Blog Articles

By: Greg Schmalzel

These two artifacts are separated by thousands of miles. And yet, they look almost identical. One comes from the United States, where it’s tied to some of the earliest people in th...

By: Greg Schmalzel

250 million years ago, there was no Atlantic Ocean. If you were standing in New Jersey… you could walk right to Northwestern Africa, probably Morocco. There were no waves or coastl...

By: Greg Schmalzel

Why were the people of the past drawn to some of the most remote corners of the Earth? Beyond the edge of our modern neighborhoods and civil borders, there are places so far remove...

By: Greg Schmalzel

The sharpest weapons in human history probably aren’t what you think. They weren’t made of iron or steel, and they definitely weren't made of copper or bronze. In fact, they weren’...

By: Greg Schmalzel

We’ve been told a simple story about how humans evolved. As Africa dried out over millions of years, forests disappeared, grasslands spread, and our ancestors stood up to survive o...

By: Greg Schmalzel

For most of human history, the Americas were the last great unknown. Our species spread across Africa, Europe, Asia, and even reached Australia tens of thousands of years before we...

By: Greg Schmalzel

Lions dominate Africa. Polar bears dominate the Arctic. But humans dominate everywhere. Why? We don’t have claws, fur, or any kind of natural armor.  We’re actually a pretty fragil...

By: Greg Schmalzel

If you zoom out far enough, human history disappears. For most of Earth’s existence, there were no people, no plants, no animals - just stone, water, chemistry, and time. Life spen...

By: Greg Schmalzel

What was life like in the Americas thousands of years ago? Put simply, it would be almost unrecognizable. There were no cities, roads, or even farms. No border separated North from...

By: Greg Schmalzel

Throughout all of human history, civilizations have come and gone. Around the globe, human societies have come terrifyingly close to disappearing entirely. Imagine cities going sil...

By: Greg Schmalzel

The oldest evidence of life on earth comes from a rock in Australia. It’s called North Pole Chert. It’s about 3.5 billion years old and the fossils inside it are so small, you need...

By: Greg Schmalzel

Most of western society has been built around the architecture of the Greeks and the Romans. Despite the beauty and grandeur of these ancient structures, there are much older build...