Obsidian: Did you mean...?

A modern reproduction of an Aztec (Mixtec) macuahuitl, used as a combination of sword and club and given viciously sharp cutting edges by adding obsidian shards to its sides. Made by Shai Azoulai.

A decorated human skull thought to represent the Mesoamerican god Tezcatlipoca. Mosaic of turquoise and lignite cover the skull with red thorny oyster shell used around the nasal cavity. Polished pyrite surrounded by...

A map outlining the migratory paths of Austronesian speaking populations, including estimated dates.

Austronesian sail types: A: Double sprit (Sri Lanka) B: Common sprit (Philippines) C: Oceanic sprit (Tahiti) D: Oceanic sprit (Marquesas) E: Oceanic sprit (Philippines) F: Crane sprit (Marshall Islands) G: Rectangular...

The Aztec Empire (c. 1345-1521) covered at its greatest extent most of northern Mesoamerica. Aztec warriors were able to dominate their neighbouring states and permit rulers such as Montezuma to impose...

The Bantu migration from their origins in southern West Africa saw a gradual population movement sweep through the central, eastern, and southern parts of the continent starting in the mid-2nd millennium BCE and finally ending...

The African kingdom of Axum (also Aksum) was located on the northern edge of the highland zone of the Red Sea coast, just above the horn of Africa. It was founded in the 1st century CE, flourished from the 3rd to 6th century CE...

Hernán Cortés (1485-1547) was a Spanish conquistador who led the conquest of the Aztec Empire in Mexico from 1519. Taking the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, Cortés plundered Mesoamerica as he became the first ruler of the...

The Aztec culture, centred at the capital of Tenochtitlan, dominated most of Mesoamerica in the 15th-16th centuries. With military conquest and trade expansion, the art of the Aztecs also spread, helping the Aztec civilization achieve...

Ҫatalhöyük is one of the largest Neolithic settlements ever discovered. Built more than 9000 years ago in modern Konya Plain, central Turkey, it is known in archaeology as a proto-city, a link between the cave-dwellings of prehistoric...