Early xebec ships were outfitted with just two masts, but as the design progressed, xebecs became more easily recognized by their standard three-mast structure. The ships were long, designed for speed, with an overhanging, long bowsprit.

The types of sails used depended on the period of use. While traditionally the ships used lateen sails, later xebec designs included square sails on the foremast and lateen sails on the other, also known as a polacre-xebec.

As for the Mediterranean corsairs, they made their own adjustments to the ships, to better outfit them for plundering ships and seizing merchandise from other xebecs! Instead of relying simply on sails, these xebecs were outfitted with oars or sweeps, allowing the ships to come alongside other vessels in calm waters. The corsair xebecs, regardless of their narrow floor plan, would also carry 300-400 men, as well as nearly 30 guns in a range of sizes.

Though in early days they were referred to as a “throwback” to galley ships, xebecs could certainly hold their own, and lasted for several centuries as the ship of choice for traders and plundering corsairs alike!

As daunting as the task sounds, this discovery in Handan, China, is so exciting that doubtless the archaeological team from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences doesn’t mind one bit. The discovery of the Buddha statues is thought to be the largest since 1949, when the People’s Republic of China was founded.

While many of the statues are broken, the majority are made from limestone and white marble, range from eight inches to several feet long, and are believed to be around 1,500 years old, dating back to 534-577 A.D. (Northern Qi / Eastern Wei Dynasties). They were found outside of the ancient capital city Ye, and one early theory is that the statues were buried after the fall of the Northern Qi dynasty, during a period where the rulers attempted to purge Buddhism from the country.

But rough treatment of Buddhist art wasn’t completely typical of the period, as other sites appear to contain respectful statue burials. Katherine Tsiang, director of the Center for the Art of East Asia (University of Chicago), commented that “it may have been that some of the ruins and broken sculptures from the past were gathered from old temple sites and buried in a pit… in other sites, there are inscriptions that suggest that old damaged sculptures were not just dumped in a pit, but respectfully buried in an orderly way.”

Oh my, the shock!

No, in fact, the term kordax refers to something completely different… something which may make you look a little differently upon Aquaman’s ancestor the next time you pick up a copy of The Atlantis Chronicles.

The kordax, in Ancient Greek history, was a dance performed by men during comedic plays, such as those written by playwright Aristophanes.

The dance itself was… less of a piece of “choreographed movement” than other Greek dances performed by choruses. Those other dances were taught to young soldiers as part of their military training in formation and strategic movement. The kordax? Well, it was more like… drunken frat party carousing.

Scholars have referred to the kordax as “lascivious”, “vulgar”, “obscene”, and “lewd”. There is some debate over whether the dance had received this kind of connotation during the 6th-century when it was performed, or whether that’s a more recent development. Either way, the depictions of the dance on Ancient Greek vases show men with certain “enhancements” in “unique” poses (Scribe’s note: We’re trying to keep this family friendly, here…) that are believed to be artistic depictions of the men in costume and performing the kordax.

There are also some who believe the kordax was a masked solo performance, which makes it very unlike the large-group chorus dances performed during tragedies and other plays. From what scholars can interpret based on artistic and written information, it was a vigorous, acrobatic dance that relied mostly on leg movements, with padding placed around the belly and buttocks (ie. the “enhancements” previously mentioned…).

It’s thought to have originated as a fertility dance, which makes an odd sort of sense, considering the ties of comedy to Dionysus, drinking, and grapes (which were all symbolic of fertility in one way or another).

And while we don’t have Ancient Greek YouTube videos to show us exactly how the dance was done, at least we have DC Comics, who likely didn’t expect anyone to put the originally meaning of “kordax” together with their character’s name… talk about an awkward moment, hmm?

…and as the men sweep through villages and plunder women and livestock, another invader quietly slips down the ropes of the docked ship, or hides in sacks and crates until reaching the shore, where they creep off into dark corners or small holes, infiltrating the land in a way only they know how.

Ah, yes. Rodents. Mice, in particular. Perhaps the cleverest of invaders, or we might say in this case, colonizers. The mice didn’t just arrive with the Vikings to eat food and take over land, but rather, they looked around, thought the place seemed like a decent enough neighborhood to raise kids, and stuck around.

Between the late 8th and mid-10th centuries AD, Viking invaders took over land and settled their own people in many regions, including France, Scotland, England, Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, and Newfoundland. While house mice are known to have lived alongside humans from as early as 8,000 B.C. in the Ancient Near East, they evidently did more than that—they traveled and moved with humans at the same time.

To learn this, scientists compared the DNA of modern mice with that of mouse remains found on archaeological sites at these Viking-settled locations. It turns out that the mice hitched a ride on Viking ships from Norway or the northern British Isles (which were settled early by Vikings). DNA samples of ancient Viking house mice were found at nine sites in Iceland and several in Greenland, though surprisingly none seem to have made it over to Newfoundland.

It’s thought that the mice hid in hay bales and other crates of food supplies.

