The past few years saw an unprecedented slew of remarkable fossils. It is not always the biggest dinosaurs that are the most valuable to science. More important are the fragments that reveal behavior, extinct diets, missing ancestors, and the answers to tough puzzles.

New finds can also introduce intriguing mysteries about unknown human species and animals. They can be dramatic, too, showing for the first time the creatures that died minutes after the dinosaur-killing asteroid struck Earth.

10 Comb Jelly Ancestor

Some researchers love their jellies. The predatory and gelatinous kind, not the wobbly dessert. Recently, a scientist from the United Kingdom visited colleagues in China. When he was shown a particular fossil, he got very excited over the creature’s tentacles. The fossil, later named Daihua sanqiong, sprouted 18 whips around its mouth.

Each tentacle had robust ciliary hairs, something only found on comb jellies. The latter is alive today. This bizarre creature uses “combs” of cilia to travel through seawater. The comb jelly was a bit of an orphan. Nobody can follow its evolutionary progress on the tree of life.

However, the 518-million-year-old fossil shared enough characteristics with comb jellies and other ancient creatures that researchers could tentatively build the entire early lineage of comb jellies. It even gave the Oliver Twist of the jelly world a few likely cousins—corals and anemones.^[1]

9 Bandicoots Were Nimble

Pig-footed bandicoots went extinct in the 1950s. Like most marsupials, they were delightfully different in their own way. These bandicoots looked like they had been assembled from pieces taken from a deer, a kangaroo, and an opossum. Weighing about the same as a basketball, bandicoots were among the tiniest grazers that ever lived.

As there are no living animals, researchers turned to the aboriginal community for insights about the creature’s behavior. Done in the 1980s, the interviews revealed something surprising. The ungainly animal could gallop quite fast.

What made this fact so unexpected was the structure of the bandicoot’s feet. Each front leg had two functional toes, and bizarrely, the hind legs had one each. This arrangement appeared unstable. But according to witnesses, the herbivores zoomed into the distance like the Road Runner when they were startled.

Interestingly, in 2019, a DNA analysis was performed on the last remaining 29 skeletons in museums. It revealed that what researchers thought was one species, Chaeropus ecaudatus, was in fact two. The new species was called Chaeropus yirratji to honor a local aboriginal name for the animal.^[2]

8 Worm City

In 2018, rocks were analyzed from Canada’s Mackenzie Mountains. Nobody had worms on the brain while preparing the rocks for another study. However, during the grinding and sawing, unusual colorations prompted a look—and it changed a big belief.

To find out what caused the unfamiliar shades, samples were scanned and digitally enhanced. Almost instantly, a crowding network of tunnels appeared. Previously invisible, the tunnels were made by a thriving community of worms. This may sound torture-level normal, but it showed life where none was expected.

The rocks dated back 500 million years when the region was a seafloor. Most experts agreed that it was a dead zone due to no oxygen. But some rocks were so tunneled that they resembled the highways of a busy city. This proved that the dead zone harbored more life—and definitely more oxygen—than anyone had guessed.^[3]

7 Step Closer To Ancestor X

Ancestor X is the mysterious focus of a scientific argument. It involves the early evolutionary tree of vertebrates, animals that include humans. Ancestor X is not a primate but a fish. This aquatic grandparent, so to speak, was identified in absentia when researchers had a look at some the oldest vertebrates alive today.

Most felt that the boneless hagfish and lampreys belonged at the bottom of the tree. This suggested that X looked similar to the two eellike species. Fossil finds supported this theory. DNA tests did not.

Genetic analysis suggested that lampreys and hagfish had an ancestor that branched off much earlier. The debate swung in the DNA’s favor when a fossil was discovered in Lebanon in 2011. It was an early type of hagfish that was around 100 million years old.

Considering that hagfish have no bones, finding one was “like finding a sneeze in the fossil record” as one scientist put it. The rare discovery had features suggesting that Ancestor X was not some squishy eel but more probably looked more like a fish.^[4]

6 Unique Fingerprints

Around 1 percent of tracks revealed that dinosaurs had skin on their soles. As skin forms patterns, dinosaur feet could stamp “fingerprints” unique to each individual. However, none of the fossils in question had more than a few traces of skin.

