Civilization IV for Mobiles Finally Released
	Oasys Mobile announced the availability of Sid Meier's Civilization IV: War of Two Cities for mobile phones, a new strategy game based on the legendary Civilization franchise created back in 1991 by Syd Meier and currently owned by 2K Games. The announcement comes after almost one year since Oasys got the license from 2K to develop the game, so they probably spent a lot of time in making everything suitable for our h ... [read more >>]
	15 May 2008, 16:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Human Sacrifice at the Tombs of Mysterious Columbian Civilizations
	Back in January, construction workers stumbled in the Usme district (southeast of Bogotá, Colombia) upon an ancient burial site made of about one thousand tombs belonging to two mysterious civilizations. The site spans over an area of 12 acres (5 hectares) and could host victims of human sacrifice. "The possible victim is a young woman who seems to have been buried alive. Her mouth is open as if in terror, and her hands s ... [read more >>]
	13 May 2008, 02:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Water Crisis: The Stress of the Planet
	Water appeared on Earth 3.5 billion years ago and it is perhaps the most valuable resource of the planet. H2O means life to anything, from bacterium to elephants and humans. There is no biochemical or physiological reaction in the absence of the water. We must consume on average 2.5 liters of water from food and beverages to remain healthy. Water is also necessary for livestock and farming, the means for producing our food. The vit ... [read more >>]
	21 April 2008, 08:56GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

What Is Ken Levine of Bioshock Fame Playing?
	To most of the older hard-core gamers Ken Levine is one of the gods of gaming. And his most interesting work is not the fictional, dystopian and Objectivism infused underwater world of Bioshock, but the long running spell at now defunct Looking Glass game studio, where he was a central part of the team that created such classic and cult hits like System Shock 2 (oh, how we miss you, ... [read more >>]
	08 April 2008, 16:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A History of Writing
	For humans, writing meant a huge technological and cultural revolution. Information was at last to be recorded in a more secure way than via human memory. Writing and reading seem natural for us, but they had to be invented and perfected. In 1996, on the left bank of the Euphrates River, 100 km (60 mi) of Aleppo (Syria), in the archaeological site of Jerf el-Ahmar (in Arabian "Red Bank"), a Syrian-French team discovered some ... [read more >>]
	05 April 2008, 06:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Neolithic: the New Stone Age
	The Neolithic (New Stone Age) was a period in the technological development of Homo sapiens that started at the end of the Ice Age, 10,000 years ago, and ended around the Mediterranean Sea and other areas about 5,500 years ago, when the Bronze Age started. It was the period when first human settlements appeared. People left caves for huts made of branches, stones, adobe or bricks, depending on the resources of the place. The gathered hu ... [read more >>]
	25 March 2008, 12:27GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Sea Silk Road
	Silk, the highly sought-for item in the ancient Rome, was brought from China by caravans that had to cross thousands of kilometers of deserts, rough terrain and abrupt mountains. To all these, the frequent attacks of the bandits added, in the wild passes of the mountains, on the road whose end was on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean. No wonder people looked after a "Sea Silk Road". Even so, the dangers were not eliminat ... [read more >>]
	25 March 2008, 09:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Paleolithic: The Old Stone Age
	Paleolithic is the period that makes most of our history. It started with the oldest known stone tools, 2.6 Ma ago and lasted until 10,000 years ago. It emerged with Homo habilis and reached its peak with our species, Homo sapiens, which appeared about 200,000 years ago. It is the period when humans were just hunters-gatherers. Even if the name of the period referred to the stone tools, first people most likely made also tools from bon ... [read more >>]
	24 March 2008, 17:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Disastrous Mini Ice Age around 536 AD, Caused by Volcanic Megablast
	The Krakatoa eruption may have been just a child play compared to the volcanic megablast that spread havoc in the human civilization around 536 AD. Its volcanic cloud could have triggered a global chill that caused famine in half of the world's population. An international research published in the journal "Geophysical Research Letters" has found sulphates, molecules representing marks of an eruption, in Greenland ice. T ... [read more >>]
	24 March 2008, 05:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A City of the Achilles' Warriors Discovered
	If you've enjoyed "Troy", then you could be interested by the fact that archaeologists have discovered a possible place from where Troy's attackers set out. Daniel Pullen, an archaeologist at the Florida State University, first found the ruins in 2001 and recently presented his findings at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in January 2008. The spectacularly preserved ancient city harbor b ... [read more >>]
	20 March 2008, 04:53GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Enigma of the Olmecs
	The Olmecs preceded the Maya culture by about a millennium and represent the oldest complex civilization in the Americas. They were the first to invent a writing system, as revealed by stone (serpentine) blocks, the so-called Cascajal blocks, found in 2006 in Southern Veracruz, Mexico. Their civilization is regarded as "mother" culture for the much more famous Maya and Aztec civilizations. Their culture flourished b ... [read more >>]
	28 February 2008, 09:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

