Archaeology Magazine is the bi-monthly publication of the Archaeological Institute of America. Subscription cost is under $20 which is half what you'll pay for the issues at a newsstand. I really enjoy this magazine and learn so much history from it!
The July-August 2025 issue had a bit, "Legend of the Crystal Brain." This relates how in the 1960s the skeleton of a young man about 20 years old was found covered in ash lying on his wooden bed in the doomed city of Pompeii. In 2018, doing a more thorough study on this "man," some "fragments resembling obsidian" were found in the man's skull. The poor man's brain had been turned into glass by the extremely high temperatures of that volcanic ash.... over 950o! The scientist was quoted as saying, "We were looking into the brain of that young Roman who lied 2000 years ago---a brain that, perhaps, held his last thoughts before dying." How sad.
Another fascinating bit was this: "Cats curl up on couches in 1/3 of all American households. However, domesticated felines are not native to the New World but were introduced by Europeans. The earliest known cats in the present day U.S., an adult and a kitten, have been identified in the wreck of a Spanish ship that sank in Pensacola Bay in Florida at 1559. Cats were likely brought aboard to feast on rodents."
This magazine has articles of historic and archaeologic interest from all over the world......... from where our ancestors lived and still live all over the world. Try it; you might just like it.
