Anthropology
- Genetics
Europe’s oldest known humans mated with Neandertals surprisingly often
DNA from ancient fossils suggests interbreeding regularly occurred between the two species by about 45,000 years ago, two studies find.
- Science & Society
Parents in Western countries report the highest levels of burnout
The first survey comparing parental exhaustion across 42 countries links it to a culture of self-reliance.
- Anthropology
How using sheepskin for legal papers may have prevented fraud
Removing fat is key to turning animal skin into parchment. With sheepskin, the process creates a writing surface easily marred by scratched-out words.
- Anthropology
Riches in a Bronze Age grave suggest it holds a queen
Researchers have long assumed mostly men ran ancient Bronze Age societies, but the find points to a female ruler in Spain 3,700 years ago.
- Anthropology
Finds in a Spanish cave inspire an artistic take on warm-weather Neandertals
Iberia’s mild climate fostered a host of resources for hominids often pegged as mammoth hunters.
- Anthropology
Ardi may have been more chimplike than initially thought — or not
A contested study of hand and foot fossils suggests this 4.4-million-year-old hominid was a tree climber and branch swinger.
- Anthropology
A body burned inside a hut 20,000 years ago signaled shifting views of death
Ancient hunter-gatherers burned a hut in which they had placed a dead woman, suggesting a change in how death was viewed.
- Anthropology
Humanlike thumb dexterity may date back as far as 2 million years ago
A computer analysis suggests early Homo species developed a powerful grip, giving them an evolutionary edge over some other tool-using hominids.
- Anthropology
Ice Age hunters’ leftovers may have fueled dog domestication
Ancient people tamed wolves by feeding them surplus game, researchers suggest.
- Genetics
Plague may have caused die-offs of ancient Siberians
DNA suggests that the deadly bacterium that causes the plague reached northeast Asia by 4,400 years ago.
- Archaeology
Ancient people may have survived desert droughts by melting ice in lava tubes
Bands of charcoal from fires lit long ago, found in an ice core from a New Mexico cave, correspond to five periods of drought over 800 years.
- Anthropology
Ardi and her discoverers shake up hominid evolution in ‘Fossil Men’
A new book covers the big personalities, field exploits and scientific clashes behind the discovery of the hominid skeleton nicknamed Ardi.
