News
Earliest use of fire thrown back to 1. 8 million years ago
1+ week, 5+ day ago (1407+ words) New study doubles the timeline of fire use by early humans in Wonderwerk Cave, but why they brought it there remains unclear, and what do owls have to do with it? How hominins came to adopt fire is unclear, given…...
Neanderthals seasonally ate snails on the seashore of Spain 115, 000 years ago
1+ mon, 6+ day ago (784+ words) We knew Neanderthals ate seafood if they had to. Now seasonality in marine exploitation has been identified in coastal hominins, and the question is why Does that mean the ancient hominins supping on seafood on the seashore tens and hundreds…...
Archaeologists find 2, 500-year-old mass grave of infants in Israel
2+ mon, 3+ week ago (896+ words) The jumbled remains of dozens of skeletons at Azekah may help explain why children are not found in biblical-era cemeteries More than a decade ago, archaeologists investigating a cistern among the ruins of Azekah, an ancient town southwest of Jerusalem,…...
New model of urbanization upends paradigm of Mayan collapse
6+ mon, 2+ week ago (1081+ words) How did the first cities form at all, when it makes no sense for farmers to leave the land and congregate, and what happened to the Mayan cities? What happened to the great cities of the Mayans? The usual thinking…...
A dirty little habit: Kissing in Ancient Rome
4+ mon, 4+ week ago (1079+ words) Kissing has never been just about kissing, nor has it ever been free of risk. In ancient Rome, it was a social tool expressing everything from loyalty to hierarchy to legal agreement, and, of course, politics Chimpanzees and orangutans even…...
Going Dutch: DNA study uncovers origins of prehistoric culture that changed Europe
4+ mon, 1+ week ago (850+ words) DNA reveals that the Bell Beaker culture, which expanded through Europe at the end of the Stone Age, originated in a unique mix of hunter-gatherers and steppe migrants from the Low Countries They were skilled metalworkers and archers, buried in…...
The last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals is found, in Morocco
5+ mon, 5+ day ago (1211+ words) A hominin at the root of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans too is discovered where predicted, in Africa, from precisely 773, 000 years ago We are eternally fascinated by the mystery of our origins. Dust and a divine spark satisfied many until…...
New study supports Sahelanthropus as the earliest hominin
5+ mon, 3+ week ago (922+ words) Sahelanthropus tchadensis was small and it looked like a chimp but new analysis of old bones, helped by feeling them, finds a feature no ape ever had For all the attention devoted to human evolution, we still don't know who…...