skulls

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When Humans First Treated Cancer Just Got a Big Update

Cut marks around brain lesions in 4K-year-old Egyptian skull suggest surgical intervention

(Newser) - A new study describes a potential awe-inspiring achievement of the ancient Egyptian civilization far apart from the pyramids. According to the research, ancient Egyptians may have been the first to explore and treat cancer. The finding is based on two skulls discovered in Giza and held at the University of...

Belgium Steps Closer to Returning Colonial-Era Remains

Critics, however, say law draft didn't include input from countries of origin

(Newser) - More than 500 sets of human remains taken from ex-Belgian colonies are currently housed at the Institute of Natural Sciences in Brussels, including the skull of 19th-century Congolese leader Lusinga Iwa Ng'ombe, who was decapitated in a battle with Belgian troops in 1884. Now, draft legislation is vying to...

Found at Florida Thrift Store: Actual Human Skull

Police are investigating, but say case does not seem suspicious

(Newser) - A skull in the Halloween section of a Florida thrift store turned out to not be a Halloween decoration at all. An anthropologist just so happened to be browsing the store in North Fort Myers and recognized it was actually a real human skull, the Lee County Sheriff's Office...

DNA Links Africa's Stolen Skulls With Living Descendants

Germany to return skulls tied to Chagga people of Tanzania, stolen under colonial rule

(Newser) - Scientists have for the first time identified living descendants of people whose skulls were pillaged from Africa under German colonial rule. Since 2017, Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History has been working to trace at least 1,100 of 7,700 skulls it acquired from a local hospital...

Cops: He Had 'My Dead Friends' as Apartment Decorations

Kentucky's James Nott allegedly sold human remains on Facebook

(Newser) - One man tied up in a nationwide network of traffickers in human remains was located Tuesday in a Kentucky apartment decorated with human spinal cords, femur and hip bones, and 40 skulls, one of which was found on the bed where he slept, according to court documents. "The skulls...

'Crime Scene' of 150 Skulls Was Actually Coldest of Cases

Remains found in Mexican cave in 2012 date from AD 900

(Newser) - When Mexican police found a pile of about 150 skulls in a cave near the Guatemalan border, they thought they were looking at a crime scene, and took the bones to the state capital. It turns out it was a very cold case. It took a decade of tests and...

Vesuvius May Have Turned Victim's Brain to Glass
Study of Vesuvius Victim's
Skull Reveals a Surprise
in case you missed it
Jan 26, 2020 2:45 PM CST

Study of Vesuvius Victim's Skull Reveals a Surprise

Researchers say his brain turned to glass

(Newser) - The eruption of Mount Vesuvius may have most famously destroyed Pompeii, but the nearby town of Herculaneum endured a similar fate. Now a new study suggests that at least one of the town's residents suffered a remarkable, if grisly, fate: His brain essentially turned to glass, reports Live Science...

Humans of the Era as Prone to Violence as Neanderthals
200 Skulls Suggest Neanderthal
Stereotype Is Wrong
NEW STUDY
Nov 15, 2018 10:20 AM CST

200 Skulls Suggest Neanderthal Stereotype Is Wrong

Early modern humans just as prone to violence: study

(Newser) - The perception of Neanderthals as big, stupid oafs has been mostly debunked . Now, a new study is helping buck another stereotype depicting the human relatives as especially prone to violence. The idea stems from trauma, particularly to the head and neck, visible among Neanderthal remains. When researchers compiled reports on...

Pompeii Victim's Death Not What It Seemed

It wasn't decapitation, but it was still pretty awful

(Newser) - In reporting on the discovery of a centuries-old Pompeii victim in May, we wrote that it wasn't hard to figure out what killed the man: Archaeologists found a massive stone block, probably hurled by a volcanic cloud, severing the top part of his body. Now it turns out the...

Remains Found in Missouri ID'd as Missing 21-Year-Old

Police are trying to identify 2nd skull found at scene

(Newser) - Police in Missouri have had to give the parents of Jessica Runions the news they dreaded: One of two skulls found outside Kansas City this week is that of their 21-year-old daughter, who disappeared in September. Police say the case is now a homicide investigation, People reports. Authorities say that...

