History never repeats itself, but it sure does rhyme, it has been said. Now an internationally respected historian is warning that today's world bears a number of striking similarities with the build-up to the First World War.

The newly mechanised armies of the early 20th century produced unprecedented slaughter on the battlefields of the "war to end all wars" after a spark lit in the Balkans with the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Empire's Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

Professor Margaret MacMillan, of the University of Cambridge, argues that the Middle East could be viewed as the modern-day equivalent of this turbulent region. A nuclear arms race that would be likely to start if Iran developed a bomb "would make for a very dangerous world indeed, which could lead to a recreation of the kind of tinderbox that exploded in the Balkans 100 years ago - only this time with mushroom clouds," she writes in an essay for the Brookings Institution, a leading US think-tank.

"While history does not repeat itself precisely, the Middle East today bears a worrying resemblance to the Balkans then," she says. "A similar mix of toxic nationalisms threatens to draw in outside powers as the US, Turkey, Russia, and Iran look to protect their interests and clients."

Professor MacMillan highlights a string of other parallels between today and a century ago. Modern-day Islamist terrorists mirror the revolutionary communists and anarchists who carried out a string of assassinations in the name of a philosophy that sanctioned murder to achieve their vision of a better world. And in 1914, Germany was a rising force that sought to challenge the pre-eminent power of the time, the UK. Today, the growing power of China is perceived as a threat by some in the US.

Authorities in the southwestern French town of Montignac are investigating the extraordinary possibility that, just 4km from the famous Lascaux caves, there may exist another set of prehistoric paintings hidden away in a separate underground cavern.

A group of teenagers in the south west of France in 1940 stumble across what turns out to be a complex network of Paleolithic caves with a series of astonishing 17,000-year-old frescos, which becomes known as the "Sistine Chapel of the Prehistoric era."

You might assume this type of thing only happens once in the same region, but authorities in the town of Montignac, Dordogne are probing the possibility of the existence of a second Lascaux cave.

The rumours of a second cave covered in pre-historic artwork have been circulating for years, but it appears local authorities are now ready to take them seriously after one local family shared an extraordinary secret they had kept to themselves for half a century.

According to French media reports this week, preliminary investigations by the town's mayor, as well as authorities in the Dordogne region, have proved promising enough to warrant a more detailed probe into a patch of land 4 km from the site of the Lascaux caves.

"There's no certainty, and we are still quite far from having the necessary evidence to confirm the existence of another decorated cave," Montignac mayor Laurent Mathieu told French daily Le Figaro this week.

Quotes on Democracy vs. Republic

"Democracy is the most vile form of government. ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as the have been violent in their deaths."
- James Madison (1751-1836) Father of the Constitution, 4th President of the U. S.

"We are a Republic. Real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy."
- Alexander Hamilton (1755-1804) Lawyer, Secretary of the Treasury & Secretary of State

"A simple democracy is the devil's own government."
- Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) Founding Father& signer of the Declaration of Independence

"Let the American youth never forget that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils and sufferings and blood of their ancestors, and capable, if wisely improved and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to the latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence. The structure has been erected by architects of consummate skill and fidelity; its foundations are solid, its compartments are beautiful as well as useful, its arrangements are full of wisdom and order, and its defenses are impregnable from without. It has been reared for immortality, if the work of men may justly aspire to such a title. It may nevertheless perish in an hour by the folly, or corruption, or negligence of its only keepers, the People. Republics are created by the virtue, public spirit, and intelligence of the citizens. They fall when the wise are banished from the public councils because they dare to be honest, and the profligate are rewarded because they flatter the people in order to betray them."
- Joseph Story (1779-1845) Lawyer, Supreme Court Justice & influential commentators on the U.S. Constitution

The stunning tomb of an ancient Egyptian brewer has been found on the west bank of the Nile. Paintings on the walls depict scenes of worship and daily life from 3,000 years ago, reports a Japanese archaeology team.

The tomb belonged to Khonso Im-Heb, who was head of granaries and beer-brewing for the worship of the Egyptian mother goddess, Mut.

In December 2007, the Japanese researchers, led by Jiro Kondo of Waseda University in Tokyo, began excavating in El Khokha, near the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings.

The area had recently been cleared of modern houses during the removal of Qurna village, just to the north, and was already known as a locale for tombs of ancient nobles.

University of Cincinnati archaeologists are turning up discoveries in the famed Roman city of Pompeii that are wiping out the historic perceptions of how the Romans dined, with the rich enjoying delicacies such as flamingos and the poor scrounging for soup or gruel.

Steven Ellis, a University of Cincinnati associate professor of classics, will present these discoveries on Jan. 4, at the joint annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA) and American Philological Association (APA) in Chicago.

UC teams of archaeologists have spent more than a decade at two city blocks within a non-elite district in the Roman city of Pompeii, which was buried under a volcano in 79 AD. The excavations are uncovering the earlier use of buildings that would have dated back to the 6th century.

Ellis says the excavation is producing a complete archaeological analysis of homes, shops and businesses at a forgotten area inside one of the busiest gates of Pompeii, the Porta Stabia.

The area covers 10 separate building plots and a total of 20 shop fronts, most of which served food and drink. The waste that was examined included collections from drains as well as 10 latrines and cesspits, which yielded mineralized and charred food waste coming from kitchens and excrement. Ellis says among the discoveries in the drains was an abundance of the remains of fully-processed foods, especially grains.

