Look closely at paintings of ancient Egyptians and you might spot something strange: cones the size of a coffee cup sitting atop some of their heads. The objects have long baffled archaeologists, many of whom have wondered whether they were merely a symbol. Now, a new study finds these “head cones” were real. Image: Amarna Project
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The first English people to settle permanently in the Americas included early scientists, known as “chymists”, who battled hunger and disease in an ill-fated bid to find and mine gold. Image: Marcos Martinón-Torres
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Stone Age occupants of Europe had a strange fixation on horses. Almost one in every three animals they depicted on cave walls was a horse and the images are often larger and occupy more prominent positions than those of other animals. However, why the horse loomed so large in ancient minds may remain forever a mystery. Image: subarcticmike
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The fossilized remains of a newly discovered species of ancient ape suggest that it might have been able to walk on two feet, millions of years before the first humans appeared. Image: Christoph Jäckle
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The Cambrian explosion is one of the most significant moments in life’s history on Earth because it is the point at which species that are clearly related to today’s animals first appeared. It is seen as evolution’s big bang. But over the past few years, geologists have begun to have second thoughts about whether it happened.
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