Newest Era

The Romans had a calendar which consisted of 10 months, starting on March 1st and ending with December. In between was an unnamed winter period. The priests’ task was to determine the start of every new year...

In this region, there is a long history – since the 16th century - of protected forests. Wood was very important because of the vicinity to the open sea and the „woodless“ marshlands. This had the consequence that there was no agricultural use in younger times in this region!

The many - often very tiny - bones of a displayed skeleton can be very confusing. But nowadays people know a lot of the human skeleton and people know all the bones. With help of specially trained people, the anthropologists, skeletons are assembled correctly.

The earliest known loch-dwellling in Scotland goes back 5,000 years to Neolithic times. This is on the island of North Uist, Scotland.

Contraception aids are hardly known from Prehistory. The Greek and Romans used different ways of not getting pregnant: medicines, special positions, periodical abstinence, as well as amulets. If this failed, even then they already used abortion...

Flax is an annual plant which grows to 60 - 100 cms. The length of the plant is important because it equals the length of the fibres. The plant blossoms with white or light blue flowers. After the blossoming, small seed boxes remain...

For sure, people invented many other things earlier, like for example the use and keeping of fire. As many inventions, the wheel was first seen in the Near East, about 8,500 years ago. But these wheels were used as slow turning potter’s wheels. Pottery was already an old technology back then...

Absolutely not! The oldest printed books we know originate from China, where people printed books with wooden blocks as early as the 8th century. The oldest dated book, dated by its maker, is the Chinese “Buddha’s Diamond Sutra”: May 11th, 868. It is one of Buddhism's greatest treasures...

They sharpened the bottom end of the pile to a point using axes. They tied a cross piece of timber and attached it near the top. A person on either side of this cross piece could then twist back and forth to drive the pile into the bed of the loch.

Yes, from the Thirty Years’ War. In 1989-90 and 1999-2004 a research excavation of a battlefield at Třebel in Western Bohemia took place. Below the castle of Třebel at the end of August, beginning of September 1647 the Swedish army led by general Wrangel clashed with the Imperial army led by general Melander...