At the narrowest point of the Karmsundet, the channel that separates the island of Karmøy from the mainland on Norway’s west coast, five stones stand upright on a hillside. Some are more than five metres (16 ft) tall. They were raised inside a cairn, a mound of piled stones, laid out in the shape of […]

In 2006, the Carabinieri, Italy’s national military police, raised the alarm about illegal digging in a forest of oaks and chestnuts near Vetralla, in the province of Viterbo, north of Rome. The Soprintendenza, the state body in charge of archaeology in the region, sent a team to the site for an emergency excavation in May […]

If matter and antimatter had come out of the Big Bang in equal amounts, there would be no stars today. Every particle has an antimatter twin with the opposite electric charge, and when the two meet, both vanish in a burst of energy. A perfect balance would have left a universe of pure light, with […]

They had crossed most of Persia, climbed snowbound mountains and fought tribes that hurled stones at them from the cliffs. What left them most exposed, only a few days from the sea, was a honeycomb. There was no ambush and no enemy army, just a handful of beehives, some hungry soldiers and a flowering plant […]