Feature Channels: History

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Researchers from the University of Oxford's Bodleian Libraries and from universities in the Netherlands have used high-tech imaging to uncover the details of a rare Mexican codex dating from before the colonization of the Americas. The newly revealed codex, or book, has been hidden from view for almost 500 years, concealed beneath a layer of plaster and chalk on the back of a later manuscript known as the Codex Selden, which is housed at the Bodleian Libraries. Scientists have used hyperspectral imaging to reveal pictographic scenes from this remarkable document and have published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

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Scientists use the fossil record to make judgments on the physiology and behavior of species. But are those interpretations correct? New research from the University of Notre Dame puts into question how we interpret the behavior of extinct organisms from their fossil remains, and the greater role of plasticity in determining evolution diversity.

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An international team, co-directed by a University of Southampton archaeologist, has made a significant discovery at an underwater location in Albania – revealing that the submerged remains of a major ancient fortress and port are far larger than previously known.

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For more than 120 years the Venus Table of the Dresden Codex -- an ancient Mayan book containing astronomical data -- has been of great interest to scholars around the world. The accuracy of its observations, especially the calculation of a kind of 'leap year' in the Mayan Calendar, was deemed an impressive curiosity used primarily for astrology.

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UMToday reached out to the Dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology and Recreation Management, Douglas Brown, for his take on the 2016 Rio Olympics for an op-ed piece.

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A cache of exquisitely preserved bones, found in a coal mine in the state of Gujarat, India, appear to be the most primitive primate bones yet discovered, according to a new analysis.

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A four-volume work that has never been out of print for the past 250 years is still making an impact on the modern world's legal thinking.

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Virtual brains reconstructed from ancient, kiwi-sized primate skulls could help resolve one of the most intriguing evolutionary mysteries: how modern primates developed large brains.

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Archaeologists from the Universities of York, Cambridge and UCL have identified rare human bones from the UK dating to the Late Mesolithic era (around 4000 BC, just prior to the arrival of farming in Britain) using an innovative new bone collagen analysis technique.

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The 27th annual A Conversation With a Living Legend® in Dallas, Sept. 28 at the Hilton Anatole, will honor Kenneth H. Cooper, M.D., M.P.H., founder of The Cooper Clinic and The Cooper Institute.

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An archaeological expedition from the University of Gothenburg has discovered one of the richest graves from the Late Bronze Age ever found on the island of Cyprus. The grave and its offering pit, located adjacent the Bronze Age city of Hala Sultan Tekke, contained many fantastic gold objects such as a diadem, pearls, earrings and Egyptian scarabs, as well as more than 100 richly ornamented ceramic vessels. The objects, which originate from several adjacent cultures, confirm the central role of Cyprus in long-distance trade.

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Stone objects collected by prehistoric hunters were effective as throwing weapons to hunt animals, research at Leeds Beckett University reveals.

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To help veterans and military personnel transition into the academic world, the University of Chicago is participating in the Warrior-Scholar Project for the second year in a row.

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SASKATOON - University of Saskatchewan (U of S) biologists have made a significant advance in understanding the ecology of Sable Island and its iconic wild horses—one that underscores how intimately connected living systems are.

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A commemorative stamp for American writer, Henry James, was released by the U.S. Postal Service on July 21. James is the 31st inductee in the U.S. Postal Service's Literary Arts Series.

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Members of The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) Center for Archaeological Research have teamed up with other archaeologists to study the Alamo and its grounds as part of the process to develop a master plan for the historic landmark.

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How can we ever know what ancient animals ate? For the first time, the changing diets of elephants in the last two million years in China have been reconstructed, using a technique based on analysis of the surface textures of their teeth.

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Chemistry Professor Tom Savage tells an epic tale of early California and a Mormon couple.

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An adolescent orangutan called Rocky could provide the key to understanding how speech in humans evolved from the time of the ancestral great apes, according to new research.

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In this month’s release, find new embargoed research about the contributions the Nurses’ Health Study has made to issues related to women’s health and chronic disease.

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The lost Spanish fort San Marcos, founded in 1577 at the town of Santa Elena by Pedro Menedez Marquez, has been found on present-day Parris Island in South Carolina by a pair of archaeologists.

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The American Physical Society (APS) on Monday honored the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility, located at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as an APS Historic Physics Site.

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Relatively little physical evidence exists of the early occupants and fascinating history of Beaver Island on Lake Michigan, A Northern Michigan University summer archaeology field school is gradually filling that void while giving students hands-on experience in excavation techniques and artifact analysis.

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Tree-ring dating and radiocarbon research led by Cornell University archaeologist Sturt Manning has established an absolute timeline for the archaeological, historical and environmental record in Mesopotamia from the early second millennium B.C.

