archaeology
Found: Fire-Shaped Wooden Tools Used by Neanderthals
It's rare that wood survives for 170,000 years.
Articles by Vittoria Traverso
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Stories
Stories shared by this traveler.
culture
Found: An Unknown Language Spoken in a Single Malaysian Village
It has no words for ownership and lots of ways to talk about sharing.
space exploration
Found: First Evidence of Planets Outside the Milky Way
3.8 billion light-years is really, really far away.
bones
Found: A Spiral Mass Grave in Mexico City
Evidence of an elaborate ritual 2,400 years ago.
fossils
Found: A Fossilized Fish in a Monastery Flagstone
A 10-year-old boy on a tour spotted the fossil and reported it to a local museum.
forests
Up Close With the First and Only Millipede Lab in the United States
They got legs, and they know how to use them.
medieval
Found: A Medieval Knife That Was Used Like an Eraser
It was probably some scribe's best friend.
underwater
Found: A Hammerhead Shark Nursery
Another natural wonder in the Galápagos Islands.
art
Found: A Mesolithic Crayon
Ochre red was a popular color choice in prehistoric England.
medieval
Found: An 800-Year-Old Chess Piece
A medieval knight from Norway with Islamic-inspired patterns.
animals
Found: Evidence That Archaeopteryx Evolved Like Darwin's Finches
When southern Germany was an archipelago, these bird-like dinos may have specialized by island.
music
The Deep Roots of an Italian Song That Sounds Like English—But Is Just Nonsense
In 1972, fascination with American culture spurred an Italian showman to revive a medieval comic tradition.
coral reefs
Found: A New Population of One of the World's Rarest Fish
Citizen science helps double the known population of red handfish.
architecture
Found: A Spiraling Bees' Nest
And they're stingless!
hunting
Found: A Rare, 1,000-Year-Old Copper Arrowhead
It is one of the earliest examples of copper metallurgy ever found in Yukon.
deserts
Found: New Hope for an Endangered Desert Flower
Scientists and volunteers spent more than 100 hours scouring the Australian outback for the rare daisy.
animals
Found: Two New Species of Dog-Faced Bats
No, they won't make good pets.
sailors
The Little-Known History of Seafaring Pets
From war to exploration to pleasure cruising, pets have often accompanied us on the oceans.
animals
Found: Fluorescent Patterns on Chameleons' Heads
A rare example of biofluorescence that isn't in the ocean.
paintings
Found: Two New Drawings by Vincent van Gogh
Sketches of Montmartre by the elusive Dutch Postimpressionist.
vikings
Found: A Viking Comb That Says 'Comb'
It is helping researchers understand runic inscriptions, so maybe we should all start labeling our stuff.
medieval
Found: Evidence of a Long-Lost Scottish Monastery
Archaeologists may have found where one of the country's oldest manuscripts was written.
animals
Found: A Giant Extinct Burrowing Bat
It used to scurry about on all fours on New Zealand's forest floor.
animals
Found: The First Known Hybrid Bird Species in the Amazon Rain Forest
Resistance to crossing rivers gave it the space to evolve into something new.
