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An international team of archaeologists, including researchers from the VUB, has analyzed more than 3,000 human bones and bone fragments from the Charterhouse Warren site in England, a location dated to the Early Bronze Age. The site represents the first evidence from the Bronze Age of a human massacre carried out by another hostile group, with indications of cannibalism.

In a surprising discovery, researchers have found evidence of an African intestinal parasite in a 500-year-old cesspit in Bruges. The find offers valuable insights into how diseases spread in the past. The research, a collaboration between Canada's McMaster University and Ghent University, shows how migration and trade contributed to the spread of infectious diseases such as schistosomiasis.

During the Contact Day Archaeology of the Province of East Flanders on Friday 28 June, it was announced that the oldest skull and skull fragment of Flanders have been discovered in Ename. A new exhibition on heritage care and the heritage of Ename will open at the provincial Heritage Site Ename on 6 July.

KU Leuven geneticists discover two separate population groups that coexisted in early medieval Flanders The early medieval period in Flanders is a period that is not very well-known, because of the limited historical and archaeological sources. A unique discovery from the seventh century in Koksijde allowed KU Leuven geneticists to use DNA research to reveal the ancestry of the people who inhabited Flanders during this time.

VUB researcher reveals secrets of cave from the Early Upper Palaeolithic, when Neanderthals and the first Homo sapiens co-existed Mughr el-Hamamah, meaning "pigeon cave" in Arabic, is a site in northwestern Jordan, renowned for its prehistoric findings dating between 39,000 and 45,000 years old. Numerous stone tools, hearths, and animal and hominin bones have been excavated there.

We all know the images of Southeast Asia's vast rice fields neatly terraced against the hills. In Europe too, there used to be terraces, mostly bordered by hedges, which have been overtaken as agricultural practices have been scaled up. Archaeologists and geomorphologists from VUB and KU Leuven are now studying the typology of those terraces.

VUB research shows many people came from the Low Countries and were politically active Friday, April 23, 2021 — The question as to what extent newcomers from abroad should have a political say in their new place of residence is one that occupies many minds.

In his doctoral research, VUB legal historian Wouter De Rycke investigated the unique but forgotten contribution of the Mons lawyer Louis Bara (1821-1857) to the 19th-century international peace campaign. According to De Rycke, his research offers a glimpse into a rather unknown episode of our history: " In the 19th century, the first internationally organised movement to declare war emerged, a kind of 'NGO' avant la lettre.

A researcher at Ghent University has identified a lost Silk Road city larger than medieval Ghent, London or Venice. Historians and archaeologists have been searching for nearly 200 years for the city of Magas, capital of the ninth to twelfth century kingdom of Alania. This Kingdom, located in the North Caucasus mountains of modern Russia, controlled a critical section of the Silk Roads: a trade route which connected East Asia and the Mediterranean centuries before the era of European expansion.

Ghent's focus is on Van Eyck and the Ghent Altarpiece in 2020. Lots of people from Ghent University are also involved in this year of celebration. We have been putting a number of them in the spotlight. This week: Peter Vandenabeele. In Ghent, it's all about Van Eyck and the Ghent Altarpiece in 2020.

In Ghent, it's all about Van Eyck and the Ghent Altarpiece in 2020. One of the highlights is undoubtedly the return of the restored painting to St. Bavo's cathedral.

On the occasion of the 450th anniversary of Pieter Bruegel the Elder's death, the city of Brussels is organising an exhibition on a few of the master's original drawings as well as a unique series of prints based on these drawings.

A look into the past. It's usually just a metaphor, but archaeologists Jeroen Poblome and Sam Cleymans have made it a physical reality. Together with the University of Burdur, Turkey, they have reconstructed the faces of two centuries-old residents of Sagalassos. For over thirty years, KU Leuven researchers have been examining the archaeological site of Sagalassos with an international and interdisciplinary team.

Some anonymously published papers on evolution far predate the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859). With the help of modern AI software, Koen Tanghe (UGent) and Mike Kestemont (UAntwerpen) have revealed the authors of two of these papers. This work may help to foster interest in those early, intriguing publications on evolution, their authors and their possible influence on Charles Darwin.

Scientists discovered that giant earthquakes reoccur with relatively regular intervals. When also taking into account smaller earthquakes, the repeat interval becomes increasingly more irregular to a level where earthquakes happen randomly in time. In their recent paper in Earth and Planetary Science Letters , Moernaut`s team of Belgian, Chilean and Swiss researchers presented a new approach to tackle the problem of large earthquake recurrence.

DNA found at archaeological sites reveals that the origins of our domestic cat are in the Near East and ancient Egypt. Cats were domesticated by the first farmers some 10,000 years ago. They later spread across Europe and other parts of the world via trade hub Egypt. The DNA analysis also revealed that most of these ancient cats had stripes: spotted cats were uncommon until the Middle Ages.