Early Indian architecture: Rock-cut temples at Ajanta, India The Stone Age and the Bronze Age The earliest buildings anyone knows of from India are from Mehrgahr, from about 7000 BC. But the [...]
The Greek god Hephaistos' forge is a volcano. What is Hephaistos god of? The Greek god Hephaistos (heh-FAIS-toss) is the blacksmith god, the god of volcanoes and hot fires and smelting metal ore [...]
Submycenaean octopus jar from Dark Age Greece Dark Age isolation and poverty After most of the Mycenaean palaces were destroyed around 1200 BC, nobody rebuilt them. The only palace we [...]
Ancient Greek climate: The island of Rhodes Good fishing Fishing was very important to early Stone Age people, and fishing is probably what brought the first people to [...]
Archaic Greek economy: A black-figure vase showing a blacksmith at work (Athens, about 550 BC) Not much trade in the Dark Ages During the political collapse of the Greek Dark [...]
Exekias: Dionysos turning a ship into vines (Athens, ca. 530 BC) When your pot is dry, you fire it in a kiln. First you give it a lot of air, [...]
Earliest science in Europe A Neanderthal stone awl - early European inventions For a long time, northern Europe was a scientific backwater: new ideas came from other places to northern [...]
Climate change: Hunters, bison and aurochs Cave painting from Lascaux, ca. 15,000 BC Climate change and human evolution Climate change encouraged the evolution of the first humans, who probably evolved [...]
Charcoal history Why use charcoal? Charcoal is a certain kind of half-burnt wood. People use charcoal for fires because it burns hotter and cleaner than wood (less smoky), and more [...]
Ancient Egyptian cattle plowing, ca. 1300 BC (Louvre Museum, Paris) What does plowing do? If you are going to plant seeds, like wheat seeds for example, and harvest them, then [...]
