Archaeology
- Archaeology
British tin might have fueled the rise of some Bronze Age civilizations
Chemical evidence of tin from coastal British sites reaching Bronze Age Mediterranean societies highlights a supply chain dispute.
- Archaeology
A Pueblo tribe recruited scientists to reclaim its ancient American history
DNA supports modern Picuris Pueblo accounts of ancestry going back more than 1,000 years to Chaco Canyon society.
- Humans
Ancient horse hunts challenge ideas of ‘modern’ human behavior
An archaeological site in Germany suggests communal hunting and complex thinking emerged earlier in human evolution than once thought.
- Climate
A lush, green Arabian Desert may have once linked Africa and Asia
Mineral formations in caves reveal recurring periods of humidity in the Arabian Desert over the last 8 million years.
- Archaeology
Stone Age hunter-gatherers may have been surprisingly skilled seafarers
New archaeological finds in Malta add to an emerging theory that early Stone Age humans cruised the open seas.
- Archaeology
Ancient Arabian cymbals ring up Bronze Age musical connections
Copper instruments discovered at a 4,000-year-old site in Oman echo ritual influences from South Asia.
- Archaeology
Neandertal-like tools found in China present a mystery
A style of primitive stone tools named for the French site where they were first discovered have shown up half a world away.
- Archaeology
These ancient Maya-era puppets may have been used in rituals
The puppets, unearthed in El Salvador, have movable heads, strange facial expressions and may have been dressed for ritual roles.
- Archaeology
Human ancestors made the oldest known bone tools 1.5 million years ago
The excavation of bone tools at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania expands the range of ancient hominids’ cultural innovations.
- Archaeology
Mount Vesuvius turned this ancient brain into glass. Here’s how
Transforming the brain tissue to glass would have required an extremely hot and fast-moving ash cloud, lab experiments suggest.
- Archaeology
Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago
This oldest known evidence of people living in tropical forests supports an idea that human evolution occurred across Africa.
- Anthropology
An African strontium map sheds light on the origins of enslaved people
While genetic tests can reveal the ancestry of enslaved individuals, strontium analysis can now home in on where they actually grew up.
