Researchers from the University of Haifa and the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin have found a unique pottery vessel dating back some 7,200 years ago. The unique vessel was apparently used for ritual purposes, ensuring that certain people or groups could maintain their ability to store large quantities of crops
With funding from energy utilities, researchers from The University of Alabama are leading a study to understand the frequency and possible size of ancient floods along the Tennessee River.
The earliest Latin Commentary on the Gospels, lost for over 1500 years, has been rediscovered and made available in English for the first time, thanks to research from the University of Birmingham.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland Professor of Anthropology Julia King, in collaboration with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources (DHR), Chesapeake Conservancy, and the state-recognized Rappahannock Tribe of Virginia, have been awarded a $240,000 grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities to trace the history and development of the Rappahannock Indians in early American history (200-1850 AD).
Katharina von Kellenbach, professor of religious studies and her colleague Matthias Buschmeier (German literature, University of Bielefeld) were awarded a prestigious grant for over €500,000 (about $600,000) by the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZIF) at the University of Bielefeld for the 2018-2019 academic year.
A 13-million-year-old infant ape skull – the oldest known fossil of its kind – is a new species that enhances knowledge of ape and human evolution, according to a study by an international team of scientists, including Craig S. Feibel at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
The discovery in Kenya of a remarkably complete fossil ape skull reveals what the common ancestor of all living apes and humans may have looked like. The find, announced in the scientific journal Nature on August 10th, belongs to an infant that lived about 13 million years ago. The research was done by an international team led by Isaiah Nengo of the Stony Brook University-affiliated Turkana Basin Institute, Stony Brook University, and De Anza College, U.S.A.
Two 160 million-year-old mammal fossils discovered in China show that the forerunners of mammals in the Jurassic Period evolved to glide and live in trees. With long limbs, long hand and foot fingers, and wing-like membranes for tree-to-tree gliding, Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos are the oldest known gliders in the long history of early mammals.
A new analysis of genome sequences from the ancient Minoans and Mycenaeans by HHMI investigator and colleagues offers insight into the origins of these Bronze Age cultures.
The Critical Materials Institute, a U.S. Department of Energy Innovation Hub, has fabricated magnets made entirely of domestically sourced and refined rare-earth metals.
An international team of researchers has shown in unprecedented detail that prehistoric farmers took their animals away from permanent settlements to graze in more fertile areas – probably because of high demand for land locally.
In saliva, scientists have found hints that a “ghost” species of archaic humans may have contributed genetic material to ancestors of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa today. The research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sexual rendezvous between different archaic human species may not have been unusual.
A team of researchers, including a faculty member and seven students from the University of Washington, has found and dated artifacts in northern Australia that indicate humans arrived there about 65,000 years ago — more than 10,000 years earlier than previously thought.
By analyzing the DNA of two prehistoric dogs from Germany, an international research team led by Krishna R. Veeramah, PhD, Assistant Professor of Ecology & Evolution in the College of Arts & Sciences at Stony Brook University, has determined that their genomes were the probable ancestors of modern European dogs. The finding, to be published in Nature Communications, suggests a single domestication event of modern dogs from a population of gray wolves that occurred between 20,000 and 40,000 years ago.
A fascination with skeletons and the clues they provide about those who lived in the past led Molly Zuckerman to pursue a career in anthropology. Now an associate professor in Mississippi State University’s Department of Anthropology and Middle Eastern Cultures, Zuckerman is using lessons from ancient skeletal remains to guide insight into the spread of diseases today.
Analysis of remains found on Rapa Nui, Chile (Easter Island) provides evidence contrary to the widely-held belief that the ancient civilization recklessly destroyed its environment, according to new research co-conducted by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
Many attempts to explain how past people experienced their wider world have focused on sight at the expense of sound, but researchers from the University at Albany and the University at Buffalo have developed a tool that puts sound back into the ancient landscape.
Researchers have discovered the earliest evidence of wild potato use in North America. This is the first archaeological study to identify a spud-bearing species native to the southwestern United States, the Four Corners potato (S. jamesii), as an important part of ancient human diets.
