A team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Martin Petr, Svante Pääbo, Janet Kelso, and Benjamin Vernot) has found evidence that suggests there has been no long-term removal of Neanderthal DNA from modern Europeans. Here we present a small part of their paper titled “Limits of long-term selection against Neandertal introgression“. Continue reading “Europeans: there has been no long-term genome-wide removal of Neandertal DNA”
Human sacrifices on European soil in ancient times
Here we present an excerpt from Dionysius of Halicarnassus’ book ‘The Roman Antiquities‘ (The Loeb Classical Library) that provides us with striking information about human sacrifices taking place on European soil in very ancient times. Continue reading “Human sacrifices on European soil in ancient times”
Sicilian amber found in Iberia indicates 4th millenium BC Mediterranean Trade
Amber and other unusual materials such as jade, obsidian and rock crystal have attracted interest as raw materials for the manufacture of decorative items since Late Prehistory and, indeed, amber retains a high value in present-day jewellery. Continue reading “Sicilian amber found in Iberia indicates 4th millenium BC Mediterranean Trade”
Amber Trade in Prehistoric Europe – From the Baltic to the Mediterranean
The archaeological artefacts that we study form only a minor fraction of the objects that were in circulation in prehistoric times. In the case of amber, however, there is an exceptional degree of underestimation. Amber is soft, fragile, inflammable and weathers easily. All this taken together makes the single amber artifacts that we find, in fact, representative of much larger quantities that were in use by a community under investigation. Continue reading “Amber Trade in Prehistoric Europe – From the Baltic to the Mediterranean”
Post-Roman Europe: The barbarian kingdoms
The barbarian states which arose on the ruins of the Western Empire were founded under widely different circumstances of time and place, by tribes and federations of tribes drawn from every part of Germany. We expect to find, and we do find, infinite varieties of detail in their laws, their social distinctions, their methods of government. But from a broader point of view they may be grouped in two classes, not according to affinities of race, but according to their relations with the social order which they had invaded. Continue reading “Post-Roman Europe: The barbarian kingdoms”
The fall of the Western part of the Roman Empire
Medieval history begins with the dissolution of the Western Empire, with the abandonment of the Latin world to German conquerors. Of the provinces affected by the catastrophe the youngest was Britain; and even Britain had then been Roman soil for more than three hundred years. For Italy, Spain, and Gaul, the change of masters meant the atrophy of institutions which, at first reluctantly accepted, had come by lapse of time to be accepted as part of the natural order. Continue reading “The fall of the Western part of the Roman Empire”