Cultural History

Over the past several decades, researchers have discovered tracts of productive terra preta — “dark earth.” The human-made soil’s chocolaty color contrasts sharply with the region’s natural yellowish soils.

National Geographic

It is now known that seafaring peoples living in the Ryukyu Islands and Japan near the height of the last glacial period (about 35,000 to 15,000 years ago) adapted to cold waters comparable to those found today in the Gulf of Alaska. From Japan, they may have migrated northward through the Kurile Islands, to the southern coast of Beringia (ancient land bridge between what is now Siberia and Alaska), and into the Americas.

ScienceDaily

Vivid colors, flowing silk ribbons, and glittering bits of mirrors – the Vikings dressed with considerably more panache than we previously thought. The men were especially vain, and the women dressed provocatively.

ScienceDaily

Ancient Maya would paint unlucky people blue and throw them down a sacred well as human sacrifices. Now scientists have solved the mystery of how to make the famous blue pigment by analyzing traces on pottery left in the bottom of the well.

MSNBC

The researchers showed that people traveling across the region’s frozen lakes reduced their physical energy cost by 10 percent.

National Geographic