While modern marine concrete structures crumble within decades, 2,000-year-old Roman piers and breakwaters endure to this day, and are stronger now than when they were first constructed. University of Utah geologist Marie Jackson studies the minerals and microscale structures of Roman concrete as she would a volcanic rock. She and her colleagues have found that seawater filtering through the concrete leads to the growth of interlocking minerals that lend the concrete added cohesion.
A new look inside 2,000-year-old Roman concrete has provided new clues to the evolving chemistry and mineral cements that allow ancient harbor structures to withstand the test of time.
One popular theory about the Paleolithic cave paintings proposes that sites were chosen based on the acoustics in the caves. The originators of the theory reported a causal connection between the “points of resonance” in three French caves and the position of Paleolithic cave paintings. David Lubman, an acoustic scientist and fellow of ASA, will share some of the insights from his research during Acoustics ’17 Boston, held June 25-29, in Boston, Massachusetts.
Gelada males—a close relative to baboons—pay attention to the loud calls of a rival to gain information about his relative fighting ability compared to themselves, a new study indicated.
The new study is the first to observe consolation in adult humans. Researchers analyzed surveillance camera footage of the immediate aftermath of 22 nonfatal robberies to observe the behaviors and characteristics of victims and bystanders — knowledge that helps correct the impression that humans are aggressive by nature and peaceful by culture.
The arrangement of the photoreceptors in our eyes allows us to detect socially significant color variation better than other types of color vision, a team of researchers has found. Specifically, our color vision is superior at spotting “social signaling,” such as blushing or other facial color changes—even when compared to the type of color vision that we design for digital cameras and other photographic devices.
Pioneering technology has shed fresh light on the world’s first scientifically-described dinosaur fossil – over 200 years after it was first discovered - thanks to research by WMG at the University of Warwick and the University of Oxford’s Museum of Natural History.
An international research team has uncovered 300,000 year-old fossil bones of Homo sapiens, a find that represents the oldest reliably dated fossil evidence of our species.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the Department of Anthropology have recently joined efforts within the University of California San Diego to launch the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology (SCMA). Researchers with the Scripps Center for Marine Archaeology will conduct fieldwork at key underwater and coastal archaeological sites around the world, studying the influence of marine environments on human cultures.
About 1 to 2 million years ago, early humans in East Africa periodically faced very dry conditions, with little or no water in sight. But they likely had access to hundreds of springs that lingered despite long dry spells, allowing our ancestors to head north and out of Africa, according to a groundbreaking study by scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick and other institutions. The international team showed that climate may not play such a primary role in human evolution as is commonly asserted.
An exceptionally well-preserved site in northern Peru suggests that early Americans migrating south along the Pacific coast may not have always moved as quickly as we thought--instead, they may have stopped and "settled in for a good long while" along the way.
A-tisket, A-tasket. You can tell a lot from a basket. Especially if it’s from ancient ruins of a civilization inhabited by humans 15,000 years ago. An archaeologist is among the team that made a groundbreaking discovery in coastal Peru – home to one of the earliest pyramids in South America. Thousands of artifacts, including elaborate hand-woven baskets, show that early humans in that region were a lot more advanced than originally thought and had very complex social networks.
Two B-25 bombers associated with American servicemen missing in action from World War II were recently documented in the waters off Papua New Guinea by Project Recover—a collaborative team of marine scientists, archaeologists and volunteers who have combined efforts to locate aircraft and associated MIAs from World War II.
Analysis of a 3.3 million-year-old fossil skeleton reveals the most complete spinal column of any early human relative, including vertebrae, neck and rib cage. The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that portions of the human spinal structure that enable efficient walking motions were established millions of years earlier than previously thought.
Although computer models of archaeological sites are commonly used to yield insights which contribute to the protection of heritage materials, scientists often question their credibility, calling for these long-term trends be ‘ground truthed’ in order to ensure that calculated rates of change reflect observed phenomena ‘in the field’.
