This is the temple of Apollo at the Ionian sanctuary of Didyma in Turkey. According to the Oxford Classical Dictionary, the oracular shrine of Apollo "was administered by a priestly clan, the Brnachidae, and rose to great prominence in the 6th cent. BC." The fate of the sanctuary "seems to have been sealed by an oracle given in AD 303, advising Diocletian to initiate his empire-wide persecution of the Christian church. Constantine I closed the oracle, and executed the priests; it appears not to have functioned thereafter."
In other words, the oracle was shut down in retaliation for its advice to Diocletian.
"Traces of violence on 1700 year old skeletons allow researchers to reconstruct warfare and sacrifices of nomads in Siberia. An international and interdisciplinary team of anthropologists, archaeologists and specialists in forensic sciences performed a detailed and revealing analysis of the traumas found on the skeletal remains." Source: Science Daily.
"Ancient historiographers described steppe nomads as violent people dedicated to warfare and plundering. Little archaeological and anthropological data are however available regarding violence in these communities during the early centuries CE. In a new study in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, an international team led by researchers from the University of Bern and the Russian Academy of Sciences presents new discoveries about the types of violence lived [sic] by nomads from Siberia between the 2nd-4th centuries CE."
Analyzing the remains found in a Siberian tomb known as Tunnug1 (located at Arzhan - "a site of early Scythiankurgan burials"), researchers discovered that Scythian culture -- during this period, at least -- was incredibly violent:
"The study demonstrates that 25% of the individuals died as a consequence of interpersonal violence, mostly related to hand-to-hand combat, often represented by traces of decapitation. Even though violence affected mostly men, also women and children were found among the victims. Some of the individuals from Tunnug1 show traces of throat-slitting and scalping. According to Marco Milella, first author of the study 'this suggests that violence was not only related to raids and battles, but probably also due to specific, still mysterious, rituals involving the killing of humans and the collection of war trophies.'"
"Using high resolution paleoecological information obtained from fossilized footprints, a new study presents ~120 thousand-year-old human and animal footprints from an ancient lake bed in northern Arabia. These findings represent the earliest evidence for humans in this part of the world and show that human and animal movements and landscape use were closely linked." Source: Science Daily.
"Proto-Elamite is the last undeciphered writing system from the Ancient Near East with a substantial number of sources (more than 1600 published texts). It was used for a relatively short period around 3000 BC across what is today Iran." Source: Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CLDI, 2013).
Note: Wikipedia describes the Proto-Elamite script as "largely" undeciphered, so there may have been some progress in translation recently.
Reflectance Transformation Imaging, the technology Oxford used to study their proto-Elamite tablets (see video above), "...is a computational photographic method that captures a subject’s surface shape and color and enables the interactive re-lighting of the subject from any direction," according to Cultural Heritage Imaging.
"For a majority of the tablets the only available images are hand copies, drawn 80-100 years ago, but for a growing number of texts kept in the Louvre Museum high quality images are available," according to the CDLI.
"Archaeologists have revealed surprising new insights into why pottery production increased significantly at the end of the last Ice Age – with culture playing a bigger role than expected." Source: Science Daily (2016).
"...Pottery is thought to have originated in Japan around 16,000 years ago [1], but the numbers produced vastly increased 11,500 years ago, coinciding with a shift to a warmer climate. As resurgence in forests took place, an increase in vegetation and animals led to new food sources becoming available."
[1] "Pottery and porcelain ... is one of the oldest Japanese crafts and art forms, dating back to the Neolithic period ... Earthenwares were created as early as the Jōmon period (10,500–300BC), giving Japan one of the oldest ceramic traditions in the world." (Wikipedia)
"Previous thinking suggested that pottery use and production increased to accommodate different cooking and storage techniques for the wider variety of foodstuffs available at this time. However, new analysis reveals this not to be the case.
"Performing molecular and isotopic analysis of lipids extracted from vessels spanning a 9000 year period, the researchers found that pottery was used largely for cooking marine and freshwater animal species – a routine that remained constant despite climate warming and new resources becoming available. Finding surprisingly little evidence of plant processing in pottery, or cooking of animals such as deer, researchers found the only significant change to be the different types of fish consumed, such as an increase in freshwater fish."
