In a an analysis of the size, shape and asymmetry of the cranium of Homo floresiensis, Karen Baab, Ph.D., a researcher in the Department of Anatomical Sciences at Stony Brook University, and colleagues conclude that the fossil, found in Indonesia in 2003 and known as the "Hobbit," is not human.
In a macabre discovery fit for Indiana Jones, archaeologists in Spain unearthed a 14th century brick oven with a unique role "” to bake bones. Scientists report that the animal bones were burnt in the oven and mixed with other materials to produce a protective coating to strengthen the grand medieval walls of what is today Granada, Spain. In a study scheduled to appear in Analytical Chemistry, scientists describe how they found these materials thanks to a powerful new testing method.
Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.
The December 2008 issue of Discover magazine included in its top 100 science stories of the year studies that back the "new species" theory of the 18,000-year-old hominid found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004. The discovery of Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the "the hobbit," remains controversial and could lead to rewriting the story of human evolution.
It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process. However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been. New research, published Dec. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is now shedding some light on what were probably the last Neandertals.
Interpretations of a now defunct form of Spanish writing, in combination with a joint U.S.-Cuban archaeological effort, are granting researchers insight into the Cuban people who Christopher Columbus encountered on his first voyage to the "New World." During the two previous summers, an archaeological effort in eastern Cuba has recovered several thousand pottery and stone artifacts from the site of a former large native village, El Chorro de Maita.
An imperfect body may have substantial benefits, according to a University of Utah study in the new issue of Current Anthropology. Hormones that make women physically stronger, more competitive and better able to deal with stress also tend to redistribute fat from the hips to the waist. So when women are under pressure to procure resources, they may be less likely to have the classic hourglass figure.
As a boy living on a small farm with his grandparents in the Amazon region of Colombia, Juan Carlos Galeano was entranced with the lush, naturalistic and often violent folktales that had been passed down from tribal Amazonians and had evolved through generations of natives and multiethnic newcomers like his relatives.
Archaeologists in southeastern Turkey have discovered an Iron Age chiseled stone slab that provides the first written evidence in the region that people believed the soul was separate from the body.
Laurie R. Godfrey, professor of anthropology at UMass Amherst and lemur expert, played a key role in the process in which contemporary researchers were able to match newly found bones with those discovered in a cave in Madagascar in 1899 to construct much of the skeleton of a rare species of extinct lemur.
Did the Bible's King David and his son Solomon control the copper industry in present-day southern Jordan? Though that remains an open question, the possibility is raised once again by research reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Radiocarbon dating shows that the tool "“ an awl fashioned from the leg bone of a white tail deer, with one end ground to a point "“ is 10,400 years old. The find supports the growing notion that, in the wake of the most recent Ice Age, humans migrated into Indiana earlier than previously thought. Dr. Christopher Schmidt, director of the Indiana Prehistory Laboratory at the University of Indianapolis, is available for interviews.
University of Maryland archaeologists have dug up what they believe to be one of the earliest U.S. examples of African spirit practices. The researchers say it's the only object of its kind ever found by archaeologists in North America - a clay "bundle" filled with small pieces of common metal, placed in what had been an Annapolis street gutter three centuries ago. The bundle appears to be a direct transplant of African religion, distinct from hoodoo and other later practices blending African and European traditions.
Reproduction pressures and rising fertility explain why women suffered a more rapid decline in dental health than did men as humans transitioned from hunter-and-gatherers to farmers and more sedentary pursuits, says a University of Oregon anthropologist.
New methods developed at the University of Arkansas will make decades-old satellite imagery readily available to archeologists and others who need to know what a landscape looked like before the spread of cities and agriculture.
Akbar Ahmed, renowned anthropologist and Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies in American University's School of International Service, is taking a one-year research sabbatical to study Muslims in America and the attitudes and perceptions of Americans regarding their Muslim neighbors. The cross-country ethnographic study will take Ahmed and his team of five young Americans to more than 30 American towns and cities between September 2008 and summer 2009.
Misinterpreted fragments of leg bones, teeth and brow ridges found in Palau appear to be an archaeologist's undoing, according to researchers at three institutions. They say that the so-called dwarfs of these Micronesian islands actually were modern, normal-sized hunters and gatherers.
