Archaeology

Humans

Maya wall calendar discovered

Classic-era structure displays rare calculations of lunar and planetary cycles.

Humans

From the ashes, the oldest controlled fire

A South Africa cave yields the oldest secure evidence for a blaze controlled by human ancestors.

Humans

Shelters date to Stone Age

Middle Eastern foragers inhabited dwellings for months at a time around 20,000 years ago.

Archaeology

Archaeoacoustics: Tantalizing, but fantastical

While compelling, findings lack scientific rigor.

Humans

Tools of a kind

People in southern Arabia around 100,000 years ago made tools like those of East Africans.

Humans

Neandertals’ mammoth building project

Stone Age people’s evolutionary cousins may have constructed earliest bone structures.

Humans

Humans’ entry into Europe pushed earlier

Homo sapiens fossils from Italy and England point to an early arrival and a longer time living alongside Neandertals.

Humans

Early farmers’ fishy menu

Northern Europeans retained a taste for aquatic foods after farmers arrived 6,000 years ago.

Humans

Stone Age paint shop unearthed

The discovery of tools for making a substance possibly used in body decoration suggests humans could invent and plan by 100,000 years ago.

Humans

Humans reached Asia in two waves

New genetic data show that some early migrants interbred with a mysterious Neandertal sister group.

Humans

Oldest hand axes found

Homo erectus may have made both advanced and simple tools 1.76 million years ago.

Humans

Bone may display oldest art in Americas

A mammoth engraved on a fossil may date from at least 13,000 year ago.