This first evidence of a Jewish village on the site strengthens the hypothesis, that until now was no more than folklore, that this is the “Kursi” mentioned in the New Testament as one of the sites where Jesus performed his miracles
The view that androgynous individuals are pathologically deviant has caused scholars to reject the possibility that the mythological figure Hermaphroditus could be perceived as erotically attractive. But the Romans had a different view of sexuality and a new doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg shows that Hermaphroditus was an object of in particular men's desire.
Insomniacs take heart: Humans get by on significantly less sleep than our closest animal relatives. The secret, according to a new study, is that our sleep is more efficient.
New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in combination with the new crops they encountered, of 'multi-crop' agriculture and the rise of settled societies. Archaeologists say 'forgotten' millet has a role to play in modern crop diversity and today's food security debate.
Tests carried out by a University of Southampton archaeologist have confirmed a former chalk quarry holds vital clues about prehistoric climate and the early human occupation of the UK.
A study published in the journal Antiquity explains how the bluestones that make up the famous neolithic monument in Salisbury Plain in England, were dug out at least 500 years before in Wales. Stonehenge may have stood in Wales hundreds of years before it was dismantled and transported.
An international research team, led by Rodrigo Lacruz, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Basic Science and Craniofacial Biology at New York University’s College of Dentistry (NYUCD), has just published a study describing for the first time the developmental processes that differentiate Neanderthal facial skeletons from those of modern humans.
A 13,000 year-old engraving uncovered in Spain may depict a hunter-gatherer campsite, according to a study published December 2, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Marcos García-Diez from University of the Basque Country, Spain, and Manuel Vaquero from Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution - IPHES, Spain.
Husband-and-wife team, inspired by beauty of Lake Superior area, find ancient 2,000-mile-long underground crack formed in multiple stages.
Itai Roffman of the University of Haifa documented groups of bonobos performing complex actions to extract food – a characteristic that has hitherto been regarded as an exclusive evolutionary advantage of archaic pre-humans
If Pleistocene megafauna -- mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths and others -- had not become extinct, humans might not be eating pumpkin pie and squash for the holidays, according to an international team of anthropologists.
A study published in the journal, Nature, adds to growing evidence that the people of Europe’s DNA underwent widespread changes, altering their height, digestion, immune system and skin color with the spread of agriculture.
A tooth fossil, believed to be about 110,000 years old, has yielded DNA from a vanished branch of the human tree, mysterious cousins called the Denisovans. The tooth was found in a cave in Siberia in 2010. Scientists describe their newest Denisovan DNA analysis in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists have found the "fourth strand" of European ancestry. This population, discovered in the Caucasus mountains of Western Georgia survived for thousands of years, isolated from the rest of Europe due to the Ice Age. A small but significant portion of Europe's genome is derived from this unique population of hunter-gatherers, who came out of hiding, and mixed with the Yamnaya culture, which swept into Western Europe about 5,000 years ago.
Two University of Notre Dame anthropologists looked beyond the nuclear family for effects on testosterone levels in men and found that not only spouses, but also other relatives, good friends, colleagues, neighbors and fellow church members can play a role.
Archaeologists from the University of Cambridge have unearthed the earliest known European Christian church in the tropics on one of the Cabo Verde islands, 500km off the coast of West Africa, where the Portuguese established a stronghold to start the first commerce with Africa south of the Sahara. This turned into a global trade in African slaves from the 16th century, in which Cabo Verde played a central part as a major trans-shipment centre.
New findings on Egypt's Khufu pyramid may indicate secret chambers.
A joint Greek-American archaeological expedition, co-directed by a University of Southampton researcher, has recorded 22 shipwrecks over 13 days in what may be the ancient shipwreck capital of the world.
In findings presented last week at the Meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Palaeontology in Texas, scientists identified the fossil remains of rats the size of small dogs found on the Indonesian island of Timor. According to archeological evidence from the area, humans (who were present in Timor starting at least 46,000 years ago) regularly hunted and butchered these megafauna.
Australopithecus deyiremeda is the name of the new fossil hominid species discovered in the site of Woranso-Mille —in the central region of Afar, in Ethiopia— by an international team of scientists led by Professor Yohannes Haile-Selassie (Case Western Reserve University, United States).
A continuing look at a Maya village in El Salvador--frozen in time by a blanket of volcanic ash from 1,400 years ago--shows the farming families who lived there went about their daily lives with virtually no strong-arming by the elite royalty lording over the valley.
An archeological site in Jersey, UK has yielded a stash of artifacts from the end of the last Ice Age. The fragments include stone pieces engraved with criss-crossed lines, possibly made over 14,000 years ago. Initial reports determine that these were made by the Magdalenians, a hunter-gatherer culture which gradually re-colonised Europe at the end of the Ice Age, 16,000 to 13,000 years ago.
Most of what we know about Mayan civilization relates to kings, queens and their elaborate temples. To understand what life was like for the 99 percent, one researcher turned to ancient animal bones stored at the Florida Museum of Natural History.
New research by a team of scientists led by Catherine Markham, PhD, a Stony Brook University anthropologist, reveals that intermediate-sized groups provide the most benefits to wild baboons.
University of Utah scientists deciphered maternal genetic material from two babies buried together at an Alaskan campsite 11,500 years ago. They found the infants had different mothers and were the northernmost known kin to two lineages of Native Americans found farther south throughout North and South America. The study supports the theory that Native Americans descended from people who migrated from Asia to the Bering land bridge, then spent up to 10,000 years there before moving rapidly into the Americas beginning at least 15,000 years ago.
