A partial skeleton of Homo naledi represents a rare case of an immature individual, shedding light on the evolution of growth and development in human ancestry, according to a study published April 1, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Debra Bolter of Modesto Junior College in California and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and colleagues.
Over 80,000 years ago, Neanderthals were already feeding themselves regularly on mussels, fish and other marine life.
Teeth constitute a permanent and faithful biological archive of the entirety of the individual’s life, from tooth formation to death, a team of researchers has found. Its work provides new evidence of the impact that events, such as reproduction and imprisonment, have on an organism.
New Cornell University research is producing a more accurate historical timeline for the occupation of Native American sites in upstate New York, based on radiocarbon dating of organic materials and statistical modeling.
A new paper led by Cornell University points out the need for an important new refinement to the technique. The outcomes of his study, published March 18 in Science Advances, have relevance for understanding key dates in Mediterranean history and prehistory, including the tomb of Tutankhamen and a controversial but important volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini.
High-resolution micro-CT scanning of the skull of the fossil specimen known as "Little Foot" has revealed some aspects of how this Australopithecus species used to live more than 3 million years ago.
A noblewoman from Imperial China enjoyed playing polo on donkeys so much she had her steeds buried with her so she could keep doing it in the afterlife, archaeologists found. This discovery by a team that includes Fiona Marshall, the James W. and Jean L. Davis Professor in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, is published March 17 in the journal Antiquity. The research provides the first physical evidence of donkey polo in Imperial China, which previously was only known from historical texts. It also sheds light on the role for donkeys in the lives of high status women in that period.
Isotope analysis of two Bronze Age El Algar sites in present-day south-eastern Spain provides a integrated picture of diets and farming strategies, according to a study published March 11, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Corina Knipper from the Curt Engelhorn Center for Archaeometry, Germany, and colleagues.
A clump of grass grows on an outcrop of shale 33,000 years ago. An ostrich pecks at the grass, and atoms taken up from the shale and into the grass become part of the eggshell the ostrich lays.
A Team around Anthropologist Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna – together with researchers from the University of Florence and Harvard University – found out that prehistoric migration from Africa, Asia and Europe to the Mediterranean islands took place long before the era of the Mediterranean seafaring civilizations.
Did a powerful queen of Cobá, one of the greatest cities of the ancient Maya world, build the longest Maya road to invade a smaller, isolated neighbor and gain a foothold against the emerging Chichén Itzá empire?
A natural experiment created by an active volcano gives new insight into the long-term negative impacts of human colonisation of tropical forest islands. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society journal, Journal of Ecology.
The military waste that results from the United States military’s drive to remain permanently war ready has unexpected consequences on civilians and the environment, according to a new book by a faculty member at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
A method developed by a team of geneticists, archaeologists and demographers may make it possible to identify thousands of individuals whose remains lie in unmarked graves.
The study documented the earliest known interbreeding event between ancient human populations— a group known as the “super-archaics” in Eurasia interbred with a Neanderthal-Denisovan ancestor about 700,000 years ago. The event was between two populations more distantly related than any other recorded.
Scientists may be a step closer to solving some of anthropology’s biggest mysteries thanks to a machine learning algorithm that can scour through remote sensing data, such as satellite imagery, looking for signs of human settlements, according to an international team of researchers.
The microbiome of our ancestors might have been more important for human evolution than previously thought, according to a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.
Symbolic behaviour - such as language, account keeping, music, art, and narrative - constitutes a milestone in human cognitive evolution.
Australia's first plant foods - eaten by early populations 65,000 years ago - have been discovered in Arnhem Land.
The first articulated Neanderthal skeleton to come out of the ground for over 20 years has been unearthed at one of the most important sites of mid-20th century archaeology: Shanidar Cave, in the foothills of Iraqi Kurdistan.
As the adage goes, “Choose a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life." The CSU is lucky to be replete with faculty and staff across its 23 campuses who've found their true calling. And for those who work with them—whether students or colleagues—that dedication to education is infectious. Read on to hear how faculty and staff at nine CSU campuses fell head over heels for their discipline.
The fossilized tail of a young dinosaur that lived on a prairie in southern Alberta, Canada, is home to the remains of a 60-million-year-old tumor.
Easter Island society did not collapse prior to European contact and its people continued to build its iconic moai statues for much longer than previously believed, according to a team of researchers including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
‘Chan Hol 3’, like other Tulum cave skeletons, has a distinctive skull and tooth caries
Most nuclear data measurements are performed at accelerators large enough to occupy a geologic formation a kilometer wide. But a portable device that can reveal the composition of materials quickly on-site would greatly benefit cases such as in archaeology and nuclear arms treaty verification. Research published this week in AIP Advances used computational simulations to show that with the right geometric adjustments, it is possible to perform accurate neutron resonance transmission analysis in a device just 5 meters long.