Comment: As far as I can tell, this story could be boiled down to one sentence: "The ancient Japanese started making more pottery after the last ice age because they were catching more fish."
"Researchers have discovered an ancient Japanese pottery vessel from the late Jomon period (4500-3300 BP) with an estimated 500 maize weevils incorporated into its design. The vessel was discovered in February 2016 from ruins in Hokkaido, Japan. This extremely rare discovery provides clues on the cultivation and distribution of chestnuts, food in the Jomon era, and the spirituality of ancient Japanese people." Source: Science Daily (2018).
"Shimao ... is a Neolithic site in Shenmu County, Shaanxi, China. The site is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, on the southern edge of the Ordos Desert. It is dated to around 2000 BC, near the end of the Longshan period [next video], and is the largest known walled site of that period in China, at 400 ha [app. 988 acres]. The fortifications [double stone walls] of Shimao were originally believed by to be a section of the Great Wall of China, but the discovery of jade pieces prompted an archaeological investigation." (Wikipedia)
This is a spectacular Stone-Age site. According to Archaeology World, "The digging had revealed a 230 feet high pyramid surrounded by more than six miles of protective walls and an inner sanctum containing jade artifacts, painted murals, and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice." Around 80 human skulls, mainly of young girls, were discovered buried in six pits beneath the city's eastern wall.
This isn't a recent find. According to a 2013 AFP report, the sacrifices may have been conducted as part of religious or foundation ceremonies related to the construction of the city walls:
"There may have been an outbreak of mass violence or ethnic conflict in the region at the time since 'ancient people were prone to use their enemies or captives as sacrifices...'"
Video from 2018. Shimao was discovered in 1976.
"Shimao now is the largest known Neolithic settlement in China and none of the ancient Chinese texts mentions a city residing so far north of the 'cradle of Chinese Civilization'. It had an expanse of [approximately] 1000 acres and is larger than the Central Park of New York City. Its art and technology had influenced the northern regions and the future dynasties of China." (Archaeology World)
"Along with other discoveries at prehistoric sites, Shimao is forcing historians to rethink the origin of the Chinese civilization.
"According to the leader of the dig at Shimao, 'Shimao is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of this century.'"
"At an ancient site of human sacrifice in China, war captives may have been kept as slaves for years before they were killed, a new study finds." Source: Live Science (2017).
Archaeological excavations in China have revealed "that an extraordinary number of ritual human sacrifices were conducted during the Shang dynasty, which spanned from the 16th century B.C. to the 11th century B.C. It is the earliest dynasty in China for which archaeologists have evidence. For instance, sacrificial pits are common across the entire site of the last Shang capital, Yinxu, which researchers discovered in 1928 in central China's Henan Province. Scientists have estimated that over the course of about 200 years, more than 13,000 people were sacrificed in Yinxu, usually males ages 15 to 35, and that on average, each sacrificial ritual there likely claimed at least 50 human victims. The biggest sacrifice found so far killed at least 339 people."
American Philosophical Society Annual Meeting, April 2017.
"The history of China before the establishment of the Republic of China in 1912 and the People’s Republic of China in 1949 generally is thought of in terms of a succession of dynasties, beginning with the legendary Xia dynasty (circa 2100 BCE - circa 1600 BCE) and the Shang dynasty (circa 1600 BCE - 1046 BCE), and ending with the Qing dynasty of 1644 - 1911. The oldest records of Chinese history date from around 1600 BCE. Presented on this timeline are manuscripts, books, and maps made in China and for the most part written in Chinese between circa 1199 BCE and 1931. These documents show the complexity and richness of Chinese civilization over a period of more than three millennia." Source: "Chinese Books, Manuscripts, Maps and Prints," World Digital Library (lots of images from ancient Chinese manuscripts can be found here).
This reading is from the great Voices of the Past channel. The excerpt is from the medieval Book of Tang, but I'm not sure if this is the old book or the new: