Archaeology
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AnthropologyHominids may have been cutting-edge tool makers 2.6 million years ago
Contested finds point to a sharp shift in toolmaking by early members of the Homo genus.
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ArchaeologyCave debris may be the oldest known example of people eating starch
Charred material found in South Africa puts energy-rich roots and tubers on Stone Age menus, long before farming began.
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ArchaeologyAncient South American populations dipped due to an erratic climate
Scientists link bouts of intense rainfall and drought around 8,600 to 6,000 years ago to declining numbers of South American hunter-gatherers.
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ArchaeologyAn ancient pouch reveals the hallucinogen stash of an Andes shaman
South American shamans in the Andes Mountains carried mind-altering ingredients 1,000 years ago, a study finds.
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ArchaeologyExcavations show hunter-gatherers lived in the Amazon more than 10,000 years ago
Early foragers may have laid the foundation for farming’s ascent in South America’s tropical forests.
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ArchaeologyAncient sculptors made magnetic figures from rocks struck by lightning
Carved ‘potbelly’ stone sculptures suggest people in what’s now Guatemala knew about magnetism more than 2,000 years ago.
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ArchaeologyNewly translated Cherokee cave writings reveal sacred messages
Cherokee inscriptions highlight the tribe’s rituals nearly 200 years ago in what’s now a tourist cave in Alabama.
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Archaeology‘Cities’ reveals common ground between ancient and modern urban life
In the book ‘Cities,’ archaeologist Monica Smith sees the positives in past and present metropolises.
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ArchaeologyThe oldest known astrolabe was used on one of Vasco da Gama’s ships
A navigational device for taking altitudes at sea was found in a Portuguese shipwreck in the Arabian Sea and dates back to 1496.
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ArchaeologyA 2,000-year-old tattoo tool is the oldest in western North America
The artifact is made of two pigment-stained cactus spines, and has been sitting in storage since its discovery in 1972.
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ArchaeologyAncient Angkor’s mysterious decline may have been slow, not sudden
Analyzing sediment from the massive city’s moat challenges the idea that the last capital of the Khmer Empire collapsed suddenly.
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ArchaeologyTooth plaque shows drinking milk goes back 3,000 years in Mongolia
The hardened plaque on teeth is helping scientists trace the history of dairying in Mongolia.