The story of humanity’s vital – and fragile – relationship with the sun has been locked inside our teeth for hundreds of thousands of years. A new method is starting to tease out answers to major questions of evolution and migration, using clues hidden just under the enamel.
Probing deeper into the South African cave system known as Rising Star, which last year yielded the largest cache of hominin fossils known to science, an international team of researchers has discovered another chamber with more remains of a newfound human relative, Homo naledi. The discovery of the new fossils representing the remains of at least three juvenile and adult specimens includes a “wonderfully complete skull,” says University of Wisconsin-Madison anthropologist John Hawks.
Skidmore College faculty member and alumna is honored with prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship, Associate Professor Heather Hurst is one of 173 scholars, artists, and scientists chosen for the 2017 Guggenheim Award from nearly 3,000 applicants. Hurst’s specialization in ancient Mesoamerica research and her interdisciplinary work involving archaeologists, materials scientists, conservators, and art historians has contributed to cultural heritage preservation in the study of Maya culture.
Humans began measurably and negatively impacting water quality in the Chesapeake Bay in the first half of the 19th century, according to a study of eastern oysters by researchers at The University of Alabama.
Donald Blakeslee, professor of archaeology at Wichita State University, presented in March at the annual conference of the Society for American Archaeology discussing recent archaeological evidence that shows a thriving ancestral Wichita Indian town of more than 20,000 residents near Arkansas City, Kansas.
A new scientific study of medieval human bones, excavated from a deserted English village, suggests the corpses they came from were burnt and mutilated. Researchers from the University of Southampton and Historic England believe this was carried out by villagers who believed that it would stop the corpses rising from their graves and menacing the living.
Long before the advent of agriculture, hunter-gatherers began putting down roots in the Middle East, building more permanent homes and altering the ecological balance in ways that allowed the common house mouse to flourish, new research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates.Findings suggest the roots of animal domestication go back to human sedentism thousands of years prior to what has long been considered the dawn of agriculture.
Jerry Moore, professor and chair of the Department of Anthropology at California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), has authored the book “Incidence of Travel: Recent Journeys in Ancient South America.”
Mark Auslander, a sociocultural anthropologist, has been appointed director of the Michigan State University Museum. He will lead one of the earliest established museums in the nation, and the state’s first museum to receive Smithsonian affiliate status. “I’m honored to join the MSU Museum, a museum known for the remarkable depth and breadth of its scientific and cultural collections and for its innovative exhibits and public programs,” said Auslander, who will begin his position on July 1.
The evolution of bipedalism in fossil humans can be detected using a key feature of the skull — a claim that was previously contested but now has been further validated by researchers at Stony Brook University and The University of Texas at Austin.
A large international research team, directed by the Portuguese archaeologist João Zilhão and including Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam, has found the oldest fossil human cranium in Portugal, marking an important contribution to knowledge of human evolution during the middle Pleistocene in Europe and to the origin of the Neandertals.
Ancient DNA found in the dental plaque of Neandertals – our nearest extinct relative – has provided remarkable new insights into their behaviour, diet and evolutionary history, including their use of plant-based medicine to treat pain and illness.
Nearly 5,000 years ago, long before the vast east-west trade routes of the Silk Road were traversed by Marco Polo, the foundations for these trans-Asian interaction networks were being carved by nomads moving herds to lush mountain pastures, suggests new research from Washington University in St. Louis.
A UC San Diego archaeological dig found a jade pectoral pendant once belonging to an ancient Maya king in what we think of as the provinces of that world. Why was it buried? And might its inscriptions change our understanding of Maya migrations and political history?
A newly discovered trove of 16 engraved and otherwise modified limestone blocks, created 38,000 years ago, confirms the ancient origins of the pointillist techniques later adopted by 19th and 20th century artists such as Georges Seurat, Vincent Van Gogh, Camille Pissarro, and Roy Lichtenstein.
Genome study shows mixing of European and African H. pylori strains in modern American populations.
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