A new investigation tracing the source of the gigantic stones that make up the Menga dolmen in southern Spain reveals that it is one of the greatest achievements of Late Neolithic engineering.

In their study, published in Scientific Reports, the group used new technology to learn more about the stone that was used to create the ancient burial site and to explore how wood and rope would have been used in its construction.

Located near Antequera in Malaga (Andalucia, Spain), Menga is part of a UNESCO World Heritage site consisting of three dolmens constructed between 3800 - 3600 BC. It is one of the largest megalithic structures in Europe and was built on the top of a hill with giant rocks. It is renowned for its enormous orthostats or vertical stones, one of which weighs nearly 150 tons.

For many years, researchers have been haunted by the question of how the ancients, who possessed primitive tools, were able to process and move such large building blocks. A new study was designed to find the answer.

Out of all the possible options, officials in Kiev seem to always opt for the worst...

Last week, the West celebrated the tenth anniversary of what was known as "Euromaidan." On November 21, 2013, then-President Viktor Yanukovich announced that Ukraine was suspending preparations for signing an EU Association Agreement, and journalist and activist Mustafa Nayyem called on people to go to the Maidan Square in Kiev to protest the decision.

He promised them tea and a good time.

At the start, few took the events seriously - Ukrainians were used to seeing tents on Kiev's main square since the 2004 Orange Revolution, as the political circus often moved beyond the walls of the Verkhovna Rada (the national parliament) and ended in fights.

The opposition had gathered crowds of protesters when Yanukovich extended the Black Sea Fleet Agreement with Moscow, after the cancelation of former President Viktor Yushchenko's constitutional reform, following the arrest of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and a dozen other less important events. This time, it seemed like things would be the same - the protesters would make some noise, then it would get cold out on the street and they would go home. Moreover, compared to the mass protests of former years, there were not that many people around.

Archaeologists have found a mysterious prehistoric site believed to be a 6,500-year-old Stone Age cemetery just 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle.

The prehistoric site is known as Tainiaro, located about 50 miles south of the Arctic Circle in the Finnish region of Lapland. Although the hypothesis that the Tainiaro site is a Stone Age cemetery remains unproven, if confirmed, it could drastically alter ideas about the history of Northern Europe. Furthermore, the proof would make Tainiaro the northernmost Stone Age graveyard in the world.

Back in 1959, local workers came across stone tools in Simo, which is situated near the Baltic Sea's northern edge, just 80 kilometers to the south of the Arctic Circle. The site, named Tainiaro, underwent partial excavations in the 80s. This led to the revelation of thousands of artifacts, including pottery, stone tools, and animal bones.

The archaeologists were also able to notice 127 possible pits of different sizes that could have been sediment-filled. Some had burning evidence, while others had red ochre traces. Red ochre is a natural iron pigment that is crucial to several burials of the Stone Age. However, without skeletal evidence, which quickly decayed in the acidic soil of this region, the Taniaro's identification as a cemetery was never confirmed.

The team of archaeologists working on the site has published its findings and theories in the Cambridge University Press archaeological journal Antiquity in the paper entitled "A large fifth-millennium BC cemetery in the subarctic north of the Baltic Sea."

The double burial of an adult woman and an infant, dating to about 7000-6800 BCE, discovered in 1934 during construction works at the spa gardens of Bad Dürrenberg, is regarded as one of the outstanding burial finds of the Mesolithic in Central Europe. Because of the unusual equipment with the woman, who was buried in a seated position, and her bodily anomalies, the burial is interpreted as that of a shaman.

Genetic research now reveals the relation of the woman and the child: the boy is not her son, but is a fourth- or fifth-degree relation. The phenotypic variants analyzed in the woman's genome inform us that she had a relatively dark skin complexion, dark, straight hair, and blue eyes.

Concerned that Israel might be trying to attain nuclear capability, the U.S., in the mid-1960s, insisted on regular visits to Dimona. The visiting experts came away reassured of Israel's intentions, but not everyone in the U.S. government was convinced.

In a recent op-ed piece in this newspaper, we revealed that Henry Kissinger, then a professor of government at Harvard University, at the conclusion of a private visit in Israel in January 1965, shared with U.S. diplomats in Tel Aviv his conviction "that Israel is already embarked on a nuclear weapons construction program."

While the record of the discussion does not tell us what impact that observation had on Kissinger's audience, much less how he had reached that conclusion, as contemporary historians, we know that the statement was in sharp contrast with the U.S. government's uncertain state of knowledge of the Israeli nuclear program. While suspicions abounded, during this period the U.S. government never had definitive evidence, let alone conclusive proof, that Israel was seeking a nuclear military capability.

Nothing notable distinguished the birth of Heinz Alfred Kissinger on 27 May 1923 to a German Jewish family in Furth, a city in Bavaria, who died on Wednesday at the age of 100.

In 1938, when he was 15, he and his family fled Nazi Germany to New York before Kristallnacht. When the adolescent Heinz became Henry in the US, while retaining his heavy German accent, no one could have predicted that he would order the murder of hundreds of thousands of people as an adult, and become a millionaire as a result.

In 1943, at the age of 20, Kissinger was drafted by the US Army. He became naturalised as a US citizen the same year. He served in the army intelligence division on account of his German fluency and was put in charge of a team in US-occupied Germany in charge of de-Nazification.

After the war, Kissinger attended Harvard, graduating with a BA in political science in 1950 and a PhD in 1954. While still at school in 1952, he worked for the US government's Psychological Strategy Board, formed by the White House in 1951 to propagandise against communism in support of the US and "democracy". This was during the US invasion of Korea when US forces killed millions of people.

A study of the dietary habits and hunting strategies of early humans in the Middle Paleolithic.

