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The smallest remnants of the past can provide windows into otherwise mysterious lifestyles.
Eye needles made of bone, antler and ivory appear in the fossil record around 40,000 years ago in southern Siberia. The needles made sewing work more efficient and allowed for warm, fitted clothing in a frigid environment.
But researchers think the innovation is the beginning of another chapter in human history: fashion and self-expression.
Fast forward to seventh century East Anglia in the United Kingdom, where an Anglo-Saxon war king was placed alongside exquisite wares inside a giant ship. The wood of the vessel, at the famous site known as Sutton Hoo, is rotten, but iron rivets and impressions within the soft dirt show its span.
Researchers hope to recreate the ship — and it’s not the only vessel to find new life centuries after its disappearance.
Back to the future
Using a supply list written on a clay tablet, a team of experts in the United Arab Emirates has recreated a Bronze Age ship.
Shipwrights built the 59ft (18m) Magan boat with hand tools using reeds, goat hair and animal fat.
The vessel was probably once ferrying copper, textiles and semi-precious stones between societies living in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.
The ship was successfully launched on a crew cruise before the Persian Gulf in March and will form part of a maritime history exhibition at the Zayed Grand Museum in Abu Dhabi.
We are a family
Analysis of ancient DNA collected from grave sites in Sweden and Denmark suggests that an ancient form of the plague may have been the root cause of the mysterious population collapse.
Europe’s first farmers migrated from the Eastern Mediterranean about 6,500 years ago, replacing hunter-gatherer groups and introducing a more settled, agricultural lifestyle. But the population declined between 5,300 and 4,900 years ago.
Researchers have found plague-causing bacteria in remains across nine grave sites, and the careful burials suggest the team has discovered the origins of an epidemic.
Separately, archaeologists working in Peru discovered a 4,000-year-old temple and theater, thousands of years older than Machu Picchu, which provide insight into the region’s complex religions.
Wild kingdom
Jacob, the African lion, has faced many challenges during his ten years in Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park.
He was beaten by buffalo, caught in a poacher’s trap and then lost a leg to a steel trap. Remarkably, he made the longest documented swim by a lion through crocodile infested waters.
Thermal imaging cameras captured a treacherous nighttime swim of nearly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) by Jacob and his brother, Tibu, in February.
Scientists believe that the brothers were searching for lions after losing fights with male rivals in the hours before the swim – and trying to avoid the people shrinking their natural habitat.
Defying gravity
The Boeing Starliner spacecraft has been docked with the International Space Station for over a month.
Although astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams exceeded their expected eight-day stay aboard the orbiting laboratory, they remain “absolutely confident” in Starliner’s ability to get them home, according to Wilmore.
Meanwhile, the duo is helping with science experiments and maintenance tasks, while NASA and Boeing engineers conduct tests to see what caused the Starliner’s thruster issues and helium leaks.
Separately, the European Space Agency took the wraps off its long-awaited new rocket, named Ariane 6.
Once upon a planet
A piece of 52,000-year-old woolly mammal skin has been so well preserved by the freezing temperatures of the Siberian bubonic plague that it contains a first-of-its-kind genetic cache.
Within the skin are millions of letters of genetic code contained in fossil chromosomes, or microscopic thread-like structures that carry DNA.
Due to the genetic fragments, which largely retain the structure they had when the mammal was alive, it will be possible to provide new insights into the extinct species.
Meanwhile, prehistoric volcanic eruptions have helped preserve some of the most complete specimens of bug-like sea creatures known as trilobites, whose fossils include unprecedented anatomical detail.
Inquiries
Enrich your mind with these amazing discoveries:
— The James Webb Space Telescope captured a stunning new image of the Penguin and Egg galaxies, which have been locked in a cosmic dance for millions of years.
— Astronomers have detected a molecule on a glass-raining exoplanet never seen outside our solar system before — and the planet’s atmosphere has the stench of rotten eggs.
— The most complete dinosaur skeleton found in the UK for more than a century has revealed a previously unknown species of plant-eating dinosaur that may have roamed in large herds.
— Scientists have spotted a bright blue tree frog for the first time in Western Australia that looks like it jumped straight out of the “Avatar” movies.
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