Mental Floss

STONES, BONES, AND WRECKS

Steve Dockrill

Thousand-Year-Old Anvil Still Has the Smith’s Handprints on It

And knee prints, too.

Romano D’Agostini, Giorgio Cargnel, Soprintendenza Speciale di Roma

Utility Workers May Have Found One of Rome’s First Churches

They were doing routine work on a bridge.

Alexis Pantos, University of Copenhagen

Scientists Just Found the Oldest Known Piece of Bread

It's a little like a pita, but grittier.

iStock

Drought Reveals Ancient Sites in Scotland That Can Only Be Spotted From the Air

Surveyors are taking advantage of the uncharacteristic weather.

iStock

New Website Lets You Sift Through More Than 700,000 Items Found in Amsterdam's Canals

The discoveries came from the construction of the city's new metro line.

A 2016 reconstruction of Pӧmmelte, a henge-like structure in eastern Germany that was originally constructed about 4300 years ago.

Human Sacrifice May Have Taken Place at the 'German Stonehenge'

Researchers found the dismembered bodies of 10 women and children who appeared to have been thrown into burial shafts.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Archaeologists Excavate the Field Where Woodstock Was Held

They found a lot of beer can pull tabs.

Blue Water Ventures International

Gold Artifacts Discovered in 19th-Century Shipwreck That Was the ‘Titanic of Its Time’

The wreckage of the <em>Pulaski</em> was lost for almost 180 years.

Evening Standard, Getty Images

$2.5 Million in World War II-Era Cash Discovered Beneath Winston Churchill's Former Tailor's Shop

The hoard would have been worth a fortune in the 1940s.

Jonathan Daniel, Getty Images

A World War II Bomber Lost with 11 Servicemembers Has Been Found After 74 Years

Project Recover tracked down aircraft in a bay near Papua New Guinea.

Take a Closer Look at the $17 Billion 'Holy Grail of Shipwrecks'

When it sank on June 8, 1708, it was carrying gold, silver, jewels, and other precious cargo.

iStock

Researchers Accidentally Discover 128-Year-Old Shipwreck

And they captured it on video.

iStock

6 Priceless Treasures Lost in Shipwrecks

A modernist novel, pioneering scientific work, and an irreplaceable Dickens.

Peter Pfälzner, University of Tübingen

Archaeologists Finally Identify a 4000-Year-Old Lost City in Iraq

A team had been excavating the site for years before figuring out what it was.

Ben Curtis, AFP/Getty Images

King Tut's Tomb Doesn't Contain Hidden Rooms After All

It was once believed that his stepmother Queen Nefertiti may be hidden away at the same site.

iStock

Apply Now to Join an Archaeological Dig at Colorado's Magic Mountain

Applications close today.

Alex McCelland, Bournemouth University

Fossilized Footprints Show Ice Age Hunters Ganged Up on Giant Sloths

Sloths—those symbols of loafers and loungers everywhere—weren't always so cute and cuddly.

C. Fritz/MC

Ice Age Artists Used Charcoal Over 10,000 Years to Create Europe's Oldest Cave Paintings

Researchers now have a better understanding of how these paintings were created some 35,000 years ago.

iStock

Researchers Uncover What's Believed to Be the Oldest Shipwreck in Lake Erie

The <em>Lake Serpent</em> set sail in 1829 and was never seen again. Now researchers believe they've finally found it. 

Scientific Reports, Fernando Ramirez Rozzi

Humans Might Have Practiced Brain Surgery on Cows 5000 Years Ago

The practice of drilling holes into skulls goes back millennia.

Stefan Sauer, AFP/Getty Images

13-Year-Old Amateur Archaeologist Discovers the Buried Treasure of a Danish King

The oldest coin dates back to 714 CE.

Aaron Deter-Wolf and the Tennessee Division of Archaeology

This May Be the Oldest Tattoo Kit in the World

It was unearthed more than 30 years ago, but archaeologists have only just realized what it is.

Ian Cartwright

An 88,000-Year-Old Middle Finger May Change What We Know About Human Migration

Humans may have left Africa sooner than we thought.

A Neanderthal skull

Scientists May Have Finally Figured Out Why We Have Eyebrows

A new study suggests their evolution helped us develop our social skills.