In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (SHEP) at the University of Tübingen show that early humans of the Middle Paleolithic had a more varied diet than previously assumed. The analysis of a site in the Zagros Mountains in Iran reveals that around 81,000 to 45,000 years ago, the local hominins hunted ungulates as well as tortoises and carnivores. Birds may also have been on the menu.

As early as the Upper Paleolithic, the earliest period of the Paleolithic, the ancestors of modern humans effectively hunted small and large mammals. "According to various studies, the hominins of the subsequent Middle Paleolithic - the period between 300,000 and 45,000 years ago - fed primarily on ungulates. However, there is increasing evidence that, at least occasionally, tortoises, birds, hares, fish, and carnivorous mammals were also on the menu of Neanderthals and their relatives," explains Mario Mata-González, first author of the new study and a doctoral student at the University of Tübingen, and he continues, "Reconstructing the dietary habits of early hominins is one of the main objectives of archeozoological studies, which shed light on the way our ancestors adapted to and interacted with different environments."

Together with other SHEP researchers, Mata-González has carried out the first comprehensive and systematic dietary analysis at a Late Pleistocene site in the southern Zagros Mountains with an age around 81,000 to 45,000 years. "Not only are the Zagros Mountains the largest mountain range in Iran, but they are also considered a key geographical region for the study of human evolution in Southwest Asia during the Middle Paleolithic, in particular due to their heterogeneous topography and great environmental diversity," he adds.

The national park of Koli in eastern Finland is home to a famous, 34-metre-long crevice cave known as Pirunkirkko, or Devil's Church in English. In folklore, this crevice cave was known as a place where local sages would meet to contact the spirit world. Even today, the place is visited by practitioners of shamanism, who organise drumming sessions in the cave.

A new article by Riitta Rainio, a researcher of archaeology at the University of Helsinki, and Elina Hytönen-Ng, a researcher of cultural studies at the University of Eastern Finland, investigates the acoustics of the Devil's Church and explores whether the acoustic properties of the cave could explain the beliefs associated with it, and why it was chosen as a place for activities and rituals involving sound.

The researchers found that the Devil's Church houses a distinct resonance phenomenon that amplifies and lengthens sound at a specific frequency. This phenomenon may have significantly impacted the beliefs and experiences associated with the cave.

In early 2014 more than 83 percent of the qualified voters of Crimea, on their own volition, participated in a referendum to rejoin Russia. And of that number, nearly 97 percent voted to separate themselves from Ukraine and once again become a part of Russia, in what was a massively one-sided victory. Returning to Russia meant better wages and better pensions, and somewhat better living conditions. The eagerness to reconnect was not anchored totally in ethnic emotionality; Crimean voters also hoped for a better standard of living.

It should be remembered that Crimea would never have pursued such an action, and Russia would never had been receptive to such a course, were it not that Ukraine was in the grip of disruptive forces that were driving toward regime change.

Regime change is a form of action designed to make it impossible for the existing government to govern. We have seen this well-orchestrated chaos and endless disruption in various countries. Militantly organized groups are financed and equipped by outside western interests. NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) surface in substantial numbers and produce rebellious publications and events designed to unsettle the besieged government — in Ukraine's case, a government that was democratically elected not long before. The NGOs handle billions of dollars worth of supplies used to mobilize and sustain the protests. Even though they are supposed to be independent ("nongovernmental") some NGOs get all their funds from the U.S. government. An Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland, proudly exclaimed that the United States had poured some $5 billion into the struggle for regime change.

Ultra-nationalists and mercenaries soon took hold of the protesting crowds and set the direction and pace of action, secure in the knowledge that they had the powerful reach of the western nations at their backs. This included NATO's military might and the western (corporate and public) mainstream media with a global reach that pretty much shut out any contrary viewpoint. The most retrogressive elements among these operatives in Kiev launched slanderous attacks against Jews, Blacks, Chinese, Muscovites, and — of course — Communists.

In Ukraine, crypto-fascist groups like Svoboda, the Right Sector, and others secured ample funds to keep thousands of people fed and comfortable enough on the streets of Kiev for weeks at a time, complete with well-made marching flags, symbols, and signs in various languages (including English). Svoboda henchmen were being financed by someone. They wore insignia that bore a striking resemblance to the swastika. Svoboda's top leaders openly denounced "Russian scum," and "Muscovite Jewish mafia." Disguised men in unmarked combat fatigues attacked unarmed police and security guards. They moved among the gathered crowd and at times, according to independent sources, delivered sniper shots into the crowd — which could then be readily blamed on the nearly asphyxiated government. Meanwhile the western media reported everything the way the White House wanted, for instance, unfailingly referring to the perpetrators as "protestors."

What happens after death? Here's a look at sometimes unusual rituals of diverse cultures marking the passing of someone.

The pharaohs of ancient Egypt were embalmed, as were several other rulers in later centuries. This includes France's Louis XIV, also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, and the communist leader Lenin, whose preserved body has been on public display since shortly after his death in 1924. Even today, there are still cultures that embalm their dead, while others bury, burn or dismember the corpse as illustrated in some burial ceremonies below.

Sky burial in Tibet
In the middle of the Tibetan highlands, vultures flock hungrily around a dismembered corpse. The "Ragyapas" — the Buddhist morticians — have left the body for them to eat. They follow the ancient tradition of a sky burial — when a person dies, they are symbolically fed for a few days while a monk reads to them from the Tibetan Book of the Dead. This is the holy man's way of persuading the soul to leave the body.

On the day of the funeral, the Lama — a title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism — invokes the deceased one last time before the body is taken to the burial site before sunset. The Ragyapas dismember the body and split the head so that the soul can escape. It is then the task of the vultures to carry the deceased into the "bardo," the intermediate realm between death and rebirth.