News by Subject Archaeology

Scientists confirm that the age and content of an old sack is in accordance with a medieval myth about Saint Francis of Assisi.

David Lohman, associate professor of biology at The City College of New York's Division of Science, is co-author of a landmark paper on butterflies 'An illustrated checklist of the genus Elymnias Hübner, 1818 (Nymphalidae, Satyrinae).' Lohman and his colleagues from Taiwan and Indonesia revise the taxonomy of Asian palmflies in the genus Elymnias in light of a forthcoming study on the butterflies' evolutionary history.

The nearly nine hundred giant stone statues discovered by the first Europeans to land on Easter Island seemed at odds with the small population found living there. It is believed a once thriving community witnessed sweeping ecological change and suffered internal conflict, resulting in a population crash. A new detailed study of the farming potential of the Island suggests it could have sustained 17,500 people at its peak.

The first large-scale genetic study of people in Papua New Guinea has shown that different groups within the country are genetically highly different from each other. Scientists at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and their colleagues reveal that the people there have remained genetically independent from Europe and Asia for most of the last 50,000 years, and that people from the country's isolated highlands region have been completely independent even until the present day.

The Ancient Greeks may have built sacred sites deliberately on land affected by previous earthquake activity, according to a new study by BBC presenter Iain Stewart MBE, Professor of Geoscience Communication at the University of Plymouth.