9 Amazing Things About the Ainu People
	1. In northern Japan, on the island of Hokkaido and a part of the Russian Sakhalin Island, lives a mysterious ethnic group, called Ainu, whose origins represents a mystery. They are very distinct from the Japanese people and, before the Tungus invasion coming from mainland Asia (Korea and northern China), the whole archipelago was inhabited by Ainu. Ainu are shorter than the Japanese people, with lighter skin, robust body and short lim ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 17:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Newly Found Peruvian Pyramids Belong to a Mysterious Civilization
	The history of Peru involves more than the Inca civilization. Pyramid remains have been found at Piura (on the northern Peruvian coast), by construction crews, in January. Now, a team from the Peruvian National Institute of Culture (INC) has announced that the site, 2 mi (3.2 km) long and 1 mi (1.6 km) wide, belonged to the ancient Vicús, a pre-Hispanic civilization that inhabited that coastal desert from 200 B.C to 300 A.D. As ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 05:30GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Civilization: Revolutions Gets Release Date
	2K Games has announced that the console exclusive title, developed by Firaxis and available for the Xbox 360, Nintendo DS and PlayStation 3, will be released on June 3, 2008. For the first time ever, the franchise moves away from the PC, after the success of Civilization 4 and its tw ... [read more >>]
	21 February 2008, 05:28GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Inca: The Empire of the Sun
	In 1527, starting from Panama, a handful of Spaniards led by Francisco Pizarro managed to conquer the largest empire a pre-Columbian civilization ever created. The empire of Incas stretched through the highlands of Andes, in today's Ecuador, Peru, south Columbia, western Bolivia and northwest Argentina and it numbered 10 million people. The name of Inca came from the appellative of the emperors; the name of the people was Quechua and ... [read more >>]
	16 February 2008, 05:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

8 Things About the Chinese People and Civilization
	1. The Han Chinese form the largest ethnic group in the world, 14 % of the planet's population. The cradle of the Chinese civilization was the valley of Huang He (Yellow River). The capital of three great Chinese dynasties: Chu (1,122-256 BC), Han (206 BC-220 AD) and Tang (618-906), was located in the city of Jinan, on the banks of Huang He, in the province of Shaanxi; then, under the dynasties of Yuang, Ming and Ching, Beijing turned ... [read more >>]
	13 February 2008, 11:29GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

7 Amazing Issues About Indian Civilization
	1. India was one of the cradles of the civilization. Here emerged two religions of high philosophical and moral content: Buddhism and Brahmanism. Indian literature started over 3,000 years ago with the sacred books called Vedas and the epics of Ramayana and Mahabharata; it was profoundly religious and poetic, and comprised various genera: theater, tales, novels, poetry. Kama Shutra was written 1,500 years ago by the Indian scholar Mallana ... [read more >>]
	12 February 2008, 16:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Five Amazing Things About Celts
	1. Four millennia ago, the mix between one of the first waves of Indo-Europeans and pre-Indo-Europeans populations gave rise to the Celts, in the (nowadays) southern Germany, between the river Rhine and Danube. The Celts developed a skilled iron metallurgy and this allowed them to produce powerful weaponry. During the La Tene epoch, between the 5th and 1st centuries BC, the Celts were involved into an expansion movement. They occupied most ... [read more >>]
	09 February 2008, 02:26GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

