Humans, unlike most other species, have a knack for making tools. Six million years ago, our apelike ancestors probably smashed nuts with rocks or caught termites with sticks. Around 3.3…
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is returning to Greece the bronze head of a griffin, the mythological creature, after determining that the artifact from the 7th century B.C. was likely…
The banks of the Thames River have hosted human settlements for thousands of years, from Neolithic huts to the soaring skyscrapers of London. Evidence of bygone civilizations has been steadily…
A jet of steam rises with a hiss as a red hot poker plunges into a bowl of cider. A garlanded woman spears a piece of toast with a long…
With serpentine necks, flippers and a mouth full of needle-sharp teeth, plesiosaurs have captured imaginations since paleontologists uncovered the first specimen more than two centuries ago. Their skeletal anatomy is…
In 1786, a British judge named William Jones noticed striking similarities between certain words in languages, such as Sanskrit and Latin, whose speakers were separated by thousands of miles. The…
It is a riddle that has confounded scholars for over a century. And now it carries a handsome cash prize: $1 million for anyone who can decipher the script of…
On the evening of Jan. 18, a 32-year old Greek man went to the police with an unusual object that he said he had found in a plastic bag among…