Despite popular theories to the contrary, early humans evolved not as aggressive hunters, but as prey of many predators. "Humans are no more born to be hunters than to be gardeners," argues Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., professor of anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, in the newly-updated version of the controversial book "Man the Hunted: Primates, Predators and Human Evolution."
Few things say as much about our culture as the food we eat. A new book, Glazed America: A History of the Doughnut by Paul R. Mullins, Ph.D., an Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) anthropologist, explores the development of America's consumer culture through our relationship with the doughnut, beloved by many, a symbol of temptation and unhealthiness to others.
Tulane University anthropologist Kit Nelson is the co-director of a National Geographic-sponsored team that is in the process of unraveling a mummy bundle found in Peru's historic Huaura Valley.
The discovery of an administrative center and large silos provide new information about a little understood aspect of ancient Egypt"”the development of cities in a culture that is largely famous for its monumental architecture.
Research by a Valparaiso University geography professor and his students lends support to evidence the first humans to settle the Americas came from Europe, rather than crossing a Bering Strait land-ice bridge. Valparaiso's research shows the Kankakee Sand Islands "“ a series of hundreds of small dunes in the Kankakee River area of Northwest Indiana and northeastern Illinois "“ were created 14,500 to 15,000 years ago and that the region could not have been covered by ice as previously thought.
Research funded by the National Science Foundation and led by University of Arkansas anthropologist Michael Plavcan takes us one step closer to understanding the relationship between canine teeth, body size and the lives of primates.
A pair of researchers have developed a model that suggests shuffling emerged millions of years ago as a precursor to walking on two feet as a way of saving metabolic energy by a common ancestor of today primates.
As Indiana Jones' fourth adventure hits to the big screen, an international team of archaeologists, anthropologists, museum specialists, ethicists and lawyers is pondering these ethical and legal issues. Their focus on cultural heritage has a particular emphasis on the archaeological record.
As Indiana Jones fans gear up for a new film featuring the swashbuckling archeologist character, scientists in the real world are bracing themselves for another round of misconceptions about the goals and methods of true archeology. University of Indianapolis Associate Professor Christopher Schmidt weighs in on the Hollywood image.
New evidence from the Monte Verde archaeological site in southern Chile confirms its status as the earliest known human settlement in the Americas and provides additional support for the theory that one early migration route followed the Pacific Coast more than 14,000 years ago.
Careful analysis of microscopic abrasions on the teeth of early human relatives show that although it was equipped with thick enamel, large jaws and powerful chewing muscles, this ancient species may not have eaten the nuts, seeds or roots their anatomy suggests. Instead, the tooth wear suggests a diet that consisted mainly of softer foods, as reported in next week's Public Library of Science One.
Careful analysis of microscopic abrasions on the teeth of early human "cousins" by resesarchers at Johns Hopkins, University of Arkansas, Cambridge University and Stony Brook University show that although equipped with thick enamel, large jaws and powerful chewing muscles, this ancient species may not have eaten the nuts, seeds or roots their anatomy suggests. Instead, the tooth wear suggests a more general diet, as reported in next week's Public Library of Science One.
A University of Arkansas professor and his colleagues used a combination of microscopy and fractal analysis to examine marks on the teeth of members of an ancient human ancestor species and found that what it actually ate does not correspond with the size and shape of its teeth. This finding suggests that structure alone is not enough to predict dietary preferences and that evolutionary adaptation for eating may have been based on scarcity rather than on an animal's regular diet.
Ancient farmers were growing sunflowers in Mexico more than 4,000 years before the Spaniards arrived, according to a team of researchers that includes Florida State University anthropologist Mary D. Pohl.
In a program that could become a model for other threatened languages, Freddie A. Bowles, foreign language educator at the University of Arkansas, works with the Choctaw Nation to preserve and revitalize the Choctaw language.
A University of Maryland archaeological team has uncovered traces of a very early log road deep under an Annapolis street "“ the first ever found in the city and perhaps one of the oldest such finds in the Washington, D.C. area. The discovery comes in the midst of Annapolis' 300th anniversary.