According to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a total of 11 cases have been reported in the United States since April 1st, 2015.
University of Utah biologists used cadaver arms to punch and slap padded dumbbells in experiments supporting a hotly debated theory that our hands evolved not only for manual dexterity, but also so males could fistfight over females.
Nearly 100 fossil species pulled from a flooded cave in the Bahamas reveal a true story of persistence against all odds — at least until the time humans stepped foot on the islands.
Rickets has been identified in a Neolithic skeleton from the Scottish island of Tiree, making it the earliest case of the disease in the UK, according to research announced at the British Science Festival in Bradford.
Researchers studying traditional societies found that they average about 6.5 hours per night.
Findings, published in the journal Nature, show that Homo sapiens arrived in China about 80,000 years ago, long before humans were able to leave their mark on Europe.
A team of archaeologists at the University of York have revealed new insights into cuisine choices and eating habits at Durrington Walls – a Late Neolithic monument and settlement site thought to be the residence for the builders of nearby Stonehenge during the 25th century BC.
A new exhibition at the Oriental Institute Museum of the University of Chicago will give visitors a rare glimpse inside the ancient city of Persepolis. “Persepolis: Images of an Empire,” which opens Oct. 13, includes archival photographs and a new multi-media presentation that document an astounding imperial complex of palaces constructed by the Persian kings Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes I and III, who ruled between 522 and 338 BC in today’s southwest Iran.
A research team led by Stony Brook University investigating human and chimpanzee locomotion have uncovered unexpected similarities in the way the two species use their upper body during two-legged walking.
Archaeologists at the University of South Carolina raised three cannons from the Confederate gunboat CSS Pee Dee from the Great Pee Dee River in South Carolina. The mystery of the CSS Pee Dee, its cannons and the inland Mars Bluff Navy Yard endured for the better part of 100 years.
On Monday, archeologists confirmed that they've found evidence of two hidden chambers behind the western and northern walls of Tutankhamun’s tomb. Could this discovery lead to the burial chamber of Queen Nefertiti?
Research into human fossils dating back to approximately two million years ago reveals that the hearing pattern resembles chimpanzees, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. Rolf Quam, assistant professor of anthropology at Binghamton University, led an international research team in reconstructing an aspect of sensory perception in several fossil hominin individuals from the sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans in South Africa. The study relied on the use of CT scans and virtual computer reconstructions to study the internal anatomy of the ear. The results suggest that the early hominin species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, both of which lived around 2 million years ago, had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans.
NAU professor Chris Downum and his team of students have been documenting sites all over the northern Arizona region using photogrammetry technology.
Early humans were skilful at using the landscape features of the Kenyan Rift to ambush and kill their prey. They became adept at predicting the pathways used by potential prey, enabling them to ambush large and dangerous animals.
Working in a cave complex deep beneath South Africa’s Malmani dolomites, an international team of scientists has brought to light an unprecedented trove of hominin fossils — more than 1,500 well-preserved bones and teeth — representing the largest, most complete set of such remains found to date in Africa. The discovery of the fossils, cached in a barely accessible chamber in a subterranean labyrinth not far from Johannesburg, adds a new branch to the human family tree, a creature dubbed Homo naledi.
An international research team, which includes NYU anthropologists Scott Williams and Myra Laird, has discovered a new species of a human relative. Homo naledi, uncovered in a cave outside of Johannesburg, South Africa, sheds light on the diversity of our genus and possibly its origin.
The new species, Homo naledi, that was announced today by National Geographic was identified after two years of analysis by researchers. Lucas Delezene, an expert in hominin dental anatomy, studied the fossil teeth to determine they were different than any known species.
If you are in a special relationship with another person, thank grandma – not just yours, but all grandmothers since humans evolved.
What the last common ancestor between humans and African apes looked like has remained unclear. A new study led by researchers at UC San Francisco shows that important clues lie in the shoulder.
Evidence from the tropical lowlands of Central America reveals how Maya activity more than 2,000 years ago not only contributed to the decline of their environment but continues to influence today’s environmental conditions, according to researchers at The University of Texas at Austin.
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The Natufian culture, which flourished 15,000 years ago, is well known for its complex burial customs. A new study by Dr. Danny Rosenberg and Prof. Dani Nadel of the University of Haifa has discovered that these ceremonies included the use of giant boulder mortars whose pounding sound informed the community that a ceremony was being held
A team of researchers has validated data and found a new model for paleontologists to use to track the diet of our ancient ancestors and animals by analyzing the wear on their teeth. Dental wear is among the top techniques scientists use to reconstruct and analyze dietary patterns of human ancestors and animals. Researchers recently questioned the validity of tooth-wear analysis, however, stating that environmental elements such as grit on food was likely responsible for wear. This challenge has led paleontologists to question decades of results. This study validates the use of tooth wear for understanding diet of fossil animals.
Dr. Deborah Cvikel and Mr. Micky Holtzman from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies at the University of Haifa suggest that the shipwreck discovered in 1976 off the coast at Dor (Tantura) lagoon may be identified as the missing Baron’s Ship. “The ship we found is structurally consistent with the specifications of the Baron’s ships, carried a similar cargo, and sailed and sank during the right period,” the scholars conclude.
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