Fingerprint-obsessed scientists thirsted for just one measly fossil fingerprint, and then they got five. Few people have heard of Minisauripus, the smallest theropod. The larger theropods were the type of bipedal carnivores that often chase people in movies. Tyrannosaurus rex is the most famous.

Although Minisauripus is not dramatic enough to hit Hollywood, one of these creatures gave the world footprints unlike any ever seen before. Around 120 million years ago, it left tracks in modern-day Korea.

Discovered in 2019, the exquisitely preserved feet measured 2.5 centimeters (1 in) long. The paws were entirely covered in “fingerprints.” The pattern was surprising. Tiny scales wove together like fabric, producing a pattern that resembled those of Chinese bird fossils. It was something that the team had expected from a much bigger theropod.^[5]

5 Ancient Diet And Digestion

When paleontologists want to know what extinct species ate, they have limited options. The shape of teeth and chemical deposits in bones can suggest an animal’s diet. However, to narrow things down, researchers really prefer to find fossilized stomach contents. Unfortunately, soft tissues like the stomach and a digesting meal do not preserve well.

In 1965, a pterosaur fossil (161 to 146 million years old) was unearthed in Southern Germany. The significance of the find was not immediately recognized. In 2015, scientists reviewed the flying reptile at its home museum in Canada. Thankfully, the fossil was in great condition.

Among the well-preserved details were clues about its diet. Inside the guts was something resembling the skeleton of a fish. Best of all was a lump near the base of the pterodactyl’s spine. It was likely a coprolite, or fossilized feces.

Coprolites are rare enough, but finding one inside a pterodactyl would be a first. Analysis of the possible poop revealed what the reptile snacked on. There were spiny remnants suggestive of a marine invertebrate like a sponge or starfish-like prey.^[6]

4 Whale Ancestor With Hooves

Whales began as land mammals and evolved until they permanently took to the seas. There are gaps in this story, but in 2011, a crucial piece was recovered. A 42.6-million-year-old whale fossil turned up in Peru. The creature had four legs.

Each foot had a hoof and was webbed like an otter. This odd combination suggested that the animal had walked on land and swum very well. Other whale fossils from this time were too fragmented to suggest how whales went from land to marine mammals.

The flipper-hoofed thing, technically named Peregocetus pacificus, provided a valuable gem. It proved that early whales sometimes lived on land, probably to mate and have young, but could also stay in the water for weeks. It was an extreme semiaquatic lifestyle for a crossover species.^[7]

The 4-meter-long (13 ft) animal also provided crucial information about how and when whales spread to the Americas. The Peruvian fossil suggested that they crossed the South Atlantic, which was 50 percent smaller than today, and came from somewhere near India.

3 Cache Of 50-Plus New Species

In 2019, scientists were trudging along China’s Danshui River when they hit the jackpot. The team encountered hundreds of ancient remains, which were duly ogled and discussed.

The fossilized bodies of 101 animals were recovered. Astoundingly, over half were unknown species. Ironically, the researchers sat down to have lunch when they made the discovery.

While eating, somebody noticed telltale signs of ancient mudflows. These are great preservers of fossils, but the Danshui batch blew everyone away. The creatures were so well-preserved that soft tissues and animals that normally did not fossilize appeared to be freshly pressed. There were perfect jellyfish, eyes, gills, digestive systems, soft-bodied worms, and sea anemones, to name but a few.

The cache dated to the Cambrian Period (490 million to 530 million years ago) when animal life diversified at an uncommon pace. The new species present the perfect opportunity to better understand this strangely fruitful time.^[8]

2 A New Human

Modern humans are the only survivor of the hominid “family tree.” Cousins like the Neanderthals, Australopithecus, and Homo erectus are long gone. It is not often that a new human species is identified.

But in 2007, a bone turned up in the Philippines. Part of a foot, it was 67,000 years old and the most ancient human fragment in the Philippines. In 2019, 12 more bones were found nearby. Together, they outlined an unknown miniature species of human beings.