Ancients' Skulls Pose a Puzzle for Our Family Tree

They're not quite Neanderthal and not quite Homo sapien

(Newser) - First, back in 2007, they found tools. Then, a bone. Now archaeologists who've continued to return to the same dig in Lingjing, China, report in the journal Science that they've unearthed more than 40 separate skull fragments to pull together two partial skulls that date back 100,000...

Workers at Westminster Make Medieval Find Under Pipes

Remains of at least 50 people in abbey thought to be from 11th, 12th centuries

(Newser) - Workers demolishing a section of Westminster Abbey to make room for a new tower stumbled upon something most unexpected (at least in that part of the abbey): the remains of at least 50 people, including the skeleton of a 3-year-old, that archaeologists believe date back to the 11th and 12th...

Zimbabwe Tells Britain: Give Us Our Skulls Back

Robert Mugabe says Brits are keeping human skulls as war trophies

(Newser) - Zimbabwe's president is demanding the return of "decapitated heads" of warriors killed during "the first chimurenga," an uprising against British colonizers at the end of the 19th century, reports the Telegraph . The skulls serve as "war trophies," and keeping them "must rank among...

Skull Shapes 'Feminized' About 50K Years Ago

Smaller brows, less testosterone helped us advance: study

(Newser) - Hope you're sitting down, gentlemen: A new study says that homo sapiens made a huge leap in abstract and symbolic thought 50,000 years ago because their skull-shape "feminized" and testosterone levels went down, Pacific Standard reports. Experts at Duke University analyzed over 1,400 modern and ancient...

Why Skulls of Kids Encircled Ancient Villages

Bronze Age villages placed skulls to ward off flooding, researchers say

(Newser) - Visitors to some ancient villages in Switzerland and Germany weren't greeted by a nice garden or an archway. They encountered skulls—children's skulls, researchers say. According to a new study , certain lakeshore villages placed children's skulls and bones outside of town in an effort to ward off...

Skulls From 'Pit of Bones' May Hold Evolution Clues

Neanderthals may have developed their distinctive jaws before their brains got big

(Newser) - Since 1984, scientists have been carefully removing, assembling, and analyzing thousands of bone fragments from the aptly-named "Pit of Bones" cave in Spain, home to the largest collection of ancient human fossils ever found. Now, they say their analysis of 17 skulls thought to be some 430,000 years...

London Romans Piled Skulls in Pits
 London Romans 
 Piled Skulls in Pits 
STUDY SAYS
Jan 15, 2014 6:34 AM CST

London Romans Piled Skulls in Pits

Some may have been gladiators' remains

(Newser) - Slob Romans living in ancient London, it seems, just left decapitated heads lying around in open pits for years, a study suggests. "It is not a pretty picture," a researcher tells the Guardian . "At least one of the skulls shows evidence of being chewed at by dogs,...

Archaeologists Make Grisly Find in China
 Archaeologists 
 Make Grisly 
 Find in China 
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
Dec 7, 2013 9:20 AM CST

Archaeologists Make Grisly Find in China

Skulls of 80 sacrificed young women unearthed

(Newser) - A mass grave holding the skulls of 80 young women has been found in China, state media today reported, and the details only get grislier from there. Archaeologists believe the women may have been sacrificed as many as 4,000 years ago, perhaps as part of "foundation ceremonies" that...

US Heads Getting Taller, Leaner

 US Heads Getting 
 Taller, Leaner 
study says
Jun 2, 2012 3:30 PM CDT

US Heads Getting Taller, Leaner

Skulls grew faster than bodies during 20th century

(Newser) - Americans got pretty big heads in the 20th century, and we're not talking egos here. Forensic anthropologists in Knoxville have analyzed skulls from the mid-1800s to the mid-1980s and found that our heads have become taller, larger, and narrower, reports US News & World Report . The difference is particularly...

Skulls Buried in Florida Backyard Date to 1200 AD

Investigators have no idea how Inca skulls got there

(Newser) - Police in Florida investigating two skulls found in a backyard say that while they definitely have a mystery on their hands, they're not looking for a killer. That's because investigators have determined that the skulls belong to a man and a 10-year-old boy who died in Peru as...

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