Cannibal-filled caves and threads of gold: Take a look at the latest discoveries
Throughout history, cultures have left behind a trail of breadcrumbs for archaeologists to follow. New sites and artifacts are found all the time, revealing forgotten secrets of the past.
Here are some of the latest discoveries:
Brain-eating cannibalistic community lived in Poland cave 18,000 years ago, bones show
In southern Poland, researchers revisited the Maszycka Cave, where they found evidence of cannibalism among the Magdalenian people 18,000 years ago. Using 3D microscopy, they analyzed cut marks on bones, suggesting the community consumed human flesh for survival. This discovery sheds light on the harsh conditions faced by prehistoric communities. | Published Feb. 7 | Read More |
Archaeologists discover Roman villa in France — then unearth soldier's wedding ring
In Soissons, France, archaeologists unearthed a Roman villa dating back to the first to fourth centuries, revealing Roman influences in the region. Among the finds was a grave containing a German World War I soldier's remains, identified by a wedding ring inscribed with his wedding date. This unexpected discovery connects ancient Roman history with more recent events. | Published Feb. 6 | Read More |
Viking-age hoard found in Scotland a decade ago had indecipherable runes — until now
In Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland, a Viking-age hoard containing silver and gold artifacts was discovered, with one arm band featuring indecipherable runes. Historians have now translated the runes to mean 'this is the community's wealth/property,' suggesting communal ownership of the hoard. This discovery provides insight into the social structures of Viking-age communities. | Published Feb. 11 | Watch the video |
Rare 1,600-year-old purple fabric — woven with gold threads — found in France. See it
In Autun, France, archaeologists discovered a 1,600-year-old fabric woven with gold threads in an ancient burial site. The fabric, once a symbol of elite aristocracy, was found in a lead coffin, along with other exceptional artifacts. This rare find offers a glimpse into the luxurious burial practices of the time. | Published Feb. 12 | Read More |
Ancient chief buried 'extremely rare' Roman equipment. Archaeologists just found it
Near Løsning, Denmark, archaeologists uncovered a stockpile of weapons and rare Roman equipment buried by an ancient chief 1,500 years ago. Among the finds were two iron plates identified as parts of a Roman helmet, a rare discovery in southern Scandinavia. This excavation highlights the cultural exchanges and conflicts during the Iron Age. | Published Jan. 31 | Read More |
McClatchy News continues to follow the discovery of intriguing archaeological discoveries from around the globe. Check back to see the latest finds.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's teen prodigy Kairan Quazi is ditching SpaceX for billionaire Ken Griffin's Citadel Securities
At just 16 years old, Kairan Quazi has already gained accolades most engineers spend decades accumulating. He graduated from college, helped design software for SpaceX Starlink satellites, and turned down offers from Silicon Valley's buzzy AI labs. Now, the prodigy is taking his next leap—not in Silicon Valley, but on Wall Street, where he's joining Citadel Securities, a liquidity provider, as a quant developer. A defiant attitude Quazi's path has been unconventional from the start. At 9, he left third grade for community college, went on to intern at Intel Labs at 10, and transferred to Santa Clara University at 11, eventually becoming the youngest graduate in its 172-year history. In 2023, he made headlines when Elon Musk's SpaceX hired him at just 14 years old. A 'rare company,' Quazi said at the time, that didn't use his age as an 'arbitrary and outdated proxy for maturity and ability.' The same year, he sparred with Microsoft-owned LinkedIn after it locked him out of the platform for being under 16, blasting the decision as 'illogical, primitive nonsense.' In fact, Quazi has never been shy about critiquing the traditional system that held him back. Once LinkedIn allowed him back on to their platform, Quazi posted a comment slamming the conventional school system. The 16-year-old argued that 'tests are not used to measure mastery, but the ability to regurgitate' and that the modern 'school factory' rewards fear and prestige-chasing over learning. 