hand-axes ever unearthed in Britain.

Scientists are divided over whether there's a new "earliest known sexed anthropomorphic representation," in the form of a 4.3-cm (1.69-in) carved graphite pendant that University of Bordeaux archaeologists believe is supposed to be a penis.

At a recent excavation in the Donau-Ries region of Germany, a bronze sword has been unearthed that's reported to be more than 3,000 years old, and is so well preserved that the archeologists who discovered it said that it almost shines.

For the first time, scientists have pieced together the complex muscle structure of 3.18-million-year-old hominin icon, Lucy. It confirms popular thought that our ancient relative was able to walk much like us, and also that she never skipped leg day.

Scientists have identified an ancient marsupial for the first time, whose special adaptations allowed it to walk huge distances across the Australian continent 3.5 million years ago. And it's a feature you can still see in diverse marsupials today.

A wealth of fossil evidence has pinpointed humanity’s homeland as somewhere in Africa, where Homo sapiens first diverged from earlier species about 300,000 years ago. Scientists have now identified the oldest known Homo sapiens footprints in South Africa.

Archeologists are great at determining what life looked like in ancient days, but not necessarily how it smelled. Now, though, a 2,000-year-old crystal container has shed light on the scent you might have encountered on the streets of ancient Rome.

It’s hard to construct a building without a plan, but when did humans first start doing that? Archeologists have discovered the oldest known blueprints, with a 9,000-year-old rock carving in Jordan depicting a to-scale plan for a nearby megastructure.