Stones, Bones, and Wrecks

Humans may have left Africa sooner than we thought.

A new study suggests their evolution helped us develop our social skills.

The hull is remarkably well-preserved.

People that came before us are sometimes underfoot.

The USS 'Juneau' had five brothers stationed there at one time. Then tragedy struck.

The red ochre pigment might have been used for art or to color animal skins.

The analysis supports the theory that Earhart died a castaway.

Every year, billions of dollars in ancient artifacts and other cultural objects are looted and sold around the world. A new project is training dogs to sniff them out.

The bones were found near Bellamy's ship, the Whydah, which wrecked off the coast of Massachusetts in 1717.

In the late 9th century, Vikings across Scandinavia banded together to invade England.

Phil Arnold/Professional Coin Grading Service

And you can buy some of it.

The ship arrived in Alabama in 1859 in defiance of a law that prohibited importing slaves to the U.S. To hide the evidence of its illegal venture, its captain burned and sunk the ship, and its wreck has been lost to history. Until now.

Haifa University researchers pieced together more than 60 tiny parchment fragments to decipher the document.

The British palace's limestone is riddled with mineralized microbes from 200 million years ago.

©Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello

Hemings learned the art of French cooking in Paris and brought haute cuisine to America.

Europe’s largest engineering project uncovered countless historic treasures, ranging from bones to Tudor bowling balls.

An estimated 35,000 German soldiers died in Estonia during World War II while fighting Soviet troops.

They thought they were studying the earliest evidence of smallpox, but found a different disease altogether.

Illustration by Eric S. Carlson in collaboration with Ben A. Potter

The infant's genome—the oldest complete genetic profile of a New World person—reveals the existence of a human lineage that was previously unknown to scientists.

Maritime archaeologists survey the Rouse Simmons shipwreck on the bottom of Lake Michigan.

The ship was a Christmas tradition in Chicago until one stormy night in 1912.

An 88,000-Year-Old Middle Finger May Change What We Know About Human Migration

Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out Why We Have Eyebrows

Stormy Waters Carry a 19th-Century Shipwreck to Florida Beach

Ice Age Human Footprints in Canada Reveal a Walk on the Beach Taken 13,000 Years Ago

Part of the Amazon Thought to Be Uninhabited May Have Been Home to 1 Million People

Museum Finds 2500-Year-Old Mummy in a Sarcophagus Marked 'Empty'

The 'Alien' Mummy Is of Course Human—And Yet, Still Unusual

8 Cemeteries Unearthed at Construction Sites

Microsoft's Co-Founder Finds WWII Ship Lost for 76 Years

UK Archaeologists Have Found One of the World’s Oldest 'Crayons'

Forensic Analysis Suggests Bones Discovered on a Pacific Island May Belong to Amelia Earhart

New Program Trains Dogs to Sniff Out Art Smugglers

Archaeologists Say They May Have Found the Skeleton of the Pirate "Black Sam" Bellamy

This Mass Grave in England May Hold the Skeletons of Hundreds of Viking Invaders

Gold Worth Millions, Salvaged From a 19th-Century Shipwreck, Is Going on Display in California

Local Reporter May Have Found the Burned Remains of the Last American Slave Ship

Scientists Crack the Cryptic Code of a 2000-Year-Old Dead Sea Scroll

Buckingham Palace Was Built With Jurassic Fossils, Scientists Find

Inside the Kitchen of Thomas Jefferson's Acclaimed—and Enslaved—Chef James Hemings

8 Amazing Things Discovered During the Expansion of the London Underground

Construction Workers Discover World War II–Era German Burial Ground in Estonia

Scientists Accidentally Discover Ancient Hepatitis B in a 16th-Century Mummy

11,500-Year-Old Skeleton Reveals an Unknown Group of Ancient Migrants to the Americas

Captain Santa’s Last Sail: The Mysterious Fate of the Christmas Tree Ship