Investigations & syntheses
Long-form, documented and sourced articles connecting discoveries and telling the great transformations of humankind.
The Algerian plateau of Tassili n'Ajjer houses 15,000 rock works documenting 10,000 years of history -- from the giant buffalo of the humid period to the desert's dromedaries. A unique testimony to the Sahara when it was green.
Read more →Some 3,000 years ago, an unknown Bronze Age civilization buried masks with protruding eyes, bronze trees, and colossal statues in sacrificial pits in Sichuan. The rediscovery of Sanxingdui rewrote the history of ancient China.
Read more →Between 500 BCE and 700 CE, Zapotec civilization built Monte Albán on a promontory overlooking the Oaxaca valley. First Mesoamerican city, first writing system of the Americas, first organized astronomy.
Read more →For 14,000 years, Jomon culture peopled the Japanese islands, inventing the world's oldest pottery and developing complex societies without intensive agriculture. A genetic and artistic legacy still visible today.
Read more →Between 2600 and 1900 BCE, a sophisticated urban civilization flourished in the Indus basin. Planned cities, sewage networks, undeciphered script: the Harappan civilization remains a fascinating enigma.
Read more →Some 3,500 years ago, seafarers carrying a distinctive geometric pottery set out to conquer the Pacific. Ancestors of Polynesians, the Lapita were among prehistory's greatest explorers.
Read more →Before the Maya and the Aztecs, the Olmecs established the first great Mesoamerican civilization between 1500 and 400 BCE, leaving behind colossal heads, sacred jade, and a lasting legacy.
Read more →9,500 years ago in Anatolia, thousands of people lived packed into rooftop-access houses, buried their dead beneath the floors and decorated their walls with aurochs skulls and hunting scenes. Catalhoyuk is humanity's first great urban experiment.
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