Who -- or what -- is to blame for the xenophobia, political intolerance and radical political parties spreading through Germany and the rest of Europe?
The research team sequenced DNA from four children buried 8,000 and 3,000 years ago at Shum Laka in Cameroon, a site excavated by a Belgian and Cameroonian team 30 years ago. The findings, “Ancient West African foragers in the context of African population history," published Jan. 22 in Nature, represent the first ancient DNA from West or Central Africa, and some of the oldest DNA recovered from an African tropical context.
Analysis reveals where prehistoric Italian communities got their copper, from Tuscany and beyond
An international team led by Harvard Medical School scientists has produced the first genome-wide ancient human DNA sequences from west and central Africa.
Contrary to long-held beliefs, humans did not make major changes to the landscape prior to European colonization, according to new research conducted in New England featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. These new insights into the past could help to inform how landscapes are managed in the future.
The human-caused biodiversity decline started much earlier than researchers used to believe. According to a new study published in the scientific journal Ecology Letters the process was not started by our own species but by some of our ancestors.
Hard plant foods may have made up a larger part of early human ancestors’ diet than currently presumed, according to a new experimental study of modern tooth enamel from Washington University in St. Louis. The results have implications for reconstructing diet, and potentially for our interpretation of the fossil record of human evolution, researchers said.
Neandertals collected clam shells and volcanic rock from the beach and coastal waters of Italy during the Middle Paleolithic, according to a study published January 15, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Paola Villa of the University of Colorado and colleagues.
Christopher Columbus' accounts of the Caribbean include harrowing descriptions of fierce raiders who abducted women and cannibalized men - stories long dismissed as myths.
Early Stone Age populations living between 1.8 - 1.2 million years ago engineered their stone tools in complex ways to make optimised cutting tools, according to a new study by University of Kent and UCL.
The mysterious disappearance of Greenland's Norse colonies sometime in the 15th century may have been down to the overexploitation of walrus populations for their tusks, according to a study of medieval artefacts from across Europe.
Without a doubt, Tyrannosaurus rex is the most famous dinosaur in the world. The 40-foot-long predator with bone crushing teeth inside a five-foot long head are the stuff of legend.
Make some room in the garden, you storied three sisters: the winter squash, climbing beans and the vegetable we know as corn. Grown together, newly examined “lost crops” could have produced enough seed to feed as many indigenous people as traditionally grown maize, according to new research from Washington University in St.
Scientists from the University of Bristol and the British Museum, in collaboration with Oxford Archaeology East and Canterbury Archaeological Trust, have, for the first time, identified the use of birch bark tar in medieval England - the use of which was previously thought to be limited to prehistory.
Possibly one of the first attempts to protect against sea-level rise in a human settlement is described in a study published December 18, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ehud Galili from the University of Haifa, Israel, and colleagues.
In a co-authored paper published online in the journal Anthropocene, University of Illinois at Chicago paleontologist Roy Plotnick argues that the fossil record of mammals will provide a clear signal of the Anthropocene era.
It's time to write about Indigenous Australian place relationships in a new way - in a language that speaks in Indigenous terms first, to convey a rich meaning of Country and best identify its deep ecological and social relevance to Aboriginal people.
New research from anthropologists at McMaster University and California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB), is shedding light on ancient dietary practices, the evolution of agricultural societies and ultimately, how plants have become an important element of the modern diet.
In partnership with the government of the Dominican Republic, researchers at the Indiana University Center for Underwater Science have opened their fifth "Living Museum in the Sea" in the Caribbean country -- a continuation of the center's holistic approach to protecting and preserving historic shipwrecks as well as their coastal environments.
The ancient Romans relied on long-distance timber trading to construct their empire, according to a study published December 4, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mauro Bernabei from the National Research Council, Italy, and colleagues.
One soil scientist’s journey through a soil pit leaves mystery – for now
Small populations, inbreeding, and random demographic fluctuations could have been enough to cause Neanderthal extinction, according to a study published November 27, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Krist Vaesen from Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, and colleagues.
Northern Mongolian “eternal ice” is melting for the first time in memory, threatening the traditional reindeer-herding lifestyle and exposing fragile cultural artifacts to the elements, according to a study published November 20, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by William Taylor from the Max Planck Institute, Germany, and the University of Colorado-Boulder, USA, and colleagues.
A new genetic study carried out at the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku demonstrates that, at the end of the Iron Age, Finland was inhabited by separate and differing populations
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