Anthropology

  1. portrait of brown chicken with lots of head feathers
    Anthropology

    A new origin story for domesticated chickens starts in rice fields 3,500 years ago

    Chickens, popular on today’s menus, got their start in Southeast Asia surprisingly recently, probably as exotic or revered animals, researchers say.

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  2. a fossil tooth that may have belonged to a Denisovan girl, shown from multiple angles
    Anthropology

    A Denisovan girl’s fossil tooth may have been unearthed in Laos

    A molar adds to suspicions that mysterious hominids called Denisovans inhabited Southeast Asia's tropical forests.

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  3. photo of the remains of an Inca child bundled in a textile and wearing a ceremonial headdress
    Archaeology

    A special brew may have calmed Inca children headed for sacrifice

    The mummified remains contained a substance that may reduce anxiety and is found in ayahuasca, a psychedelic ceremonial liquid still drunk today.

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  4. carved relief of an ancient Egyptian queen smelling a lotus flower
    Archaeology

    Ancient ‘smellscapes’ are wafting out of artifacts and old texts

    In studying and reviving long-ago scents, archaeologists aim to understand how people experienced, and interpreted, their worlds through smell.

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  5. Homo heidelbergensis skull
    Anthropology

    How ancient, recurring climate changes may have shaped human evolution

    Climate changes drove where Homo species lived over the last 2 million years, with a disputed ancestor giving rise to H. sapiens, a new study claims.

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  6. illustration of an ancient trepanation surgery
    Anthropology

    North America’s oldest skull surgery dates to at least 3,000 years ago

    Bone regrowth suggests the man, who lived in what’s now Alabama, survived a procedure to treat brain swelling by scraping a hole out of his forehead.

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  7. photo of an orangutan looking directly at the camera through trees
    Anthropology

    Social mingling shapes how orangutans issue warning calls

    The new findings hint at how modern language may have taken root in sparse communities of ancient apes and humans.

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  8. scientist facing a rack of boxes of skeletal remains
    Chemistry

    One forensic scientist is scraping bones for clues to time of death

    The bones of more than 100 cadavers are shedding light on a more precise and reliable way to determine when someone died.

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  9. a group of Dinka people sitting on the ground where one man dressed in blue holds a drum and others hold instruments
    Genetics

    Africa’s oldest human DNA helps unveil an ancient population shift

    Long-distance mate seekers started staying closer to home about 20,000 years ago.

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  10. image of a stone point with a sharp edge
    Archaeology

    Homo sapiens may have reached Europe 10,000 years earlier than previously thought

    Archaeological finds in an ancient French rock-shelter suggest migrations to the continent started long before Neandertals died out.

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  11. Clovis spearpoints
    Archaeology

    ‘Origin’ explores the controversial science of the first Americans

    A new book looks at how genetics has affected the study of humans’ arrival in the Americas and sparked conflicts with Indigenous groups today.

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  12. image of a reconstructed skull from the Omo site
    Anthropology

    Homo sapiens bones in East Africa are at least 36,000 years older than once thought

    Analyses of remnants of a volcanic blast push the age of East Africa’s oldest known H. sapiens fossils at Ethiopia’s Omo site to 233,000 years or more.

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