Every type of birch tar a University of Cologne-led team made with reconstructed Neanderthal methods inhibited the wound bacterium Staphylococcus aureus. That makes a medical role for the old hafting adhesive plausible, though proof that Neanderthals dressed wounds with it would have to come from their sites.
Reality
- Evidence40
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives55
- Confidence50
A perforated ivory rod from Hohle Fels was catalogued as a prestige object until its discoverer noticed spiral grooves inside each hole, and a replication with cattail fiber suggests it made rope that never survived.
Reality
- Evidence52
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives45
- Confidence62
Live Science asked three researchers for evidence that Vikings lit funeral boats adrift with flaming arrows. The archaeological record cannot answer the question, so the case rests on written accounts and on one archaeologist's burn tests.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives25
- Confidence60
A conference paper argues medieval combat at Visby was coordinated group work. The more useful result is the rig: cow bone, ballistic gelatine and a reenactor in a 4D motion-capture suit.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+40
- Incentives60
- Confidence62
An Argentine-led team heated and hammered samples of an iron meteorite at three temperatures and watched the Widmanstatten bands vanish by 850C, which means a plain-looking Bronze Age blade may still be sky iron.
Reality
- Evidence61
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives34
- Confidence54
Eleven new incised arrowheads from Tepecik-Ciftlik lift the known corpus to 54. None of the designs repeat, which is a hard problem for reading them as ownership marks.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+14
- Incentives30
- Confidence56