There was a time when two-spirited people — as queer individuals are known in the aboriginal community — were embraced and revered by their own tribes. Then the European settlers came, along with their religious beliefs and values against homosexuals, turning the indigenous community against its two-spirit members, shoveling them into the closet.

The abstract patterns that were often displayed among depictions of wild animals, in ancient cave art, had been a real mystery to anthropologists for generations. Then, one fine day, an anthropologist in Africa was allowed to drink a hallucinogenic drug while entering into a trance induced by chanting, drumming and dancing. He soon realized that one aspect of his inner visions was a period of time in which he visualized the same types of abstract patterns he had seen in the famous caves in Europe dating back 30,000 years.

A meteorite found in a 9,000-year-old hut believed to have belonged to a stone age shaman was probably worshipped by stone age man as a magical object. Archaeologists from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology in Szczecin, in north west Poland, found the meteorite fragment inside the caveman house by lake Swidwe in Western Pomerania during excavations.

A team of archaeologists in Guatemala has discovered a council house dating back about 700 years with altars, incense burners and sculpted images of animals. Located at the site of Nixtun-Ch'ich' in Petén, Guatemala, the house has "two colonnaded halls constructed side by side.

The University of New Mexico is going to offer a free online class on curanderismo — the art of traditional healing.
The school announced this month it will create a Massive Open Online Course as an offshoot of its popular curanderismo class offered on campus every summer.