Was Mating With Neanderthals Good For Human Health?

It's an argument that's been going on for years. Did humans intermingle with Neanderthals? Is there really any evidence to suggest this? Peter Parham, professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford, seems to think so.



Peter Parham recently presented evidence to the Royal Society in London that Europeans gained many of the genes for human leukocyte antigens (HLAs) from neanderthals. Comparisons of the human and Neanderthal genomes were conducted by Parham to locate similarities and differences in the DNA of modern human populations and Neanderthals.

Read the Story: Mating with Neanderthals Good for Human Health @ Discovery News

Breaking Archaeology News on Discovery: Ancient Egyptian Town Found Using Radar

Radar imaging in Egypt's Nile Delta has unveiled the outlines of a buried city that was the stronghold of foreign occupiers some 3,500 years ago, Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Monday.

Discovered by a team of Austrian archaeologists in Tell el-Daba in the northeastern Nile Delta, the ruins belong to the southern suburban quarters of Avaris, the capital of the Hyksos kings who formed Egypt's 15th dynasty.


Known as the “rulers of foreign countries” (probably of Asiatic roots),  the Hyksos infiltrated Egypt and came to dominate the Nile valley for over a century during the Second Intermediate Period (1664-1569 B.C.).

Read More about the Ancient Egyptian Town Found Using Radar@ Discovery Archaeology

Discovery News: Ancient Weapons Emerge from The Ice

Ironically, weapons have been the topic of conversation on Ancient Digger this week, so I was thrilled to see that more ancient weapons have been revealed. As the ice patches melt away in Canada's Mackenzie Mountains, history is revealed in the form of 2400 year old ancient weapons.

The weapons, which include a 2,400-year-old spear throwing tools, a 1,000-year-old ground squirrel snare, and bows and arrows dating back 850 years, have been found high in the remote Mackenzie Mountains, a region where Mountain Boreal caribou abound in the summer months.

"Following that discovery,  we recovered more than 200 ancient hunting artifacts, with the oldest dating back more than 9,000 years," Greg Hare, the Yukon archaeologist who analyzed the original discovery, told Discovery News.

Read more on Discovery about the Ancient Weapons found in the Arctic

This Day in History: Final Launch of the Space Shuttle Atlantis

The Last Mission of Atlantis

Pictures taken from the deck of Aunt Catfish in Daytona Beach

Space shuttle Atlantis is embarking on its final planned mission. During the 12-day flight, Atlantis and six astronauts will fly to the International Space Station, leaving behind a Russian Mini Research Module, a set of batteries for the station's truss and dish antenna, along with other replacement parts.

Oldest Man-Made Structure Discovered in Greek Cave near Kalambaka

The structure is a stone wall that blocked two-thirds of the entrance to the Theopetra cave near Kalambaka on the north edge of the Thessalian plain. It was constructed 23,000 years ago, probably as a barrier to cold winds.

“An optical dating test, known as Optically Stimulated Luminescence, was applied on quartz grains nested within the stones. We dated four different samples from the sediment and soil materials, and all provided identical dates,” Nikolaos Zacharias, director of the laboratory of archaeometry at the University of Peloponnese, told Discovery News.

Read the entire story of the oldest man-made structure discovered on Discovery News

Prince's Palace Found in Volcanic Crater

The palace was discovered on the site of the ancient acropolis of Gabii, where, according to legend, Rome's mythical founders, Romulus and Remus, were educated. The building dates to the sixth century B.C and boasts the highest intact walls from the period ever found in Italy, standing at around 6.56 feet high.

"The dig has shown that the richly decorated monumental roof was dismantled, and the building filled with rubble. This has been a blessing, since it has allowed the palace to remain virtually intact," archaeologist Marco Fabbri of Rome's Tor Vergata University, told Discovery News.

Read the entire story at Discovery News

The Nazi Gold Hoard

In 1949, General Patten's army was closing in on Berlin. On April 8th, members of the 282nd Combat Engineer Battalion blasted into a mysterious room in Merkers Mine. They discovered gold stacked knee high, personal possessions, suitcases with metal, a Renoir painting, Rafael, Rembrandt, and many more finds.



Olly Seeds takes viewers into the the Merkers Mine where over $500 million dollars worth of art, gold, gold teeth from war victims, and several other archaeological pieces were found. Today, the Nazi hoard would be valued at over $50 billion dollars.

Check out the video featured on Discovery Channel about the Nazi Hoard at Merkers Mine.

Discovery News: King Tut's DNA Revealed

On February 17th, the results of King Tut's DNA will be revealed by noted Archaeologist, Zahi Hawass, chief of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities. The DNA will be tested against several hundred mummies in order to test the theory that Amenhotep III was his father.

The long awaited announcement will be "about the secrets of the family and the affiliation of Tutankhamun, based on the results of the scientific examination of the Tutankhamun mummy following DNA analysis," Hawass said in a statement. Read more about the DNA results of King Tut at Discovery News By Rossella Lorenzi

What's New On Discovery: Bones of Early English Princess Found in Germany

Archaeologists may have found the 1000 year old remains of Princess Eadgyth, daughter of Alfred the Great, referred to throughout history as the "Princess Diana" of her time.

If the remains are positively identified as hers, her remains will be the oldest discovery of an English Royal. It's an exciting discovery, as many of them are, however the location in which she was found,Magdeburg-Cathedral,was thought to be empty. Read more about Princess Eadgyth from my friends over at Discovery

This is what Cambridge Professor Simon Keynes had to say:

"If (Eadgyth's) skeleton is intact then, yes, as far as I'm aware, it would be the earliest identifiable remains from Anglo-Saxon England," said Simon Keynes, a professor of Anglo-Saxon history at the University of Cambridge.

A Section of Isis Temple Found Dating Back to Cleopatra

The most recent and interesting news on Discovery is this pylon of the Isis Temple, a palace complex of Cleopatra. The piece was found in the waters of the Mediterranean on Thursday by archaeologists.

The pylon was part of a sprawling palace from which the Ptolemaic dynasty ruled Egypt and where 1st Century B.C. Queen Cleopatra wooed the Roman general Marc Antony before they both committed suicide after their defeat by Augustus Caesar.

The temple dedicated to Isis, a pharaonic goddess of fertility and magic, is at least 2,050 years old, but archaeologists believe it's likely much older. The pylon was cut from a single slab of red granite quarried in Aswan, some 700 miles (more than 1,100 kilometers) to the south, officials said.

Read the entire story and see a photograph of the pylon dating back to Cleopatra on Discovery News