The study’s leader, Dr. Eleanor Jones (University of York and Uppsala University), says that "human settlement history over the last 1,000 years is reflected in the genetic sequence of mouse mitochondrial DNA. We can match the pattern of human populations to that of the house mice." In other words? House mice did just as much raping and plundering of the land as the Vikings did, “mirroring” their invasions!

However, the Viking mice in Greenland were eventually ousted by a Danish mouse species (brought by other human colonisers), and are now extinct.

As for the strange lack of Viking house mice in Newfoundland? Cornell University’s Professor Jeremy Searle postulates that the “absence of traces of ancestral DNA in modern mice can be just as important. We found no evidence of house mice from the Viking period in Newfoundland. If mice did arrive in Newfoundland, then like the Vikings, their presence was fleeting and we found no genetic evidence of it."

Makes you think twice about setting down that mouse trap, hmm?

Well, good news! Scientists have finally published their report on these giant “thinguins” that lived 25 million years ago (during the Oligocene period), based on a full skeletal reconstruction of the creature. The penguins are thought to have reached about 4.3 feet in height, which is just slightly taller than today’s tallest living emperor penguins (4 feet).

"It’s pretty exciting, we’ve got enough from three key specimens to get a pretty reliable construction of its body size," says University of Otago’s geology professor Ewan Fordyce. He and his team discovered the penguin bones 35 years ago, and recently teamed up with North Caroline State University research assistant professor Dan Ksepka to create the reconstruction.

While they used a king penguin to help build the ancient model, the main difference between ancient and modern penguins is in body composition—where today’s penguins tend to be a little more squat and round, these ancient flightless birds were much more streamlined. Their flippers were long and tapered, with narrow, spear-like beaks, and elongated midsections.

Based on the evidence, it appears that these giant New Zealand penguins lived alongside a number of other penguin species as well, some also giant and some with more familiar body types. Much like the species diversity seen today in the Falkland Islands, they were likely able to co-exist due to different food preferences (thus eliminating or reducing competition for resources).

During the Prehistoric period in New Zealand, the vast majority of what we see today was submerged, leaving only small pieces of land above the water’s surface. Similar to many modern species, this ancient habitat of shallow waves, plenty of food, and defensive positioning from predators would have been ideal for these giant creatures.

The team who worked on the reconstruction and research project has given this newfound ancient species the Maori name Kairuku waitaki / Kairuku grebneffi, where kairuku roughly translates as “diver who returns with food.”

Why did the species become extinct? Likely for the same reasons it happens to other species—more aggressive predators, evolving competition for resources from other creatures, or environmental change.

The full study on this remarkable ancient species will be published in this month’s Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology (March 2012).

This discovery from the Sibudu Cave site means the bedding is 50,000 years older than anything previously found at sites around the world. The compacted layers of bedding—accumulated over time during the site’s occupation—show that it was periodically burned, likely to prevent other pests and contamination from garbage or human excretions.

It’s also entirely possible that the insect-repelling plant layer represents the first known use of plants for medicinal purposes by early humans. The leaves of the tree species in the bedding, Cryptocarya woodii, excrete a chemical that repels insects.

Lyn Wadley, study leader from Johannesburg’s University of Witwatersrand, has said that “the mattresses would’ve been a very comfortable [and] long-lasting form of bedding. Hunter-gatherers tend to live with each other in kinship groups,” so it’s likely that the beds accommodated a whole family.

Although the ancient mattress layers only measured about 2 square meters (and 30cm high), it’s worth keeping in mind that ancient humans tended to be shorter and leaner than today’s average individual. Even if your family couldn’t fit on a space that small—and likely wouldn’t want to, considering the modern notion of “personal space” in Western society—that doesn’t mean humans who lived 77,000 years ago couldn’t sleep there or weren’t comfortable in such close quarters.

“The selection of these leaves for the construction of bedding suggests that the early inhabitants of Sibudu had an intimate knowledge of the plants surrounding the shelter, and were aware of their medicinal uses,” Wadley said. “Herbal medicines would have provided advantages for human health, and the use of insect-repelling plants adds a new dimension to our understanding of behavior 77,000 years ago.”

What were the rest of the mattress layers made of? Various collected grasses, sedges, and rushes… memory foam it wasn’t, but it sure beat sleeping on the cold ground!

Well, besides that.

How about the desire to save money? Or, to put it another way, to “get more stuff” for less cash?

In the 14th & 15th centuries, Medieval armies were looking for a way to supply weapons to their growing armies, but they needed a way to do it cheaply without compromising effectiveness in battle. The result? A new weapon commonly known as the halberd.

A halberd, also called a halbert or Swiss voulge, is a variety of “pole weapon” that requires two hands to wield. The blade of the weapon is mounted on a 5-6 foot shaft, with an additional long, pointed blade protruding from the top. The two-sided blade is axe-like on the front, and over time the design was refined in on order to better fend off approaching cavalry in battle.

On the opposite side of the axe-blade, a sharp hook was added that could be used to snare men on horseback and pull them to the ground. The top part of the weapon shaft was also reinforced with metal, to prevent the halberd from being easily sliced apart by swords.