This part of the world is already famous for the 2004 discovery of Homo floresiensis, an unrelated tiny hominid nicknamed the “hobbit,” in Indonesia. The newly named Homo luzonensis shared traits with H. sapiens, H. erectus, and Australopithecus.

This mix proved that it was a new species, but a lack of viable DNA obscured evolutionary links with the others. The discovery also contradicted the belief that the first hominins out of Africa were H. erectus, followed by H. sapiens around 40 thousand to 50 thousand years ago.

The small human was outside of Africa almost 10,000 years earlier. Incredibly, their Australopithecus traits are much older. Australopithecus remains have never been found outside Africa, but some specimens are three million years old.^[9]

1 The Day The Dinosaurs Died

The K-Pg boundary is a terrible grave marker. Discovered in the 1970s, this layer can be found in rock separating the Cretaceous and Paleogene eras. It is filled with iridium from a massive asteroid that hit near Mexico about 66 million years ago.

The impact left a crater 145 kilometers (90 mi) wide and killed three out of four species, including the dinosaurs. Despite the mass extinction that followed, known as the K-Pg event, no fossils reflected the disaster right after it happened.

In 2019, ancient fish turned up at Hell Creek, North Dakota. They were the first group of large species found at the K-Pg boundary. Even better, the fish had glass spheres in their gills. Caused by the impact, the glass rained down at Hell Creek minutes after the asteroid struck and before the fish were buried in mud, together with animals, plants, and insects.

It was the glass-smothered fish that proved the group had died within a short period from direct consequences of the impact. To view the Hell Creek fossils is to see the day the dinosaurs died.^[10]

We’ve all had those days where we just don’t feel like we’re socially connecting with anyone and where the world seems so very big and we’re so very small. Loneliness affects some more than others, and for some people, it can be the start of an endless cycle. It’s even deadly for some animals, but understanding loneliness might help keep you from sinking into the deep, dark hole.

10The Loneliest Place On Earth

So you want to get away from it all—from everything and everyone. Sure, you could head out into the woods, but what if you wanted to be completely, absolutely alone? What’s the loneliest place on Earth?

Point Nemo—if you can get there—is the point on the globe that’s farthest away from any terrestrial organism. It’s in the middle of the South Pacific, between Maher Island off the coast of the Antarctic, Motu Nui near Easter Island, and Ducie Island, an uninhabited island to the north. Point Nemo—named for the Jules Verne character—was only discovered in 1992, when satellite technology was finally good enough to allow us to accurately map coastlines and chart just what point was equidistant from all of them. The point is 2,300 kilometers (1,450 mi) away from each of the islands, making it the loneliest place on Earth.

It’s so lonely that it’s doubtful anyone has ever even been there. No one had ever been to Maher Island until it was discovered in the 1940s. There’s certainly no easy way to get to Point Nemo, and there’s nothing to be found there even if you did make the trip. There’s not even a beacon or a buoy, just more endless ocean and more being alone.

9Feeling Lonely vs. Social Isolation

Humans are very social creatures. We’ve always relied on each other to survive. That reliance on others makes defining loneliness a tricky thing. According to studies done by University College London, there’s a big difference between being lonely and being socially isolated. It’s only when you start to look at loneliness in the context of how socially connected we are that you see how subjective a feeling it really is. There are people that can live miles away from anyone, have little contact with their family, and not be lonely, while other people can live on a busy street, regularly meet for family dinners, have friends they see on a daily basis, and still feel lonely.

That all gets even more tricky when you look at it in the context of the elderly. When researchers wanted to find out which was potentially more dangerous, being lonely or being isolated, they looked at 6,500 men and women aged 52 and older and rated them based on their risk of death over the course of 12 years. They ultimately came to the conclusion that social isolation was potentially more dangerous than just feeling lonely. When they looked at social isolation, they could predict patterns in health and well-being that reports of loneliness didn’t allow them to. In the end, the study found that even if you’re lonely, maintaining social connections was necessary for long-term health.