Archaeologists in Siberia have discovered a 3,500-year-old burial site containing skeletons of men and women buried together, some facing each other and holding hands. Dozens of tombs had skeletons caught in these "post-mortal hugs;" some also had skeletons of men and women buried with a child. Some 600 of these tombs dating back to the Bronze Age were unearthed in the Staryi Tartas village near the city Novosibirsk in Russia.

Many theories have been fielded by the archaeologists who found them, in order to explain why the skeletons were buried in such a manner. One such theory is that, between 17th and 14th century BC, couples were probably buried together to emphasize the importance of nuclear families as a unit, even in death. Another theory suggests links to reincarnation beliefs.

"We can allege that husband died and the wife was killed to be interred with him as we see in some Scythian burials, or maybe the grave stood open for some time and they buried the other person or persons later, or maybe it was really simultaneous death... we can raise quite a variety of hypotheses, but how it was in fact, we do not know yet," Vyacheslav Molodin, Director of the Institute of Archeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told the Siberian Times.

You know you're doing something wrong when the Nazis use your behavior as proof that they weren't doing anything wrong. Or do you? The Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study became a focal point for debates over the ethics of experimenting on prisoners. Guess which side won.

The Stateville Penitentiary Malaria Study was prompted by the need to get effective anti-malarial drugs to troops fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Animals were proving inadequate for testing purposes, but few people would volunteer to take untested drugs.

So prisoners were told they could potentially shave years off their sentences, earn privileges and get special treatment, if they took part in the study. But they also might die of a fatal heart attack, after experiencing a 106 degree fever.

Between 1923 and 1951, a diminutive Floridian single-handedly and without heavy machinery moved 1,000 tons of limestone, creating out of it a castle. This is his story.

The Builder

Very little is known of the mysterious creator of the Coral Castle, Ed Leedskalnin. Born in Riga, Latvia in 1887 to a family of stonemasons, Ed immigrated to the U.S. sometime around 1913 after his fiancée broke off their engagement (and a large piece of his heart). During a bout with tuberculosis around 1919, he moved to Florida, where magnets were apparently used to treat his condition. This experience seems to have had a life-changing effect, as you'll see later.

After he bought a parcel of land in Florida City, Florida, Ed began to work on the Castle. A loner, one hundred pound, five-feet tall Ed refused to let anyone even watch him work, and no one is known to have helped him move, carve or place the massive stones. When asked how he manipulated such large blocks alone, Ed would explain that he had "discovered the secrets of the pyramids."

The Egyptian-Spanish archaeological mission unearthed on Thursday a large granite head of a statue of an unidentified New Kingdom king during routine excavation at King Thutmose III's funerary temple on Luxor's west bank.

Mohamed Abdel-Maqsoud, head of the Ancient Egyptian Antiquities Section at the Ministry of State for Antiquities (MSA), explained that the head is 29.6cm high, 24.3cm wide and 26.9cm deep. The head depicts a round face of a royal figure, not identified yet, wearing a wig, with traces of a broken nose, and two long ears that each reach 8cm. The eyes, he continued, have traces of kohl, with thick eyebrows.

Abdel-Maqsoud said that the head was found buried in sand in a pit on the northern side of the second court of the temple. Studies are underway in an attempt to determine which New Kingdom king it belongs to.

The temple of Thutmose III is a vey small temple located beside the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Al Deir Al-Bahari. It was first discovered in February 1962 during routine restoration work carried out by a Polish excavation mission of the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology led by archaeologist Kazimierz Michalowski.

The temple is poorly preserved and was dedicated to god Amun-Re. Although Thutmose III's actual funerary temple Henkhet-Ankh is located a short distance away, such a temple had played some role within the king's funerary cult.

When a damaging earthquake struck the area of L'Aquila in central Italy in 2009, it was the latest in the region's long history of strong and persistent quakes. The rich recorded history of settlement in the area, along with oral traditions, archaeological excavations, inscriptions and medieval texts, and offer insight into how often the region might expect destructive earthquakes.

But according to a new study by Emanuela Guidoboni and colleagues, the historical record on ancient and medieval earthquakes comes with its own shortcomings that must be addressed before the seismic history of L'Aquila can be useful in assessing the current seismic hazard in this area.

To illustrate some of these potential gaps in knowledge, the researchers combed through written records and information from archaeological excavations, covering the period from ancient Roman occupation in the first century A.D. to the late Middle Ages of the 15th century A.D. The authors say, researchers must piece together information ranging from collapsed roofs within an ancient Roman city, to the evidences of rebuilding damaged baths and cisterns. In later years, better written records offer more detail on the specific location and size of earthquakes occurring in 1349, 1456, and 1461 (a long seismic sequence).

The authors say that the early to middle Middle Ages, in particular, have a dearth of information that needs to be addressed to have a more complete picture of the region's seismic history. Overall, the records confirm that the region appears to have been host to a high number of strong earthquakes. The authors also point out a tendency in the area to produce multiple and nearly simultaneous seismic events that vary considerably in their impact.

As Guidoboni and her colleagues note, the earthquakes have had a strong influence in the region's economy and culture. It is a impact that can be seen clearly in the historical records, such as a written account of a large earthquake in 1315. During that quake, warring factions in the town came together after they "were struck with fear at the strong shaking when a frightening earthquake soon afterwards struck that place in a terrible way," the official account says, "and they abandoned their wrongdoing and returned to the narrow path of their conscience."