Archaeology News Online

Τhe Acropolis Museum joins forces with the Onassis Foundation, an organization which has been contributing to Culture and Education for 42 years, in a rare and significant partnership. The end result is co-staging in Athens the “εmotions” exhibition, which scored such a huge success at the Onassis Cultural Center, New York. "Emotions" is a narrative exhibition which sheds light on the unseen world of emotions in the personal, social and political life of antiquity. To view the exhibition is to embark on a tumultuous voyage into the soul of Man, whose passions are here expressed through the filter of ancient art. Exhibits from the world's greatest museums tell stories of emotions in ancient Greek art through the gaze of the Acropolis Museum. Many of the exhibits are unique art-works which are on display in Greece for the first time. Many more from Greek museums are basking in the light of international interest for the first time. View of the exhibition ‘εmotions’, co-org

Male live-bearing fish are evolving faster than female fish, according to a Kansas State University study, and that's important for understanding big-picture evolutionary patterns. Samples of fish species from the Poeciliidae family show the diversity in color, fin size and body shape.  Kansas State University researchers studied 112 species of these live-bearing fishes and found that  males and females evolve differently [Credit: Kansas State University] Researchers Michael Tobler, associate professor of biology, and Zach Culumber, former university postdoctoral research associate and current postdoctoral researcher at Florida State University, studied 112 species of live-bearing fish and found that males and females evolve differently: Female evolution is influenced more strongly by natural selection and the environment, while male evolution is influenced more strongly by sexual selection, which involves characteristics that females find desirable or that make them superior compe

In a new study, scientists found that aerosol particles released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels are a primary driver of changes in rainfall patterns across the globe. Top map: Spatial distribution of the annual-mean precipitation averaged from 1979-2008. Bottom: Time series of the  annual mean precipitation anomaly relative to the 1971-2000 climatology over the Sahel region of Africa  [Credit: Top: Global Precipitation Climatology Project (GPCP) data set. Bottom: Global Historical  Climatology Network (GHCN) data set. Background image: Drought - George Safonov] The results of the climate system-model simulations conducted by researchers Brian Soden and Eui-Seok Chung from the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science revealed that changes in clouds, as a result of their interaction with these human-made aerosols in the atmosphere, are driving large-scale shifts in rainfall and temperature on Earth. A southward shift of the tropic

A team from the University of Kentucky’s Department of Physics and Astronomy has observed evidence of ancient impacts that are thought to have shaped and structured our Milky Way galaxy. Using observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) telescope, the team analyzed the spatial distribution  of 3.6 million stars and found ripples that support evidence of the Milky Way’s ancient impacts  [Credit: University of Kentucky] Deborah Ferguson, a 2016 UK graduate, is the lead author on a paper that published this week in the Astrophysical Journal . Ferguson conducted the research as an undergraduate student with co-authors Susan Gardner, a professor of physics and astronomy in the UK College of Arts and Sciences, and Brian Yanny, a staff scientist and astrophysicist in the Fermilab Center for Particle Astrophysics. Their paper, "Milky Way Tomography with K and M Dwarf Stars: the Vertical Structure of the Galactic Disk," presents observational evidence of asymmetric ripples i

The origin and nature of Mars is mysterious. It has geologically distinct hemispheres, with smooth lowlands in the north and cratered, high-elevation terrain in the south. The red planet also has two small oddly-shaped oblong moons and a composition that sets it apart from that of the Earth. A colossal impact with a large asteroid early in Mars' history may have ripped off a chunk of the northern hemisphere  and left behind a legacy of metallic elements in the planet's interior. The crash also created a ring of rocky  debris around Mars that may have later clumped together to form its moons, Phobos and Deimos  [Credit: University of Colorado at Boulder] New research by University of Colorado Boulder professor Stephen Mojzsis outlines a likely cause for these mysterious features of Mars: a colossal impact with a large asteroid early in the planet's history. This asteroid -- about the size of Ceres, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System -- smashed into Mars, ripped

The origins of smiley could be nearly 4,000-years-old after archaeologists in southeastern Turkey excavated a pot that bore the ubiquitous symbol, which today is one of the most frequently used emoticons online. The roots of the symbol are widely believed to be from the early 1960s, with the classic smiley version bearing a bright yellow background said to have emerged in the early 1970s. However, the latest discovery in Turkey would now force a rethink of the origins of the symbol, versions of which have also been widely featured in several pieces of popular literature such as the graphic novel, The Watchmen. The pot was discovered during seven-year long excavations in Gaziantep province’s Karkamis district along the Syria border under the guidance of Nicolo Marchetti, an archeology professor at the University of Bologno in Italy. Marchetti said his team found a variety of objects at the site depicting the era of the Hittites, an ancient civilization and empire that is believed to hav

No other animal on land is faster than a cheetah -- the elephant is indeed larger, but slower. For small to medium-sized animals, larger also means faster, but for really large animals, when it comes to speed, everything goes downhill again. For the first time, it is now possible to describe how this parabola-like relationship between body size and speed comes about. A research team under the direction of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) and the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany) have managed to do so thanks to a new mathematical model, and also published their findings in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution . The African elephant is the largest animal on land, but not the fastest. There is a parabola-like relationship between the  body mass of animals and the maximum speed they can reach. For the first time, researchers are able to describe how  this comes about, thanks to a simple mathematical model [Credit: Bernd Adam] A beetle is slower