Cultural History

Archaeologists on Tuesday unveiled what they think are the remains of Roman emperor Nero’s extravagant banquet hall, a circular space that rotated day and night to imitate the Earth’s movement and impress his guests.

MSNBC

The new trove includes items that one expert in Anglo-Saxon artifacts said brought tears to her eyes: gold items weighing 11 pounds, and 5.5 pounds of silver. Tentatively identified by some experts as bounty from one of the wars that racked Middle England in the seventh and eighth centuries, they included sword pommels and dagger hilts, scabbard bosses and helmet cheekpieces, Christian crosses and figures of animals, eagles and fish.

New York Times

The remains of a 9,000-year-old hunter-gatherers’ house, uncovered during construction at an airport, have been unearthed in Great Britain’s Isle of Man. The house was surrounded by buried mounds of burnt hazelnut shells and stocked with stone tools, according to archaeologists working on the project and a report in the latest British Archaeology.

MSNBC

Adventurers who conquered Mount Everest successfully launched a replica of an ancient Philippine boat Saturday that they will use to sail around Southeast Asia and possibly to Africa to promote Filipino pride and unity.

The replica of the balangay — a wooden-hulled boat used in the archipelago about 1,700 years ago — was built in 44 days by native Badjao boat-builders from the southernmost Philippine province of Tawi Tawi using traditional skills handed down through the generations.

MSNBC

Humans, not climate change, were responsible for the extinction of giant kangaroos and other massive marsupials in Tasmania more than 40,000 years ago, according to new research.

National Geographic

Contrary to a long-held belief that Aborigines were isolated, northern communities may have interacted with visitors, such as the Makassans — indigenous people from the city of Ujungpandang (Makassar) on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.

National Geographic