An analysis of textile fragments excavated from a 5th century Mayan tomb in Honduras, some of the few surviving textiles from the Mayan civilization, revealed high quality fabrics produced by highly skilled spinners and weavers.
Two professors, one from USC and another at UCLA, led Israeli and Palestinian archaeologists over the course of five years to draft a plan that covers the fate of the antiquities, and the sacred places, in the event of a two-state solution. They are hoping to remove these treasures from the political arena and remove a potential roadblock on the path to peace.
Human DNA from dried excrement recovered from Oregon's Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World -- dating to 14,300 years ago, some 1,200 years before Clovis culture -- and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia, according to an international team of 13 scientists.
A shape comparison of the most complete fossil femur (thigh bone) of one of the earliest known pre-humans, or hominins, with the femora of living apes, modern humans and other fossils, indicates the earliest form of bipedalism occurred at least six million years ago and persisted for at least four million years.
Along an isolated, rocky stretch of Greek shoreline, a Florida State University researcher and his students are unlocking the secrets of a partially submerged, "lost" harbor town believed to have been built by the ancient Mycenaeans nearly 3,500 years ago.
Throughout the 12th and 13th centuries - during the time of the Crusades "“ceramic vessels reached Acre from: Mediterranean regions, the Levant, Europe, North Africa, and even China "“ reveals new research, which examined trade of ceramic vessels, conducted at the University of Haifa.
A rare artifact from the American colonists' early rebellion against the British, and a publicly unseen relic of 19th century African spirit practices in Annapolis will be part of a unique display of Archaeological treasures to mark the city's 300th anniversary. The display is the first comprehensive look at 27 years of excavations in the city by University of Maryland archaeologists.
Johns Hopkins University Egyptologist Betsy Bryan and her team are again sharing their work with the world through an online diary, a digital window into the day-to-day life on an archaeological expedition.
Did the notorious Belle Gunness, who amassed a fortune during a devious campaign of arson and murder at the turn of the 20th century, fake her death to evade the law? University of Indianapolis graduate student Andrea Simmons has exhumed Gunness' purported remains from an Illinois cemetery in hopes that bone analysis and DNA comparisons can solve the mystery in time for this spring's 100th anniversary observance.
The New York Times calls Colgate University professor Albert Ammerman the "Renaissance man of archaeology." Why the attention? Because once again Ammerman has thrown a scientific curveball, this time because his findings on Cyprus have provided the earliest evidence of long-distance seafaring in the Mediterranean.
Researchers discovered genetic evidence that human evolution is speeding up "“ and has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought "“ indicating that humans on different continents are becoming increasingly different.
The belief among some archeologists that Europeans introduced alcohol to the Indians of the American Southwest may be faulty. Ancient and modern pot sherds collected by New Mexico state archeologist Glenna Dean, in conjunction with analyses by Sandia National Laboratories researcher Ted Borek, open the possibility that food or beverages made from fermenting corn were consumed by native inhabitants centuries before the Spanish arrived.
Coaxing answers from 1500-year-old clues hidden in soil clumps, a team of environmental scientists identified a marketplace in an ancient Maya city, calling into question archaeologists' widely held belief that people of the era relied on rulers to tax and re-distribute goods, rather than trading them with one another.
The human love affair with chocolate is at least 3,000 years old -- and it began at least 500 years earlier than previously thought, according to new analyses of pottery shards from the Ulúa Valley region of northern Honduras. But the first people to appreciate the cacao tree were probably after a fermented drink, say anthropologists at Cornell University.
One of the keys enabling the earliest human ancestors to trade a forest home for more open country may have been the ability to gather underground foods. Now a team of scientists reports for the first time that in Tanzania our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, are using sticks and pieces of bark to dig for edible roots, tubers and bulbs.
Chimpanzees crave roots and tubers even when food is plentiful above ground, according to a new study in PNAS that raises questions about the relative importance of meat for brain evolution.
Evidence of early humans living on the coast in South Africa 164,000 years ago, far earlier than previously documented, is being reported by a paleoanthropologist with the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University.
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