A new study uses genome analysis to show the decline, not erasure, of the ancient Maya civilization. Researchers compared the genomes of seven skeletons to previously sequenced sets from across ...

For the most part, history is more complicated and more nuanced than we give it credit for. Hindsight serves to soften and streamline the narrative. Understanding contemporary motivations requires a ...

Climate change, invasions, and economic decline contributed to the collapse of Mediterranean Bronze Age civilizations.

As modern civilization’s shelf life expires, more scholars have turned their attention to the decline and fall of civilizations past. Their studies have generated rival explanations of why societies ...

CAHOKIA MOUNDS, Illinois — I am standing atop a 100-foot-high temple mound, the largest known earthwork in the Americas built by prehistoric peoples. The temperatures, in the high 80s, along with the ...

As I sit here in my den, not wearing pajamas but leisure shorts and a bright red T-shirt instead, I’m thinking it’s time for a hot cup of java, most likely a cup of Eight O’clock, in memory of my ...

As ancient civilizations across the Middle East collapsed, possibly in response to a global drought about 4,200 years ago, archaeologists have discovered that one settlement in Syria not only survived ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: A new study uses genome analysis to show the decline, not erasure, of the ancient Maya civilization. Researchers compared the genomes of seven ...