Europe's oldest civilization, the Minoans of ancient Crete, were also the continent's first colonialists, according to investigations in Turkey and elsewhere.
A unique record of what was probably the first contact between Native Americans and Europeans in central California has been uncovered in central San Francisco.
Italian scientists recently drew from modern digital technology and ancient Roman art to reconstruct the face of a victim of the A.D. 79 Vesuvius eruption.