Archaeology
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Humans
Reviving the taste of an Iron Age beer
Malted barley from a 2,550-year-old Celtic settlement offers savory insights into ancient malt beverage.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
Ancient farmers swiftly spread westward
A sudden influx of Neolithic farmers in southern Europe led to agricultural practices still in play today.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
Ancient hominid butchers get trampled
Bone marks advanced as evidence of stone-tool use to butcher animals 3.4 million years ago may actually have resulted from animal trampling, scientists say.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
Deep African roots for toolmaking method
A method for trimming stone-tool edges appeared 75,000 years ago in southern Africa, archaeologists contend, long before previous evidence of the practice.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
Neandertals blasted out of existence, archaeologists propose
An eruption may have wiped out Neandertals in Europe and western Asia, clearing the region for Stone Age Homo sapiens.
By Bruce Bower -
Humans
Clues to child sacrifices found in Inca building
Children killed in elaborate rituals were drawn from all over the South American empire, new research suggests.
By Bruce Bower -
Archaeology
Big eats from a 12,000-year-old burial
Middle Eastern villagers may have feasted around a shaman’s grave 12,000 years ago, before the dawn of agriculture.
By Bruce Bower -
Anthropology
Prehistoric ‘Iceman’ gets ceremonial twist
Rather than dying alone high in the Alps, Ötzi may have been ritually buried there, a new study suggests.
By Bruce Bower -
Archaeology
Lucy’s kind used stone tools to butcher animals
Animal bones found in East Africa show the oldest signs of stone-tool use and meat eating by hominids.
By Bruce Bower -
Archaeology
Serbian site may have hosted first copper makers
Newly identified remnants of copper smelting at a 7,000-year-old Serbian site fuel debate over where and when this practice began.
By Bruce Bower -
Archaeology
Jamestown settlers’ trash confirms hard times
Analyses of discarded oyster shells confirm a deep drought during the Virginia colony’s earliest years.
By Sid Perkins -
Anthropology
Hobbit debate goes out on some limbs
A new analysis of fossil hobbits’ limb bones links them to much earlier hominids, and immediately attracts criticism.
By Bruce Bower