History

Newly released maps of Zealandia, a massive sunken landmass, are revealing the topography of this underwater land in unprecedented detail. An interactive website has also been launched allowing users dynamic ways to explore the new data.

The rise of the Roman Empire may have been helped along by a colossal volcanic eruption that occurred on the opposite side of the Earth just after the death of Julius Caesar. The eruption may have altered the climate triggering famine and unrest.

A new study is demonstrating how ancient animal DNA, extracted from Dead Sea Scroll parchments, can help with piecing together the jigsaw puzzle of disparate fragments of the ancient manuscripts found in the Judean desert.

When did Earth's plate tectonics begin? A new study from Yale University claims to have found evidence that plate tectonics started about a billion years earlier than is currently thought, which places it very soon after the planet’s formation.

If you were studying the diet of ancient humans, it certainly wouldn't help if you got their preserved feces confused with those of their dogs. A new analytical system known as coproID is designed to keep that from happening.

If you're wondering what the weather was like thousand of years ago, well … there aren't going to be weather reports from back then. What there are, however, are fossilized giant clam shells, and a new study suggests they could provide the answers.

Earth’s rotation is changing how many hours are in a day and days in a year. Now palaeontologists have managed to precisely measure how long days and years were back in the age of the dinosaurs – and it’s all thanks to a humble mollusk fossil.

Archaeologists have used laser technology to map a 100-km (62-mile) Maya stone road that could have been built 1,300 years ago to help with the invasion of an isolated city in modern-day Mexico at the command of the warrior queen Lady K’awiil Ajaw.

After the death of Larry Tesler this week, New Atlas takes a brief look back at the invention of those now-ubiquitous computer commands: cut, copy and paste.

Scientists have recreated the “voice” of a 3,000 year-old mummy by scanning the shape of his vocal tract, 3D printing a replica of it, then hooking it up to an electronic larynx. The resulting sound is a single vowel that's quite eerie.

Could the German Luftwaffe have won the Battle of Britain in 1940? A team of mathematicians at the University of York used a statistical technique to determine if Germany could have defeated Britain if different decisions had been made.

Scientists have extracted a complete human genome from a 5,700-year-old piece of "chewing gum." It was discovered that the chewer was an ancient female – now named Lola – with dark skin, blue eyes, and most likely a taste for duck and hazelnuts.