The Past

Although many dinosaurs never left the ground, they still possessed the basic structural framework for flight.

Though these ancient settlers of China were culturally cosmopolitan, their DNA turns out to have been completely distinct from the communities with which they interacted.

Looking with lasers, researchers discovered that many Olmec and Mayan ruins seem to have been constructed from the same blueprint.

Discover the history of homemade sugar skulls, home altars, and fantastical spirit animals.

The mad dog’s bite caused a hideous metamorphosis, which transformed its human victim into a nefarious monster.

The poisoned candy legend is just one way that American fears manifested: as an easily understood threat to innocence.

Will and Ariel Durant were praised for their ability to look at the big picture without losing sight of its little details, even if they did miss some of them.

The findings at L’Anse aux Meadows mark the the earliest known year by which human migration had encircled the planet.

Going door-to-door on All Hallows Eve to beg for ‘soul cakes’?

A recent discovery pushes back the date on when dinosaurs first engaged in social behavior.

Historians know how military technologies evolved, but the reasons why remain poorly understood.

Long assumed to be a devoted vegetarian, ancient sloths were fine with some meat.

Time and again, studies have found a connection between authoritarian ideals and meaning in life — a notion backed up by historical documents.

The microscopic tardigrades are an elusive species. Fossils are rare, but each new find adds a piece to their unsolved evolutionary puzzle. 

The new book “Lost Cities, Ancient Tombs” documents 100 archaeological discoveries that changed the world.

Air conditioning may keep a room cool, but using it is heating up the planet. It is time for something new — or old.

During World War II, Nazi engineers allegedly tried to create UFO-shaped military aircraft.

Often called modern-day dinosaurs, cassowaries are one of only a few birds known to have killed humans.

A 5,300-year-old mummy teaches us the global history of tattoos.

The stone camel sculptures, seven in total and originally uncovered back in 2018, far predate more famous monuments.

Our ancestral cousins far more intelligent than we credit them for, and they did things most of us cannot.

As Russia’s youth welcomed a new era of capitalism in the 1990s, their parents and grandparents clung to fleeting memories of Soviet life.

An unexpected finding shows us how little we know about the early human story in our region.

Fossilized footprints found at an excavation site in southwest New Mexico prove humans colonized the continent much earlier than previously thought.

In the perilous mountains of Tibet, archaeologists unearthed ancient hand and footprints that seem to be the creative work of children.

The peasant turned czarist advisor has come to be known and feared as the devil incarnate, but was he really as demonic as we have been led to believe?

Whenever the climate cooled, our hominin ancestors would set up shop in the Arabian Peninsula and vanish again when the planet warmed up.

What we can learn from our complicated relationship with boredom.

Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes is often labeled a quintessential Spanish artist, but his allegiance may well have lied with the French Enlightenment instead.

Searching for happiness in the midst of personal or societal crises are nothing new.