'Age, privilege, and unconscious (sometimes even conscious) biases are used to gatekeep opportunities,' he wrote, adding that philosophers like Seneca the Younger and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius might have seen today's education system as dangerous. Two years later, Quazi is channeling that same defiance into a different arena. He turned down offers from top AI startups and tech firms to join Citadel Securities this week in New York, citing the firm's culture of meritocracy and instant feedback. 'Quant finance offers a pretty rare combination: the complexity and intellectual challenge that AI research also provides, but with a much faster pace,' he told Business Insider. At Citadel Securities he said, he'll be able to see the results of his work in 'days, not months or years.' A win-win Citadel Securities—sister company to the well-known Citadel—for its part, has every reason to trumpet the win. The firm, which handles roughly 35% of U.S. retail stock trades and generated nearly $10 billion in revenue in 2024, is locked in a talent war with the likes of OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI. Recruiting a prodigy who was once deemed too young for LinkedIn—but now works at the intersection of engineering and quantitative problem-solving—is a symbolic coup for Ken Griffin's trading powerhouse. For Quazi, the move also closes a personal loop. His mother worked in mergers and acquisitions as an investment banker, giving him early exposure to finance. And on campus, he saw how coveted quant jobs had become for math and computer-science students. 'It's one of the most prestigious industries you could go into as a computer scientist or mathematician,' he told Business Insider. Now, he's living that reality in New York City. Quazi has moved into an apartment just a 10-minute walk from Citadel Securities' Park Avenue office. 'New York has a very special place in my heart,' he said, noting that his mom grew up in Astoria, Queens. Unlike his time at SpaceX, where his mother had to drive him to work in Redmond, Wash., Quazi's commute is now his own: first on foot, and soon, by subway. 'I felt ready to take on new challenges and expand my skill set into a different high-performance environment,' he said. 'Citadel Securities offered a similarly ambitious culture, but also a completely new domain, which is very exciting for me.' Jackie Scharnick, Citadel's communications director, said Quazi would pass on an interview with Fortune so he could 'focus on his second day of work.' This story was originally featured on Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
Creature found on ‘rainy night' in Panama may be oldest ever known. See ‘Nelson'
On a 'very rainy night' in western Panama, herpetologists searching a forest reserve saw something in the darkness. It was a small, brownish frog hopping across the road, and the reptile and amphibian researchers captured the animal for a closer look. It was a known species — Ctenophryne aterrima — but this find marked the first time the frog was spotted in Panama, previously making appearances in Costa Rica and Colombia. The day was July 24, 1987, and when the frog was entered into the scientific record, the researchers couldn't have known that it would go on to be one of the longest living tropical frogs ever recorded. 'It is generally understood that (frogs and toads) inhabiting cool or temperate regions, whether latitudinally or altitudinally, tend to reach higher ages than those living in warm and hot areas,' Karl-Heinz Jungfer, one of the herpetologists who collected the frog, wrote in an Aug. 15 correspondence published in the peer-reviewed journal Salamandra. The male frog, measuring about 2.2 inches long from snout to legs, would have been preserved, but due to time constraints, it was instead taken to Germany alive and placed in a moist terrarium, according to the paper. Researchers fed it crickets and fruit flies. Before long, it was part of the lab. The frog was called Nelson, the 'only frog ever to have a nickname at our lab,' Jungfer told McClatchy News in an email. Nelson was already an adult when he was collected, but in the next four years of his life, he grew a few more millimeters before stopping at 2.3 inches long, according to the paper. The researchers learned more about Nelson over the next few decades. 'No advertisement call was ever heard, but this is no surprise, for no 'rainy season' was ever induced by artificial 'rain' that could have simulated a breeding season,' Jungfer wrote. Nelson gladly took food, typically gobbling it up with his tongue instead of holding it in his mouth, according to the paper. He had favorites, preferring light-colored prey to darker colors. Seven years after Nelson was first collected, he was put in an outdoor terrarium, Jungfer wrote. Then, the temperatures outside reached lower than 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and he became 'so stiff and hardly able to move,' which caused him to be 'promptly' moved back inside. Ten years after Nelson joined the lab, the researchers found a lesion on his skin that they successfully treated with antibiotics, according to the paper. In July 2016, Nelson had been living in captivity for 29 years, Jungfer wrote, and researchers noticed that his right eye was missing. The other eye, Nelson's left, became severely swollen in 2024, rendering him blind as far as the researchers could tell. 