8Homesickness

Homesickness is a particular kind of loneliness we feel when we’re away from home. For some people, it can be crippling. While it’s estimated that about 70 percent of people who move away from home suffer from it in some way, for a smaller percentage, homesickness can mean sinking into the dark pit of depression that they can only crawl out of with help. The most severe cases can come with panic attacks, insomnia, nightmares, and complete withdrawal from the surroundings that are new and completely unsettling.

Homesickness is certainly nothing new, either. It’s described in Homer’s Odyssey, but it was only formally given a name when it was used to describe the feelings of loneliness and longing that Swiss soldiers got when they were far from home. In the 17th century, homesickness was thought to be an incredibly dangerous disease that would kill if left untreated. After that, popular opinion shifted. To be homesick was childish: It was what a grade-schooler felt during his first week at summer camp.

All of that meant that we stopped talking about it. We don’t even know that much about homesickness, save for its very real effects. We know that some things—anything, really—can trigger it, and sometimes the tools we use to try to alleviate homesickness can make it worse. Hop on Facebook to keep in touch with friends back home, and it’s a cold reminder that you’re not there to be in any of the pictures. And now, we’re also starting to think that homesickness never actually goes away—not entirely, at least.

7The Social Surrogacy Hypothesis

Loneliness—and how we deal with it—is a notoriously difficult bit of psychology to explore. It’s only recently that researchers from the University of Buffalo and Miami University have started to explore what they call the “Social Surrogacy Hypothesis.”

The theory basically states that television can act as a surrogate for people who are longing to form meaningful social relationships. The researchers looked at when people turned to their favorite television shows, under what circumstances they tended to watch them, how they wrote about the shows and the characters, and how a person’s current relationship status (including whether they’d just had a fight with a close friend or significant other) impacted their reactions to watching the shows.

They found that people who were lonely, had just experienced a blow to their self-esteem, or had been in an argument were craving social interaction that could be replaced with something called a “parasocial” relationship. That’s the relationship that develops between us and our favorite television characters when we become so invested in their lives that our brains view them as something of a close friend. We worry about them, we wait to find out what happens next, and we take it all very personally. The more lonely we are, the stronger that connection, and the more likely we are to be satisfied by these one-sided relationships.

6Loneliness Killed The Woolly Mammoth

There’s something incredibly heartbreaking about being among the last surviving handful of an entire species, and we’ve recently found out that that’s exactly what happened to the woolly mammoth.

After two huge population declines, the last of the woolly mammoths lived on an island off the Russian coast. For 6,000 years, a tiny pocket of woolly mammoths scraped out a living on the rugged island. Without enough diversity in the population, they slowly got more inbred, and the species made its final decline. It’s estimated that after the second major population decline, which killed off the mainland population and all but 300–1,000 island-dwelling individuals, the population was never able to recover.

The island-dwelling mammoths were cut off from their mainland cousins by the rising sea levels that created their island and ultimately condemned the last surviving members to an incredibly lonely death. While the species recovered from the first population drop over the course of about 100,000 years, the isolation and inbreeding ultimately led to their extinction. Scientists still aren’t sure just what happened to the mainland population, but with the discovery of the complete mammoth genome, they’ve learned just how inbred the final members of the species really were.

5Loneliness Makes Us See Inanimate Objects Differently

Researchers from Dartmouth College have found that extended periods of loneliness change the way we start to see inanimate objects. When we’re craving human contact and socialization, we start to have a slightly different relationship with things like online avatars and dolls—especially those with human faces. When subjects were shown photos of morphs that had varying degrees of human and animated features, those that were lonely were more likely to describe the faces as completely human.

The study even showed a pronounced difference in how our mood impacts our ability to see faces. Students were asked to fill out a questionnaire, then given feedback on what their answers suggested about their future. Feedback was completely random (even though students didn’t know it). Those students that were given a prediction of a lonelier future were also more likely to see more human faces.

This impact can also be extended into the territory of the “uncanny valley” effect. Typically, we have a tendency to view animated people and robots who are too lifelike as creepy and unsettling. That reaction is partially negated in lonely people, though, who tend to find artificial faces more attractive.

