Anthropology
The ancient human ancestor ‘Little Foot’ gets a new face
A new digital reconstruction of the face of an early Australopithecus specimen helps add details about the origins of our own species.
Archaeology
More Stories in Archaeology
- Archaeology
The world’s oldest piece of clothing might be an Ice Age–era hide from Oregon
Two pieces of elk hide connected by a twisted-fiber cord are the earliest evidence of sewing. But what they were used for is still a mystery.
- Archaeology
This ancient stick may be the world’s oldest handheld wooden tool
These 430,000-year-old wooden tools from Greece are a rare find and provide a glimpse at the technical know-how of our early human ancestors.
- Anthropology
This hand stencil in Indonesia is now the oldest known rock art
The work suggests early Homo sapiens developed enduring artistic practices as they moved through the islands of Southeast Asia.
- Archaeology
This ancient pottery holds the earliest evidence of humans doing math
Flower designs on 8,000-year-old Mesopotamian pots reveal a “mathematical knowledge” perhaps developed to share land and crops, archaeologists say.
- Archaeology
60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans’ skillful hunting
A new analysis uncovers traces of poison on the South African arrowheads, pushing back the timeline for poisoned weapons by more than 50,000 years.
- Archaeology
Neandertals mastered fire-making tools 400,000 years ago
Archaeologists found flint, iron pyrite to strike it and sediments where a fire was probably built several times at an ancient site in England.
- Archaeology
A clay figurine unveils a storytelling shift from 12,000 years ago
A carefully crafted figure of a goose and a woman suggests that art reflecting spiritual beliefs entered a new phase among early villagers in the Middle East.
- Archaeology
Peru’s Serpent Mountain sheds its mysterious past
No, aliens had nothing to do with a winding 1.5-kilometer-long path of holes. First used as a market, the Inca then repurposed it for tax collection.
- Archaeology
Fossil hand bones point to tool use outside the Homo lineage
The fossil wrist and thumb bones suggest Paranthropus boisei could grasp tools around 1.5 million years ago.