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A collection of oral histories gathered by K.W. Lee, the godfather of Asian American journalism, has been translated into Korean by UC Riverside scholar Edward T. Chang and published in the Republic of Korea.

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A project led by archaeologists from the British Museum and the University of Leicester has discovered remarkable evidence which shows how the first generations of Europeans to arrive in the Americas engaged with indigenous peoples and their spiritual beliefs deep inside the caves of a remote Caribbean island.

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Summer art history research is revealing new discoveries about 58 drawings that many don’t even know exist.

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University of Florida geochemist Andrea Dutton and colleagues at the University of Michigan have utilized a new technique of analysis to reconstruct Antarctic ocean temperatures that support the idea that the combined impacts of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact brought about one of Earth’s biggest mass extinctions 66 million years ago.

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The woman was laid on a bed of specially selected materials, including gazelle horn cores, fragments of chalk, fresh clay, limestone blocks and sediment. Tortoise shells were placed under and around her body, 86 in total. Sea shells, an eagle's wing, a leopard's pelvis, a forearm of a wild boar and even a human foot were placed on the body of the mysterious 1.5 meter-tall woman. Atop her body, a large stone was laid to seal the burial space.

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The new species is named Calciavis grandei – with “calci” meaning “hard/stone,” and “avis” from the Latin for bird, and “grandei” in honor of famed paleontologist Lance Grande who has studied the fossil fish from the same ancient North American lake for decades.

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UCLA-led team of researchers has taken a unique approach to explain the way in which technologies evolve in modern society. Borrowing a technique that biologists might use to study the evolution of plants or animals, the scientists plotted the “births” and “deaths” of every American-made car and truck model from 1896 to 2014.

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This Fourth of July marks the 240th anniversary of the day the Declaration of Independence was adopted. This year, in addition to firing up the grill and donning red, white and blue, why not pick up a book with a patriotic theme?

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Monumental Roman Gate Discovered at Sussita National Park, Following Discovery of Unique Mask of the God Pan. Expedition head Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the University of Haifa: “Now that the whole gate has been exposed, we not only have better information for dating the mask, but also a clue to its function. Are we looking at a gate that led to the sacred compound of the god Pan?”

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A major climate event millions of years ago that caused substantial change to the ocean’s ecological systems may hold clues as to how the Earth will respond to future climate change, a Florida State University researcher said.

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People arrived at Wisconsin's Aztalan State Park, in couples and in groups, young and old. They braved the heat in order to take part in a public archaeology day, where excavations were underway to better understand the daily lives of the ancient peoples who called Aztalan home a millennium ago.

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In a collaborative study by the University of Oklahoma, University of Chicago, University of California, Merced, and Uppsala University, researchers conduct the first ancient DNA investigation of the Himalayan arc, generating genomic data for eight individuals ranging in time from the earliest known human settlements to the establishment of the Tibetan Empire. The findings demonstrate that the genetic make-up of high-altitude Himalayan populations has remained remarkably stable despite cultural transitions and exposure to outside populations through trade.

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Egyptian pharaohs, who are remembered for their pyramids and temples, many of which remain as magnificent monuments to their civilization, were also the world’s first urban planners.

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Ithaca College Professor Michael "Bodhi" Rogers and a group of students are using a 3D scanner to build a digital model of Trim Castle, the largest Anglo-Norman castle in Ireland. Once complete, the model can be used for virtual tours, facilitating repairs, and a number of other applications.

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More than a dozen institutions signed the historic Joint Statement for the Amazon Waters today at the Amazon Waters International Conference in Lima, marking an unprecedented commitment to collaboration in efforts to promote the integrity of the Amazon Basin, home to the largest continuous rainforest and most extensive freshwater ecosystem in the world.

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Research by the University of Southampton has called into question a centuries-old story behind a dress that once belonged to one of the nation’s most beloved novelists – Charlotte Brontë.

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A few snippets of protein extracted from the fossil of an extinct species of giant beaver are opening a new door in paleoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins.

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Study dates the first movements of bison through an ice-free corridor that opened between the ice sheets after the last glacial maximum

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Fish species that are both economically and ecologically important in South America live mysterious lives. A new study reports on the use of chemical analysis of ear-stones or “otoliths” as a way to tease out a fish’s life story, potentially revealing its migratory routes and the environments it encountered in its travels.

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Vanderbilt biologist Kenneth Catania has accidentally discovered that can electric eels make leaping attacks that dramatically increase the strength of the electric shocks they deliver and, in so doing, has confirmed a 200-year-old observation by famous 19th century explorer and naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.