4Electric Shock Is Preferable To 15 Minutes Of Loneliness

Imagine, for a minute, that you have nothing to do, nowhere to be, and no one to talk to. Your assigned task is to just sit in a room and think. Daydream. Imagine. Whatever you like, as long as it’s in your own head. Sound awesome? Psychologists from Harvard University and University of Virginia conducted a series of 11 studies that demonstrated something pretty surprising. For most of us, it’s not awesome at all, and we’d rather be doing anything else—even if the only thing available to us hurts.

They tested people between the ages of 18 and 77 and asked them to sit in a room for periods of anywhere from 6 to 15 minutes. Regardless of age, the results were much the same: People found it hard to think, hard to concentrate, completely unenjoyable, and insanely difficult. Those that were put in a room with no outlet for entertainment outside of their own head found themselves restless and distracted, unable to concentrate. When they were in their own homes, most of them couldn’t do it at all and cheated by playing music or playing with a cell phone.

The experiment got epic when the only thing the subjects were given was a button that would administer an electric shock to them when they pushed it. Even though most people stated they would pay money to avoid being shocked before the experiment started, 67 percent of men and 25 percent of women were so overcome by the lack of sensory input that they found shocking themselves preferable to the lonely sensation of being inside their own heads for only 15 minutes.

3Loneliness Spreads Like A Disease

By now, we’ve watched enough shows and movies about the zombie apocalypse to know that it spreads across the world like a disease. Loneliness does, too.

Researchers from the University of Chicago looked at exactly how loneliness spreads, and they found that like the spread of a nasty germ, it all starts with a nasty encounter. Say you’re already feeling pretty down, and a friend makes an offhand comment or does something that makes you uncomfortable. If you were in a better mood, you might not have even noticed it, but as it is, it strikes right at the heart of your gloomy day. When you get home, you remember that. It sticks with you, and the next time you might have called your friend to go grab a drink after work, you don’t. From your friend’s point of view, you stopped calling them. That leads to the crumbling of a friendship and puts them in the same mood you were in when they accidentally offended you.

Sounds far-fetched? It’s not. Lonely people can unintentionally make themselves lonelier by anticipating actions that are going to hurt them. In turn, this makes them drift to the social fringes. In a study of 5,000 subjects, researchers looked at how lonely people felt on particular days and their social interactions for those days. They found that loneliness is contagious to the third degree. People who are chronically lonely have been found to transmit that to other acquaintances, who then go on to similarly drift to the outskirts of their social groups as that network unravels.

This might have some very concrete implications for the treatment of mental illness, depression, and chronic loneliness. Knowing how social networks impact each other can allow people to become more proactive in mending relationships before they start to unravel and before loneliness leads to a post-apocalyptic mental wasteland.

2Comfort Food Fights Loneliness

What’s that favorite food that you always requested for your birthday? How about that special anniversary dinner? The meal that mom made when she knew you were going through a tough time? There’s a reason it’s called comfort food, and it’s been found that just thinking about it has a very real impact on our loneliness.

A study done at the University of Buffalo asked participants to write about a fight they’d had with someone they loved, in order to set a baseline of anxiety, sadness, and a threatened social status. Afterward, they were asked to either write about their favorite comfort food or a new food that they’d like to try. When they were asked to rate their loneliness after that, those that wrote about their comfort food felt significantly less lonely.

Another study had students eat chicken soup, then fill missing letters into words. Those that ate chicken soup and considered it one of their comfort foods were more likely to use letters that spelled out relationship-centric words. On the other hand, those that didn’t consider chicken soup as comfort food (or weren’t given the soup) created words that were not related to social interaction or relationships.

That all seems to suggest that comfort food—even if we’re just thinking about it—has a profound impact on our emotional state.

1Brains Of Lonely People Work Differently

It’s been shown that the brains of lonely people are visibly different from the brains of those who don’t suffer from chronic loneliness.