'For feeding, (Nelson) had to be placed in a small plastic box, where it caught prey when it made contact with the frog's fingers,' Jungfer wrote. 'Nonetheless, it was able to locate its usual hiding places after feeding.' In June 2024, Nelson was found dead in his terrarium, making him 38 years old at the time of death, according to the paper. He spent a total of 36 years and 11 months in captivity, researchers said. Nelson is believed to be 'among the oldest (frogs and toads) known, and among tropical species, by far the most long-lived one,' according to the paper. 'In contrast to frogs in the wild, numerous individual frogs living under captive conditions are more long-lived than those recorded in the wild,' Jungfer wrote. 'This increased longevity can be explained by the absence of predation, stable environmental conditions and food supply, as long as the husbandry requirements are adequately met.' Previous reports say a Bufo bufo frog once lived to be 36 years old, an Anaxyrus americanus lived to 30 years old and a Bombina variegata was 29 years old at the time of its death, according to the paper. But 38-year-old Nelson, according to academic reports, has now taken the record. Nelson was found in Provincia de Chiriquí along Panama's southwestern coast.
Miami Herald
a day ago
- Miami Herald
Melting ice reveals fragments of ‘extraordinary' Viking cargo net in Norway
As the late summer sun beat down on a national park in Norway, archaeologists trekked across the glacial landscape, scouring the surfaces exposed by melting ice. Something tucked between the rocks caught their attention. They carefully pulled the items out — and realized they'd found part of a Viking cargo net. Two teams of archaeologists headed into Jotunheimen National Park in mid-August as part of an annual project to systematically survey the area's melting glaciers for ancient artifacts, Secrets of the Ice wrote in an Aug. 18 Facebook post. 'We last worked here back in 2012, but heavy snow kept our finds to a minimum then,' the group said. 'Still, we know the area contains exciting finds… This year, with lighter snow, we are hopeful for more discoveries!' The expedition's first stop was a site where, in 2011, 'our colleague Jostein Bergstøl made an unbelievable discovery: the only known Viking Age packhorse net,' or cargo net, the group said in another Facebook post. They hoped more sections of the net had melted out of the ice. Sure enough, archaeologists found several leather fragments tucked amid the rocks and identified them as 'more pieces of the world's only Viking Age packhorse net.' A photo shows the leather loops of the net. Some fragments have knots. All of them look worn but relatively well-preserved. Generally, artifacts made from leather, wood or fabric are rare finds for archaeologists because these organic materials disintegrate quickly in most environments. Glaciers, waterways and mud are exceptions to the norm. In these low-oxygen environments, delicate artifacts are much more likely to be preserved and only begin to deteriorate after being reexposed to the air. 'The Viking Age packhorse net is a unique find — nothing like it has ever been recovered elsewhere in the Viking world,' Lars Holger Pilø, the project's co-director, told McClatchy News via email. 'Similar nets were used in recent times here in Norway, so we know its purpose: It would have contained goods and been strapped on to a packhorse for transport,' Secrets of the Ice wrote in a 2023 Facebook post. Photos show the roughly 1,000-year-old cargo net found in 2011. 'The newly discovered net fragments were found at the same site and are very similar to the pieces recovered earlier,' Pilø said. 'They almost certainly belong to the same Viking Age packhorse net.' 'Since we knew the original discovery was incomplete, every additional fragment we can rescue brings us closer to fully reconstructing this extraordinary artefact.' Pilø said. 'We could not be more excited – history is literally unfolding before our eyes,' Secrets of the Ice said. Archaeological surveys at Jotunheimen National Park are ongoing. The park is in southern Norway and a roughly 160-mile drive northwest from Oslo.
