In the German state of Brandenburg, barely a hundred meters (about 330 feet) from the border with Saxony-Anhalt, the Havel River curls around a low rise of land that locals call the Pilatsch. For generations, a local legend held that a knight named Pilatus lived there, ambushing boats on the river and locking captured boatmen […]

One grape variety still grown in Spanish vineyards, hebén, has never gone out of cultivation for at least the last 1,100 years, according to the new study. That takes its lineage back to roughly the year 929, around when the Caliphate of Córdoba was proclaimed in southern Spain. Eleven centuries of unbroken agriculture, and the […]

A team led by the National Museum of Denmark has worked out, for the first time, what people actually cooked in the pots of Hama, an ancient city in western Syria, roughly 4,500 years ago. By analyzing animal bones, plant remains, and fat residues absorbed into the vessel walls, the researchers found a surprisingly varied […]