An admittedly small study conducted by the University of Chicago focused on people whose answers to a questionnaire identified them as socially isolated and lonely. When these people were shown pictures of others enjoying themselves, there was less activity in the part of the brain that typically reacts to rewards and pleasure. Researchers weren’t sure if the lack of activity in the brain led to feelings of loneliness or if prolonged social isolation had conditioned the brain to respond in a way that was likely to increase their isolation. Nevertheless, researchers are certain that it has the potential to be a major breakthrough—and one that couldn’t come at a better time. With more people having increasingly smaller families, it’s estimated that the number of people living alone will continue to climb. Knowing just how our brains are programmed may go a long way in helping those who suffer from chronic loneliness.

Loneliness has also been shown to impact how we process cold temperatures. A study from the University of Toronto found that when participants were asked to recount a situation in which they were isolated from a social group reported that the temperature in the room was, on average, much colder than those that were asked to talk about a time they were included in a group setting. Researchers also ran another experiment in which a group of people played catch, with some people being excluded more than others. Those that were excluded were more likely to gravitate toward hot drinks after the game. This suggests that we pick a hot cup of tea or coffee—or our favorite chicken soup—because of a quite literal cold feeling we get from isolation. Researchers go on to state that they suspect this link forms in us during infancy, where babies associate warmth with social interaction.

+Animals Can Die From Loneliness

We think loneliness is a pretty sad feeling, and there are always going to be those cynical people that insist animals don’t have the same feelings. But we know that’s not true—and we can prove it.

A study of the effects of social isolation and loneliness on African gray parrots found something pretty heartbreaking. Telomeres are sections of DNA that are responsible for regulating the stability of chromosomes. As birds get older, their age is reflected in the length of the telomeres. Nine-year-old parrots who were kept in cages alone had the same telomere structures as socialized birds that were 23 years old, showing that the stress of isolation and loneliness is so real that it degrades the genetic makeup of birds at a staggering rate.

And recently, researchers have found another animal that suffers absolute agony from loneliness: the ant. Research from the University of Tokyo found that separating a single ant from its colony leaves it with a lifespan that’s reduced by 91 percent, for a pretty bizarre reason. An ant that’s alone is incapable of digesting its food. While ants regurgitate and share food in their nest, a single ant will simply pace back and forth and store its undigested food . . . until it dies from loneliness.

The ancients had a prolific habit of documenting their lives on anything from skin to stone. Although this archive may be old, it may add new translations or technology and the results can be revealing.

From books that belonged to samurai and pirates to mysterious events that could rewrite history, the written word can color history’s gray spaces like nothing else. Here are 10 ancient documents that have produced sometimes surprising insights into past events and people.

10 The Samurai Manual

Tsukahara Bokuden was a great samurai and perhaps the author of a curious book. Called The Hundred Rules of War, it was recently translated into English. The manual provides advice on fighting skills and how a proper samurai should behave. Among descriptions of cowardly behavior were those who did not drink or treasured horsemanship.

Though authorship is impossible to prove, many believe that the book was compiled in the last year of Bokuden’s life (1489–1571). The manual is not your usual rule book but a collection of songs. The musical caveats focus on many areas of a samurai’s life, from the best name for a baby born into the warrior class to remembering that neither life nor death was as important as moving forward.

The work provides fascinating threads about preparations for training and war. A horse reflected the rider’s mind, and the author is frank—a small animal meant a dumb samurai. The best prebattle meal, the book advised, was rice warmed with water. Other snacks included dried plums and roasted beans. Researchers found the plums helped with thirst but are not exactly sure why the book strongly insists on the beans.^[1]

9 Oldest Marriage Contract

Around 4,000 years ago, a couple carved a prenup in clay. When it was found in 2017 at the archaeological site of Kultepe-Kanesh in Turkey, it soon became clear that having children was part of the deal.

The Assyrian pair, Laqipum and Hatala, agreed to try for two years to produce their own offspring. If none arrived, then it became the wife’s duty to look for a surrogate. More specifically, Hatala had to buy a female slave for her husband. Once they had a child together, Laqipum was allowed to sell the mother if he so chose.^[2]

The contract is the oldest to mention surrogacy and infertility, although in a somewhat different light than practiced today. Though it reflects the ancient belief that infertility was the wife’s fault, the contract provided an equal opportunity divorce settlement. The person who initiated the separation had to pay the other person five minas of silver.

