Smart News History & Archaeology

Researchers recently dated these two charcoal-drawn figures on the walls of Gua Sireh.

These Malaysian Cave Drawings Reflect Colonial-Era Conflicts

A new study reveals that some of the charcoal drawings date to between 1670 and 1830

Archibald J. Motley Jr.'s Black Belt (1934)

The Harlem Renaissance Is Coming to the Met

A new exhibition will be the first survey of the cultural movement in New York City since 1987

Bill Milner was jet skiing along the Neches River when he ran into something that turned out to be a World War I shipwreck.

Cool Finds

Drought in Texas Reveals World War I Shipwreck

A local man happened upon the wreckage while jet skiing earlier this month

A still from the upcoming movie Rustin, which tells the story of Bayard Rustin, a key orchestrator behind the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

Watch the Trailer for 'Rustin,' Which Spotlights the Man Behind the 1963 March on Washington

The new film dramatizes Bayard Rustin's efforts to pull off an event of unprecedented scale

Archaeologists unearthed the bedroom in a Roman villa near Pompeii.

Enslaved Individuals Slept in This Bedroom, Untouched Since Mount Vesuvius' Eruption 2,000 Years Ago

The small room with two beds—but only one mattress—sheds new light on slavery in a Roman villa near Pompeii

Early mug shots of 19th-century criminal suspects in a book by Alphonse Bertillon, chief of criminal identification for the Paris police

History of Now

A Brief History of the Mug Shot

Police have been using the snapshots in criminal investigations since the advent of commercial photography

One of the more than 200 bouquiniste stalls along the Seine in Paris

The Paris Olympics

Parisian Booksellers Have Lined the Seine for Centuries. Now, They're Fighting to Stay

Ahead of the 2024 Olympics, city officials are trying to relocate the bouquinistes for security reasons

Researchers found the remains of stilts and tens of thousands of wooden spikes.

Cool Finds

This 8,000-Year-Old Village on Stilts May Be the Oldest of Its Kind in Europe

Archaeologists unearthed the settlement—which had tens of thousands of defensive spikes—beneath a lake in Albania

Hugh Gray's famous 1933 photo of a creature he believed to be Nessie

Loch Ness Monster Lovers Come Together for Biggest Hunt in 50 Years

Volunteers will convene in the Scottish Highlands armed with drones, hydrophones and other technologies

Brooker began collecting in 1959 in Paris and has been assembling his library ever since.

Trove of Rare Renaissance Books Could Fetch $25 Million at Auction

T. Kimball Brooker has amassed a collection of more than 1,300 texts from the 16th century

Excavations near the Powder Magazine in Williamsburg, Virginia, where the four bodies were found

Four Bodies Found in Colonial Williamsburg Belonged to Confederate Soldiers

Researchers are trying to identify the men who died after the Battle of Williamsburg in 1862

Researchers have recreated what the exiled royal Charles Edward Stuart—better known as Bonnie Prince Charlie—might have looked like at age 24.

See the Face of 24-Year-Old Bonnie Prince Charlie, Recreated Using Death Masks

The new recreation shows what the prince might have looked like during the 1745 Jacobite rising

Ancient human remains and shell accessories found at the Hirota burial site

New Research

These Ancient Japanese Islanders Created a Signature Skull Shape by Molding Babies' Heads

Some 1,800 years ago, the Hirota people practiced intentional cranial modification

Tank convoy through the Ardennes, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge in January 1945

New Research

Drone Scans Reveal New Details About the Battle of the Bulge

Researchers used lidar to uncover nearly 1,000 previously unknown features of the famous battlefield

Bélizaire and the Frey Children features an enslaved 15-year-old alongside three white children who were likely in his care.

Who Was the Enslaved Child Painted Out of This 1837 Portrait?

The painting of Bélizaire, 15, shown behind the children of his enslavers, has been acquired by the Met

In 25 B.C.E., Romans founded a colony called Augusta Emerita in what is now Mérida, Spain.

Cool Finds

Iron Window Bars Unearthed at a Roman Public Bath in Spain

The crisscrossing bars were likely part of the bath's changing room, called the apodyterium

A group poses in front of Michigan State University's first observatory, circa 1888.

Cool Finds

Students Unearth Forgotten 142-Year-Old Observatory Buried on Michigan State's Campus

Archaeology students have been working at the site since workers happened upon it in May

The remains likely belong to a Qinling panda rather than a Sichuan panda. Pictured: Qi Zai, a Qinling panda born in captivity

Cool Finds

Fully Intact Giant Panda Skeleton Discovered in Chinese Emperor's 2,000-Year-Old Tomb

Archaeologists previously found a panda skull in a nearby Han burial, but its torso was missing

The coins depict the god Apollo on one side and a horse surrounded by symbols on the other.

Cool Finds

Metal Detectorists Discover 2,000-Year-Old Gold Coins in Wales

The 15 artifacts are the first Iron Age gold coins ever found in the country

Boston artist Peter Stephenson completed The Wounded Indian in 1850.

'Wounded Indian' Sculpture Will Return to Boston—Decades After It Was Supposedly Destroyed

The piece was rediscovered in 1999 at a Virginia museum, which has finally agreed to hand it over

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