Archaeology

By Jane McMahon, University of Sydney | – (The Conversation) – To date, little has been known about people living in north-western Saudi Arabia during the Neolithic – the period traditionally defined by the shift to humans controlling food production and settling into communities with agriculture and domesticated animals. The piecemeal evidence available hinted traditional […]

Archaeology

Gaza’s Oldest Mosque, Destroyed in Israeli Airstrike, was once a Pagan Temple, a Church and had Jewish Engravings

The Conversation

Stephennie Mulder, The University of Texas at Austin The Omari Mosque in Gaza was largely destroyed by Israeli bombardment on Dec. 8, 2023. It was one of the most ancient mosques in the region and a beloved Gazan landmark. The mosque was first built in the early seventh century and named after Islam’s second caliph, […]

Archaeology

The History of Gaza: On Conquerors, Resurgence and Rebirth

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – Those unfamiliar with Gaza and its history are likely to always associate Gaza with destruction, rubble and Israeli genocide. And they can hardly be blamed. On 3 November, the UN Development Programme and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) announced that 45 per cent of […]

Archaeology

In another Blow to European White Nationalism, Ancient Iceman Ötzi was a Brown-Skinned Anatolian

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Some 5,000 years ago, a Tyrolean farmer was walking along minding his own business when an enemy put an arrow into his back, so that he fell into a glacier. He stayed there until 1991, when global heating revealed his frozen mummy to some hikers. What could be more echt […]

Archaeology

Dismantling the Myth that Ancient Slavery “Wasn’t that Bad”

The Conversation

By Chance Bonar, Tufts University | – As someone who researches slavery in the ancient Mediterranean world, especially in the Bible, I often hear remarks like, “Slavery was totally different back then, right?” “Well, it couldn’t have been that bad.” “Couldn’t slaves buy their freedom?” Most people in the United States or Europe in the […]

Africa

Dear Ron DeSantis: Consider all the Valuable Skills the Enslaved Taught Cracker Slave-Holders (For Which they were never Paid)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The new Florida history curriculum on slavery says that some enslaved persons learned skills while enslaved that later benefited them, provoking shock and outrage across the nation. One of the things that is wrong with this way of looking at the issue is the white nationalist assumption that white slavers […]

Archaeology

416,000 Years Ago, All Greenland’s Ice Melted and Raised Sea Levels 5-20 Feet: A Warning from the Past

The Conversation

By Paul Bierman, University of Vermont, and Tammy Rittenour, Utah State University | – About 400,000 years ago, large parts of Greenland were ice-free. Scrubby tundra basked in the Sun’s rays on the island’s northwest highlands. Evidence suggests that a forest of spruce trees, buzzing with insects, covered the southern part of Greenland. Global sea […]

Archaeology

Egypt in uproar over Netflix’s “Black” Cleopatra, but Race is the Wrong Lens Anyway

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor ( Mustafa Amin at the Akhbar al-Yawm [News Today] reviews the controversy in Egypt over Jada Pinkett Smith’s African Queens series of documentaries on Netflix. The first installment focused on Njinga, ruler of an early modern West African kingdom in what is now northern Angola. The second treats Cleopatra, and the trailer insists […]

Africa

DNA Study Sheds Light on Arab Expansion in Africa, Axum and other Empires

The Conversation

By Nancy Bird, UCL | – Pre-colonial African history is alive with tales of civilisations rising and falling and of different cultures intermingling across the continent. We have now shed more light on some of these societies using the science of genetics. In a study published in Science Advances, my co-authors and I used DNA […]