8 Hidden Coffin Script

An Egyptian mummy at Chiddingstone Castle in Kent frustrated experts in the way that so many mummies tend to do. Their identities are hidden beneath swaths of papyrus pages. To read the deceased’s name, the required peeling often destroys the precious artifacts.

In 2017, researchers devised a scanning technique that would allow a hidden script to be read without causing damage to the mummy. The 3,000-year-old remains at Chiddingstone lost its mysterious anonymity when the footplate was scanned. It revealed that the bandages contained a man named Irethoreru.^[3]

But the technique was good for more than just calling upon lost names. The papyrus used to shape the mummy cases was originally ancient waste paper. Since paste and plaster obscured them, the content remained invisible for centuries.

During scans, a trove of hieroglyphic scraps from Egyptians’ lives could be seen, including tax papers and shopping lists. Once considered rubbish, this material is now one of Egyptology’s best resources to mine for papyrus used for everyday notes.

7 True Reign Of Rameses

Egyptology is an intensely studied field, but even so, the reign of each pharaoh is an estimate. One of the most famous was Rameses the Great. In 2017, a Bible passage was compared with a battle documented on a stele. Pharaoh Merneptah, son of Rameses, described how he defeated the Israelites.

What they have in common are the ingredients to what could be the oldest solar eclipse on record. The passage in the Book of Joshua described how Joshua led the Israelites into Canaan. To overcome their enemies, he successfully ordered the Sun and Moon to stop moving.

The text confused scholars until they realized that the original Hebrew-to-English translation offered another interpretation. Alternately, it meant that the Sun and Moon stopped shining. The stele’s inscriptions placed the Israelites in Canaan between 1500–1050 BC.

If the Joshua event was an eclipse, the only one visible in Canaan during that time was on October 30, 1207 BC. The stele stated that it was carved during Merneptah’s fifth year as king. The length of his rule and his father’s is known, but the eclipse narrows it down to within a year. If the study is correct, Rameses ruled from 1276–1210 BC.^[4]

6 A Pirate’s Book

Not just any pirate. The scraps of paper were found on the vessel Queen Anne’s Revenge, commanded by the famous Blackbeard. In 1718, the Revenge sank near North Carolina and became the subject of painstaking analysis ever since her discovery in 1996.

Plenty of the usual stuff was found—weaponry, tools, and personal artifacts. But the most unexpected discoveries were 16 paper fragments stuffed into a cannon. At first, it appeared to be cloth used to block a chamber. When the waterlogged mass was examined, its rarity became clear.

Paper almost never survives underwater, let alone for three centuries. Seven of the pieces had readable print, and a single place name, Hilo, identified the book. The pages were torn from A Voyage to the South Sea, an adventure story about a sea captain who, among other things, describes the coastal settlement in Peru.

It is a fitting addition to any pirate’s library. But which sailor owned the book or why it got stuffed into the cannon is a mystery. It does provide important evidence for books on 18th-century ships and confirms records referring to Blackbeard’s crew owning several.^[5]

5 Mystery Of Mapmakers’ Monsters

Many ancient maps appear to have been made by artists more interested in embellishments than geography. Most hail from the 16th and 17th centuries. Sea monsters, imaginary cities, and incorrect written “facts” adorn spaces where there should have been mountains or islands.

This tradition in cartography may be centuries old, but it defies the point of mapmaking. Although rich buyers expected some decoration, explorers sought correct geography, not dragons.

One motivation could have been a fear of looking ignorant. In this context, mapmakers could have been subjected to what historians call horror vacui—an aversion to blank spaces in artwork.

No mention of horror vacui is made by mapmakers, except one. Dutchman Petrus Plancius added an accurate southern star chart to his 1592 world map. Although he never mentioned the fear, Plancius included a note explaining that the constellations replaced the southern hemisphere in case it remained empty.^[6]

By the middle of the 18th century, horror vacui lost its grip and maps became more scientific. Unexplored locations were left blank.