When Did People Start to Write?
	On the left bank of the Euphrates River, 100 km (60 mi) of Aleppo (Syria), in the archaeological site of Jerf el-Ahmar (in Arabian "Red Bank"), a Syrian-French team discovered, in 1996, some very odd stone slates bearing engraved graphics. The plates were considered to date from the Neolithic (New Stone Age), being 9,000 years old! The plates pre-date with 4,000 years the oldest previously known writing, the ... [read more >>]
	08 February 2008, 09:15GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Who Were the Iberians?
	Today, the word "Iberian" makes you think about Spain and Portugal, but the word comes from the name of an ancient population that inhabited the southern and eastern Iberian Peninsula in Antiquity. Historical sources starting with the 5th century BC describe the barbarian inhabitants of "Hispania", with odd habits and bloody rituals. The Iberian tribes lived in settlements located on the top of the hills, in s ... [read more >>]
	07 February 2008, 15:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Etruscans: The Civilization of the Leopard
	The Etruscan civilization flourished on the territory of central Italy (from Po River to Naples) and, besides the Greek one, was the most influential for Romans. The Etruscans appeared, according to the historical annals, around 800-750 BC in Tuscany, the Italian region that was named after the Tuscans (Etruscans). Later they spread into Umbria and Lazio (the region of Rome). The Tyrrhenian Sea could also have an Etruscan name. Etrusca ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 17:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Hittites: The People That Discovered the Iron
	The Hittites were mentioned even in the Bible. Their roots started with the Indo-European invasion in Anatolia (Asia Minor, now Turkey) 4,000 years ago. Around 1530 BC, the Hittites already made rapid invasions in the neighboring areas, and destroyed Babylon. By those times, Hittites were a warlike people involved in civil wars each time a king had to be named. But king Telepinu (1525-1500 BC) reformed the organization of the Hi ... [read more >>]
	31 January 2008, 14:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Persians: the Zoroastrian civilization
	The civilizations of Egypt and Middle East had already ages measured in millenia when the Iranian nomad tribes of the Medes and Persians left the steppes to establish in the Iranian Plateau, 3,000 years ago. The Medes settled in the south of the Caspian Sea, the Persians in the southeast, in the area of what we call today the Persian Gulf (Shiraz). Before the arrival of the Iranian tribes, the plateau was inhabited by the Hurrites and othe ... [read more >>]
	19 January 2008, 08:19GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's Oldest Cities
	First cities could develop only when people learned to build settlements and transform them in permanent habitats. This happened 10-12 millennia ago, in a stretch of land along the Middle East, going from Turkey to Iran. The natives of these places first lived as hunters-gatherers, but gradually they started living in small communities, to cultivate the land and grow animals. But these settlements were not cities. The city is ... [read more >>]
	16 January 2008, 14:06GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Real Atlantis and Its Decline
	Any myth contains a grain of truth. This is also the case of Atlantis, the country swallowed by the sea. The myth of the Atlantis, first mentioned by Plato 2400 years ago, talks about a real ancient civilization destroyed by the sea. The Atlantic Ocean got its name from Atlantis, as many people placed its location in the middle of this ocean. But historical data say this civilization could have been located in the Crete Island or in a near ... [read more >>]
	15 January 2008, 16:36GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

HeroCraft Announces "Civilization" Clone Mobile Game
	HeroCraft has just announced the forthcoming release of the long-awaited game Revival for PDA and Smartphones. Revival is a turn-based military strategy game in the tradition of the world-famous game title, "Civilization". The player will have to explore contin ... [read more >>]
	03 January 2008, 03:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Lamu, the Forgotten Kenyan Zanzibar
	For the first Europeans navigating around Africa during the 15th century, these islands were vital. In those times, Africa was full of luxuries: gold, ivory, spices and slaves. These first explorers found on the middle of the east African shore a safe and deep port for their fragile boats. The port was protected by coral reefs, next to a small group of islands called Lamu. Here, the sailors could restore their drinking water ... [read more >>]
	19 December 2007, 09:31GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

7,000 Years Ago European Women Dressed Sexy
	They may have lived during the "New Stone Age" (Neolithic), but according to European figurines which are 7,500 years old, women liked to look sexy even back then. Recent digging at the site of a settlement of Vinca culture, Europe's biggest known Neolithic civilization, on Plocnik (southern Serbia), uncovered a sophisticated prehistoric metropolis, with a developed taste for art and fashion and it appears now to be Euro ... [read more >>]
	13 November 2007, 06:12GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Oldest Construction in America
	The pre-Columbian America had two centers where complex civilizations developed: Mexico and Peru. At that time sophisticated cities and huge pyramidal temples were built. Now, a Peruvian team seems to have discovered the oldest mural ever found in the Americas, close to the Peruvian coast, at the Ventarrón site, in Lambayeque valley, about 800 km(500 mi) north of Lima. Carbon dating effectuated in US revealed the ancient wall was 4,000 yea ... [read more >>]
	13 November 2007, 02:54GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Who Were the Aztecs?
	"The enormous market swarmed of people; some buying, some selling...Amongst us were soldiers which had traveled in many parts of the world, from Constantinople to Italy and Rome, yet they said they had never seen a market of such proportions so harmonious and balanced, harboring so much people", wrote Bernal Diaz del Castillo, a soldier from the army of the Spanish conquistador Hernan Cortes, about Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital ... [read more >>]
	03 November 2007, 05:33GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Civilization Codes and Secrets (PC)
	Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn based strategy computer game created by Sid Meier for MicroProse in 1991. The game's objective is "...to build an empire that would stand the test of time". The game begins in 4000 BC and the players ... [read more >>]
	08 October 2007, 09:17GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Who are the Papuans?
	On the second biggest island in the world, there lives one of the oldest human populations: the Papuans. Today, the island has about 6.9 million inhabitants. New Guinea has mountains up to 5,030 m high (16,700 ft) which display glaciers in an equatorial area, and the vegetation goes from coastal mangroves and marshes with sago palms to lowland rainforests, home of ebony trees and ironwood to savannas and Eucalyptus while the top of the mou ... [read more >>]
	18 August 2007, 07:45GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Cradle of Civilization Has Been Removed
	We are obsessed with Egypt and Mesopotamia and all kinds of theories explaining how civilization emerged in these areas. But now archaeologists are coming with an increasingly more evidence that expands the view on the origin of civilization far beyond Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is widely credited to be the cradle of civilization, but a growing body of artifacts show that about 5,000 years ago, many civilized urban areas existe ... [read more >>]
	03 August 2007, 05:40GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

