Latest Civilization Stories

Research that was coordinated at Carlos III University of Madrid (UC3M) analyzes the mythological images in Roman mosaics and shows that members of the most powerful elite selected Greek gods and heroes as symbols of universal values that reinforced what Rome stood for. This line of research, coordinated by Luz Neira, who is a professor in the Department of Humanities: History, Geography and Art, as well as a researcher in UC3M’s Institute for Culture and Technology (Instituto de Cultura...

Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com In the past 10 years, while some people may have worked heavily on their career, one man worked just as hard on a video game. Reddit user Lycerius posted details on his account about the 10-year-long game he played on the 1996 society simulator "Civilization II." In the past 10 years, Lycerius' video game experience has seen the world through plenty of climate changes over the past 1,900 years. His game play left him ultimately making it to the year...

LOS ANGELES, April 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- GameFly, Inc., the leading online video game rental subscription service, has expanded its partnership with 2K Games to deliver blockbuster video games to GameFly members via the Unlimited PC Play catalog. Hit games like BioShock, Sid Meier's Civilization IV and X-Com: Enforcer are among the new titles available for free downloading and playing on multiple PCs for GameFly subscribers. The 2K Games titles are available for immediate...

The Classic Maya Civilization, which flourished from 250 AD to around 950 AD, may have collapsed due to relatively modest reductions in precipitation, according to a new study by Mexican and British researchers. The study, led by Professors Martín Medina-Elizalde of the Yucatan Center for Scientific Research in Mexico and Eelco Rohling of the University of Southampton in the UK, said the relatively mild drought of the Classic Mayan period was much like the conditions that are expected in...

A team of researchers conducting an extensive study of growth rings in trees say there could be a link between the rise and fall of ancient civilizations and sudden shifts in Europe's climate. They based their findings on data from more than 9,000 wooden artifacts that have come from civilizations from over the past 2,500 years, BBC News reports. In the study, published online in the journal Science, the researchers found that periods of warm, wet summers coincided with prosperity,...

Video game publisher to split $250,000 donation between 4 charities based on Sid Meier's Civilization V gamer votes MINNEAPOLIS and ST. PAUL, Minn., Nov. 29, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Scholarship America®, the nation's leading nonprofit scholarship and educational support organization, will be the recipient of a portion of $250,000 being donated to education-based charities by 2K Games, developer of the popular Sid Meier's Civilization series - based on the percentage of votes...

Researchers said Monday that traces of a previously unknown Bronze Age civilization have been discovered in the peaks of Russia's Caucasus Mountains because of aerial photographs taken 40 years ago. "We have discovered a civilization dating from the 16th to the 14th centuries BC, high in the mountains south of Kislovodsk," in Russia's North Caucasus region, Andrei Belinsky, the head of a joint Russian-German expedition that has been investigating the region for five years, told...

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 27 /PRNewswire/ -- Sid Meier, the Director of Creative Development and co-founder of Firaxis Games, will bring to bear over 25 years of experience in game design in the opening keynote address at the 2010 Game Developers Conference® (GDC). Best known for his work designing the genre-defining Civilization strategy game franchise, Sid Meier will present a keynote entitled "The Psychology of Game Design (Everything You Know Is Wrong)." In this rare address, Meier will...

Researchers say that nature lashed out against civilization 3,600 years ago, by using earthquakes and floods, followed by blowing sand, which drove away residents of an area that is now in Peru."This maritime farming community had been successful for over 2,000 years, they had no incentive to change, and then all of a sudden, boom, they just got the props knocked out from under them," anthropologist Mike Moseley of the University of Florida said in a statement.Moseley and other...

A new study makes a fiery claim: That humans had the ability to make flames nearly 790,000 years ago.It's a skill researchers believe helped them migrate from Africa to Europe.Researchers at Israel's Hebrew University discovered that early civilizations had learned to light fires, by analyzing flints at an archaeological site on the bank of the river Jordan. It marks a turning point in history that allowed them to venture into unknown lands.A 2004 study of the site showed that man had been...