4 The Canterbury Roll

The inspiration behind the hugely successful Game of Thrones novels was a real-life power struggle. In England, the Houses of Lancaster and York battled for supremacy in what became known as the Wars of the Roses.

Despite the violence, both sides contributed to a unique and remarkable piece of art. Naturally, it was not a mutual project. Rather, it was created by one side and embellished by the other.

The Canterbury Roll is a beautiful record of England’s mythical beginnings until the Wars of the Roses. Measuring 5 meters (16 ft), it was drawn up by the House of Lancaster in the 1420s. Sometime during the conflict, it was acquired by Yorkists, who partially rewrote the document.^[7]

It has been in the possession of the University of Canterbury in New Zealand for over a century. Researchers believe that the thoroughly investigated manuscript still has secrets. They are planning to use new techniques, such as advanced imaging, to search for hidden phrases and to make the entire Canterbury Roll digitally available to the public in 2018.

3 Unknown Production Process

During the 13th century, thousands of mini Bibles were churned out. They contained Genesis through Apocalypse, yet they were snug enough to be carried in a pocket.

The tiny books were forged with a technology that still eludes modern understanding. Researchers were alerted to the fact when they solved a related query. The pages are ultrathin, said to be achieved using fetal calf’s skin.

But the books’ numbers meant that the supply of aborted livestock could not be sustained. Tests searched for thin-skinned substitutes like rabbits, rats, and squirrels. Turns out no rodent died to become a page, but calf, goat, and sheepskin was used.^[8]

This solved one of the biggest riddles before the era of printing. (The Bibles were handwritten.) Even though some of the material may have come from unborn animals, most did not. This begged the question: How were the pages, which were tough enough to survive 800 years, made so thin?

Some measured 0.03 millimeters (0.001 in). But by the time medieval sources recorded page-making techniques, the process was already lost. Writers mined secondhand information, and any modern replications met with failure.

2 The Viceroy’s Tomb

In 2017, the Mongolian steppe produced a stone monument bearing a powerful man’s story. Consisting of 14 pillars around a sarcophagus, the mysterious tale is fraught with power and possibly assassination.

The 1,300-year-old coffin is now empty. Similar to the pillars, it is covered in Turkic script documenting the rise of the anonymous man. In the centuries before Genghis Khan, this man’s influence came second only to the ruler, Bilge Qaghan (r. 716–734).

The pillars revealed that the deceased held the title of “Yagbu” (“Viceroy”). After the poisoning of Bilge, the man moved up to “Tolis-Shad” (“Royalty of the East”). This assassination is mentioned in historical records, and it is unclear if the viceroy was involved. However, it is not too far-fetched to consider him a plotter.^[9]

The empire, which covered modern Mongolia and some of northern China, was politically lethal. Senior commanders often equated getting a promotion with murdering another high-ranking individual. Even Bilge’s successor was killed, but this proved too much for the teetering power structure.

Sometime after the assassination of Tengri Qaghan (r. 734–741), the empire collapsed. The monument could add information about the region’s rulers as well as their relationship with the Mongolian tribes.

1 Lost Verse And Faces

The oldest manuscript referencing King Arthur and Merlin is the Black Book of Carmarthen. Named for the color of its binding, the book is a compilation of poems from the 9th–12th centuries.

During a 2015 project, the pages were examined under ultraviolet light and photo editing software. To the researchers’ delight, they found something invisible to the naked eye. Among the hidden trove were human faces and verse.^[10]

Reflecting a very relatable behavior by modern bookworms, notes were also scribbled in the margins by medieval readers. They wrote down their ancient thoughts most heavily near the end of the 16th century. The recovery of the doodles is valuable because they present a direct connection between past readers and the researchers trying to pick their brains.

The details were not hidden on purpose. It is believed that a previous owner, Jaspar Gryffyth, removed them. The manuscript is the earliest penned in Welsh, sometime around AD 1250, likely by a single author who collected poems about Welsh folk stories and Dark Ages legends.

But the Black Book’s greatest importance is how it demonstrates that even well-studied manuscripts can still deliver a large amount of new information.