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Ancient History

How Important Are Historical Language Studies and Discoveries?

July 22, 2020

Linguistic investigations about the Indo-European languages have had many appealing stories that led to other discoveries. One of these discoveries took place in China in the late 1800s. It shed more light on the historical and anthropological aspects of this region, which wasn’t known before. […]

Hittite archeological foundings from anatolia (Image: By toronut/Shutterstock)
Ancient History

The Hittites—The First Ancient Empire

December 1, 2017

For half a millennium, from their homeland in central Anatolia, the Hittites played a role in Near Eastern politics equal to the traditional great powers of Mesopotamia and Egypt. […]

Earth (Image: Triff/Shutterstock)
Ancient History

The Eight Fundamental Thresholds of Big History

December 1, 2017

David Christian structures his groundbreaking Big History course around eight fundamental thresholds. Each of them is associated with new forms of complexity, and each of which has new emergent properties. Here we will take a high-level look at the eight fundamental thresholds of Big History and the material covered within each. […]

Picture of a Cuneiform tablet from Sumer
Ancient History

Cuneiform: The Invention of Writing

December 14, 2016

By Kenneth W. Harl, Ph.D., Tulane University There’s a great deal of debate over the origins of writing but, with Cuneiform in Sumer, we have […]