Beneath the epic tales of heroes and gods, Troy’s true story is written in something far less glamorous – its rubbish.

When we think of Troy, we imagine epic battles, valiant deeds, cunning tricks and the wrath of gods. Thanks to Homer’s Iliad, the city is remembered as a stage for romance and heroism.

But long before Paris stole Helen and Achilles raged on the battlefield, the people of bronze age Troy lived ordinary lives – with extraordinary consequences. They built, cooked, stored, traded and, crucially, threw things away. And they did it right where they lived.

Today, waste is whisked away quickly – out of sight, out of mind. But in bronze age Troy (3000–1000BC), trash stayed close, often accumulating in domestic dumping grounds for generations.

Far from a nuisance, Troy’s waste is an archaeologist’s treasure trove.

Over nearly 2,000 years, Troy ended up with 15 meters of built-up debris. Archaeologists can see nine major building phases in it, each made up of hundreds of thin layers, which formed as people lived their everyday lives. These layers act like snapshots, quietly recording how the city changed over time. Some capture hearth cleanings, others record the rebuilding of entire city quarters.

Archaeological analysis of horse remains from medieval Hungary indicates people continued to eat horses long after the country's conversion to Christianity, suggesting the decline in horsemeat consumption (hippophagy) in the region was not for religious reasons, questioning the prevailing historical narrative.

Horsemeat consumption, once common in pre-Christian Europe, declined over the course of the Middle Ages. Written sources indicate that this was tied to the adoption of Christianity.

While the consumption of horsemeat was never officially forbidden by the Church, many medieval Christian sources described it as impure and linked it to the "barbaric" practices of non-Christian peoples.

A 4,000-year-old human rib pierced with a flint arrowhead reveals that a violent attack unfolded high in the Pyrenees of Spain during the Early Bronze Age.

But the brutal trauma wasn't lethal, research finds. The individual survived, with the bone healing around the projectile injury, meaning they lived the rest of their life with the flint arrowhead embedded in their rib.

Archaeologists found the person's bone during recent excavations at a prehistoric burial site known as Roc de les Orenetes, in northeastern Spain, according to a July 8 statement from IPHES — the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution.

It turns out the Dark Ages weren't all that dark. According to new research, medieval medicine was way more sophisticated than previously thought, and some of its remedies are trending today on TikTok.

A new international research project featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York reveals that people in the Middle Ages weren't cooped up in castles, wallowing in superstition. They were developing health practices based on the best knowledge they had at the time—some of which mirror modern wellness trends.

"People were engaging with medicine on a much broader scale than had previously been thought," said Meg Leja, an associate professor of history at Binghamton University who specializes in the political and cultural history of late antique and medieval Europe. "They were concerned about cures, they wanted to observe the natural world and jot down bits of information wherever they could in this period known as the "Dark Ages.'"

Some "science communication" websites have really low standards when it comes to their articles. I'm thinking of rags like IFLScience, Phys.org, etc. It's not that you can't find factual articles there, it's just that you can always find better reporting elsewhere.

~~So I ask: is banning those links something desirable by this community? Can it be enforced without undue burden on the mods?~~

How should we deal with those?

Edit: thank you @Lembot_0004@discuss.online for promptly showing me banning wouldn't be very productive.

Have you ever stopped by the grocery store on your way to a dinner party to grab a bottle of wine? Did you grab the first one you saw, or did you pause to think about the available choices and deliberate over where you wanted your gift to be from?

The people who lived in western Iran around 11,000 years ago had the same idea—but in practice it looked a little different. In our latest research, published in Communications Earth & Environment, my colleagues and I studied the remains of ancient feasts at Asiab in the Zagros Mountains where people gathered in communal celebration.

The feasters left behind the skulls of 19 wild boars, which they packed neatly together and sealed inside a pit within a round building. Butchery marks on the boar skulls show the animals were used for feasting, but until now we did not know where the animals came from.

By examining the microscopic growth patterns and chemical signatures inside the tooth enamel of five of these boars, we found at least some of them had been brought to the site from a substantial distance away, transported over difficult mountainous terrain. Bringing these boars to the feast—when other boars were available locally—would have taken an enormous amount of effort.

Earlier this summer, archaeologists began hauling some of the giant granite blocks that once comprised one of the tallest buildings in the world out of the Alexandrian harbor after centuries underwater. Twenty-two blocks, to be precise, each one weighing between 80 and 90 tons with the operation requiring a boat, a platform, and a crane employing specific techniques to ensure the integrity of the blocks.