As a result, the halberd became the weapon of choice for Swiss armies in the 14th & 15th centuries, and was quickly imitated by German armies as the weapon’s effectiveness became apparent. It was only when gunpowder warfare became more prominent in European armies—adding more musketeers and arquebuskiers to the front lines—that the halberd found use as a defensive weapon during reloads.

Though the halberd fell into disuse over time, low-ranking European infantrymen carried halberds from the 16th to 18th centuries—and while these Medieval weapons are of course not used in modern warfare, they can be seen in one place specifically… they’re still used as ceremonial weapons by the Vatican’s Swiss Guard!

One more interesting halberd fact? They were a highly effective means of execution…

In 2008, archaeologists working at the site of Stonehenge in Britain uncovered a child burial containing a variety of items, such as a pottery vessel (which may have contained food provisions for the child in the afterlife), and most remarkably, a carved chalk toy shaped like an animal.

The grave was tentatively dated between 800 B.C. and 20 B.C., and is considered a very important discovery in British pre-history. The discovery of any kind of representational artwork (human or animal) from this period is so rare that Joshua Pollard, the dig’s co-leader from the University of Bristol, commented it’s “almost to the extent where you get the impression there’s a bit of a taboo on making images of animals or people.”

There are two theories on what the toy represents, with one camp claiming it’s a hedgehog, and the other making their case for a pig. Mike Pitts, editor of British Archaeology magazine, expressed that “it’s without doubt a pig”, considering how common wild and domestic pigs were during the period in this region. “And once we get into historical times,” he said, “We know the pig is quite important in Celtic mythology, though not—to my knowledge—hedgehogs.”

He also noted that once the Iron Age got underway in Britain, it wasn’t uncommon to come across figurines. However, it is more or less agreed that this little hedgehog/pig may be the earliest known toy in British history. It was likely made originally as a toy for the infant, or was crafted in memory of the child being stillborn or dying in infancy.

As for those who try to suggest that the child’s death was a result of human ritual sacrifice, Pollard reminds the curious that during this time in history, infant mortality was very high, “so there would have been a lot of natural death.” This seems to be substantiated by a second infant burial found nearby which, although it didn’t contain a toy, held the skeleton of a sheep or goat with stones piled over its head (indicating the animal had been ritually sacrificed).

Regardless of whether this ancient toy was played with or not, there’s no denying that current toy manufacturers could learn a thing or two from prehistoric toymakers about durability!

The bat fly is a rare, ancient, bloodsucking insect, and this particular bat fly is even more remarkable due to the parasite it contains: an ancient strain of bat malaria!

The fly was discovered in a mine in the Dominican Republic by George Poinar, Jr., an expert on amber-preserved insects from Oregon State University.

While this particular preserved variety of bat fly is now extinct, bat flies do still exist today, eating an exclusive diet of bat blood. In fact, some varieties of bat flies have adapted themselves to live only on the blood of specific species of bats.

Bat flies also very rarely leave their hosts. When they choose a particular bat to feed off of, they’ll cling to its body and feed at their leisure, though they will leave to find a mate and create more bloodsucking baby flies.

When Poinar looked at the amber-encased bat fly under a microscope, he discovered that it carried a new strain of bat malaria—a parasitic disease that’s so rare, only five or six scientific papers have discussed it to this day. (Scribe’s Note: How’d you like to contract a 20-million-year-old malaria virus?)

Before this discovery, Poinar worked on extracting DNA of other insects from amber, and was credited by the late author Michael Crichton as providing inspiration for his novel Jurassic Park. Does this mean we’ll see vampire parasites flying around on the back of cloned bats or bat flies anytime soon?

“As far as I’m concerned,” says Poinar, “this specimen is so rare that we wouldn’t want to attempt to try it.”

That’s probably a good thing for all of us.

Resources: Systemic Parasitology (February 2012); Parasites and Vectors (December 2011).

However, a recent analysis of guinea pig bones found in 2007 at a home that was once part of the Spanish Empire suggests that these creatures may have actually been more companero than cena.

Analysis of the skeleton of the guinea pig, combined with chemical research on its bones and a look at Flemish paintings from this period which depict the animal, has led researchers to conclude that guinea pigs must have been domesticated at this time in Europe, and not necessarily only raised for food.

While it is still common today to raise guinea pigs for food in South America, and the pigs undoubtedly provided some occasional measure of sustenance for Europeans, there’s much more to suggest that they were cared for by both middle-class and upper-class Europeans as pets.

The skeleton of the guinea pig found in 2007 had no evidence of being processed as food, so researchers are quite confident that the creature was a part of the family—and therefore given its own little burial in the backyard.

Guinea pigs would have been considered “exotic” animals, due to their origins across the ocean. It’s actually rare to find guinea pig bones in the archaeological record, which is why their purpose in Europe during the 16th & 17th centuries has remained somewhat vague until this time.

It’s also worth noting that, because guinea pigs are rodents (which tend to have remarkable reproductive capabilities), it’s entirely possible that the whole situation of guinea pigs in Europe may have started with just two creatures being brought over as curiosities… and their presence, needless to say, “expanded” from there.