Rome had a problem. The Tiber River is too shallow for maritime craft. So Roman vessels plying the Mediterranean routes had to…
The story of the rise of Rome is best studied not in the city itself, but in the area surrounding it. It…
Should you be caught in a heavy rain storm in modern Ercolano, you will understand why the local residents talk about ‘lava’…
Rome is an iconic city. From Grand Tour etchings to nocturnal portraits of the cityscape, Rome’s monuments have become familiar images. Yet…
Estimates for the date at which early migration out of sub-Saharan Africa occurred vary from 200,000 to 80,000 years ago, the older…
The long-standing debate about the relationship between humans (Homo sapiens) and Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) has just taken an unexpected twist with the…
Until now the study of ancient DNA has been based on the challenging science of extracting genetic material from fossilised bone, but…
Professor Adrian Newton, of the UK’s Bournemouth University, has called for better protection of the threatened fruit forests of Kyrgyzstan, the landlocked…
Among the oldest known examples of symbolic behaviour amongst humans and our close hominid relations is the use of ochre in burial…
Fieldwork led by researchers at University College London (UCL) and the University of Manchester has shown that stone figures lying on their…
An unexpected use for a plant has been discovered by scientists at Zhejiang University in the city of Hangzhou, in eastern China.…
Freezing on Kodiak My travels sometimes take me to relatively exotic places, like a recent brief stay on Kodiak Island, Alaska, which…