You Did Not Know All These Things About The Danube
	Danube is like a vertebral column of the European continent and a navigable path connecting 9 countries over 2,850 km (1,800 mi), while gathering its affluents from an area of 817,000 square km. It is the 26th river in the world, and the second in Europe after Volga. It originates in the Black Forest Mountains in Germany and flows to the southeast till the Black Sea. But not its size gives its importance. This large river has been the env ... [read more >>]
	01 August 2007, 02:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Origins of the Etruscans
	This civilization flourished on the territory which is nowadays central Italy (from Po River to Naples) and besides the Greek one, was the most influential for Romans. The Etruscans are still shrouded in mystery, even if there is a lot of data regarding their life, dances, or other habits, due to Roman writings and many archaelogical discoveries (frescoes, tombs, settlements and others). Women were equal to men, a fact that shocked ... [read more >>]
	09 May 2007, 19:11GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Mystery of Atlantis Solved!
	Any myth bears a grain of truth and is not just about some stories invented by the human mind. This is also the case of Atlantis, the country swallowed by the sea. The myth of Atlantis, the city state engulfed by the sea waters, was first mentioned by Plato 2400 years ago and has been firing the popular imagination for centuries. In reality, the legend talks about a real ancient civilization swallowed by the sea. Indeed, the Atlantic Oce ... [read more >>]
	20 April 2007, 06:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Heart Rippers Were Persistent
	With Mel Gibson's “Apocalypto”, the most sinister aspect of the indigenous cultures of Mesomerica is revealed: their blood thirst and appetite for human sacrifices. What a simple DNA analysis revealed shows that the “Apocalypto” scenes are just backyard play. Ancient indigenous that built the Pyramid of the Moon at the Teotihuacan have been found to have brought human sacrifice victims from hundreds of miles away over centuri ... [read more >>]
	12 April 2007, 03:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

The Mysteries of the Easter Island
	Rapa Nui or Easter Island, also called by the locals Tepitothenua (the navel of the world) is an almost barren triangular island of 170 square kilometers, believed to be the most isolated inhabited place on Earth, at 3,760 km (2,300 mi) off Chile, to which it belongs, at 27o 08' S and 109o 23' V. It is a volcanic island with two impressive craters: Orongo and Rano Aroi (618 m or 2,060 ft tall) on the sole mountain, Rano Raraku. D ... [read more >>]
	03 April 2007, 12:18GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Ancient Headless Bodies Found on the Cannibals' Islands
	Archaeologists have discovered in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu (New Hebrides) the region's oldest cemetery, 3,000 year old, filled with a huge amount of headless bodies. The strange skeletons belong to the Lapita people, the earliest known sailors in the Pacific Islands. Their DNA could explain how many remote islands around Vanuatu were colonized. "Polynesia was first settled by the Lapita culture but their popul ... [read more >>]
	16 March 2007, 05:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar Cheats
	One of the possible winning conditions in Sid Meir’s Civilization series is the launch of a shuttle to another galaxy (the closest – Proxima Centauri). This is just about where Stardock takes up and continues to spread the human influence across the Universe. Friend or foe, many alien races cross your way. In Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords the Terran Alliance based on Earth in 2225 was working to build an interstellar all ... [read more >>]
	12 March 2007, 11:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did Ancient People Discover the Iron?
	Iron production was the most sophisticated form of metalworking for ancient civilizations. The complicated technology of the iron ore reduction has its roots in ancient Anatolia (today Turkey) in the Hittite and Mitanni kingdoms, 4,000 years ago. There is evidence that in northern India, it appeared 3,800 years ago. Independently, iron was produced in Sub-Saharan Africa, in today’s Nigeria, at the same time. Amongst the oldest ... [read more >>]
	09 March 2007, 10:41GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Did People Pass from Stone to Metals?
	The crockery was the first technological process through which people handled high temperatures and complicate chemical reactions of oxidation and reduction. 8,000 years ago, European populations were using malachite (a copper oxide) to get colorants. Perhaps ancient people noticed the transformations suffered by this mineral in contact with the fire. At the end of the Neolithic (the last Stone Age), about 6,300 years ago, people from ... [read more >>]
	08 March 2007, 10:24GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia