World's Oldest

An artist's impression of early humans cooking fish at Lake Hula in what is now Israel

Science

Earliest evidence of humans cooking with fire dates back 780,000 years

Scientists have discovered the earliest evidence of cooking food through controlled use of fire, dating back 780,000 years. An archeological site in Israel contains fish remains that, on closer examination, show clear signs of having been cooked.

A museum display model of the ancient fish, fossils of which have been found to contain the oldest preserved heart of any vertebrate

Biology

Oldest known heart found preserved in 380-million-year-old fish fossil

Soft tissues don’t fossilize well, so scientists have to infer organ anatomy from bones. But an unexpected treasure trove of new information has been discovered in Australia, with a 380-million-year-old fish fossil preserving the oldest heart ever found.

Archeologists Andika Priyatno and Tim Maloney excavate the remains

Science

Stone Age surgery: Ancient amputation marks oldest known operation

Archeologists have discovered the oldest evidence of a surgical procedure in humans. A Stone Age hunter-gatherer, who lived more than 30,000 years ago, had a carefully amputated leg, making it the earliest known surgery by tens of thousands of years.

Researchers extract an ice core from Ong Valley, Antarctica

Environment

World's oldest ice core could stretch back 5 million years

One of the best ways to analyze Earth's past climate is with samples drilled from deep ice cores. Now, scientists have dated what may be the world’s oldest ice core, with some sections potentially preserving samples as old as 5 million years.

Archeologists have discovered fossilized human footprints that may represent the oldest unambiguous evidence of human settlement in North America

Science

Fossil footprints mark earliest clear evidence of humans in North America

Exactly when humans first set foot in North America remains a mystery, but archeologists have now uncovered the oldest unambiguous evidence. Human footprints have been found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, dated to about 22,000 years ago.

A new DNA discovery reveals a previously unknown lineage of mammoth

Science

Million-year-old mammoth DNA smashes record for world’s oldest

A new study published in the journal Nature is describing the extraction and sequencing of the oldest known sample of DNA. The sample comes from an ancient species of mammoth found in the Siberian permafrost and dates back nearly 1.2 million years.

Dated more than 45,000 years ago, this cave painting found in Indonesia is the oldest known artwork depicting a reco

Science

World's oldest known figurative artwork found in Indonesian cave

Archaeologists have discovered what they claim to be the oldest example of figurative art made by human hands. An ochre painting of pigs, found on a cave wall in Indonesia, has been dated to be at least 45,500 years old.

The shipwreck is located at a depth of over 2 km (1.2 miles)

Science

Ancient Greek vessel found in Black Sea is world's oldest intact shipwreck

For three years, an international team of scientists surveyed the floor of the Black Sea, off the coast of Bulgaria. Now, radiocarbon tests have confirmed that the remains of an ancient ship discovered last year date from 400BC, officially making it the world's oldest known intact shipwreck.

A diagram showing how the pits are aligned and how they track the phases of the moon

Science

World's oldest calendar uncovered in a Scottish field

A crude but working calendar found in Warren Field, Scotland, is turning back time. Scientists believe the calendar was created by hunter gatherers around 8,000 BC, making it the world's oldest calendar discovered to date by a significant margin.