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Ancient Scandinavians likely used animal skin boats to hunt and trade, study finds

Ancient people were one of Scandinavia’s first seafaring societies, study says

The Independent UK · Sep 20, 2024

Gen Z’s language might seem incomprehensible but slang has always sounded that way – just look at these five Victorian sayings

All Gen Z slang might sound like “skibidi” to older generations, but every era has had its own confusing slang. For every “gyatt” today (originally a variation of “god damn”, now referring to a curvy woman) there was a “dog my cats” or “od’s fish” in the Victorian era (both…

The Conversation · Sep 19, 2024

Gangs’stories: From the streets of Dhaka to human-rights advocacy in Bangladesh

For the past five years, the GANGS project, a European Research Council-funded project led by Dennis Rodgers, has been studying global gang dynamics in a comparative perspective. When understood in a nuanced manner that goes beyond the usual stereotypes and Manichean representations, gangs and gangsters arguably constitute fundamental lenses through…

The Conversation · Sep 18, 2024

A city at the crossroads: how Gaza became one of the great intellectual hubs of the Roman Empire

The years 2023 and 2024 will certainly be remembered as some of the darkest in the long and often violent history of Gaza.

The Conversation · Aug 19, 2024

Ancient Rome had ways to counter the urban heat island effect – how history’s lessons apply to cities today

As intense heat breaks records around the world, a little-reported fact offers some hope for cooling down cities: Under even the most intense periods of extreme heat, some city blocks never experience heat wave temperatures.

The Conversation · Aug 19, 2024

Aristotle, Aelian and the giant octopus: the earliest ‘citizen science’ goes back more than 2,000 years

If we want to research a subject, how do we do it? We could read about it in books or do experiments in a lab. Or another way is to find people who know something about it and ask them.

The Conversation · Aug 16, 2024

‘You can’t murder a people and walk away scot-free.’ In The Voyage Home, Pat Barker explores morality in war

The first volume of Pat Barker’s trilogy of the Trojan conflict starts with an epigraph taken from Philip Roth’s The Human Stain: “All of European literature springs from a fight”.

The Conversation · Aug 13, 2024

Joanna Murray-Smith’s new adaptation of Uncle Vanya reminds us Chekhov’s play is both timeless and timely

Virginia Woolf always maintained that, of all of the great writers, the British novelist Jane Austen “is the most difficult to catch in the act of greatness”.

The Conversation · Aug 2, 2024

‘Fanatical colonialist’: The uneasy legacy of the French founder of modern Olympics

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the controversial French founder of the modern Olympics, is proving to be a divisive figure for organisers of the Paris Games. Yet while some deplore his sexist and colonialist remarks, others have praised his dedication to using sport to promote peace, viewing him as a visionary…

France 24 · Jul 18, 2024

Guide to the classics: On The Art of Physical Exercise, a 16th century account of ancient sports and workouts

According to the World Obesity Atlas, 42% of the global population will be overweight or obese in 2025. Lack of physical activity is one of the primary causes. Experts regard this as a serious health problem and in Greco-Roman times, too, doctors thought being overweight was bad for one’s health.

The Conversation · Jul 16, 2024