Anthropology
- Anthropology
Mummified llamas yield new insights into Inca ritual sacrifices
Bound and decorated llamas, found at an Inca site in southern Peru, may have been buried alive as part of events in annexed territories.
- Anthropology
Homo erectus, not humans, may have invented the barbed bone point
Carved artifacts excavated from Tanzania’s Olduvai Gorge suggest now-extinct hominids made barbed bone points long before humans did, researchers say.
- Anthropology
How environmental changes may have helped make ancient humans more adaptable
An East African sediment core unveils ecological changes underlying a key Stone Age transition.
- Anthropology
Neandertal babies had stocky chests like their parents
Our evolutionary relatives may have inherited short, deep rib cages from their ancient ancestors.
- Archaeology
Bones from an Iron Age massacre paint a violent picture of prehistoric Europe
Bones left unburied, and in one case still wearing jewelry, after a massacre add to evidence that prehistoric Europe was a violent place.
- Anthropology
Seven footprints may be the oldest evidence of humans on the Arabian Peninsula
In what’s now desert, people and other animals stopped to drink at a lake more than 100,000 years ago, a new study suggests.
- Anthropology
A stray molar is the oldest known fossil from an ancient gibbon
A newly described tooth puts ancestors of these small-bodied apes in India roughly 13 million years ago.
- Humans
Ancient sculptures hint at universal facial expressions across cultures
Interpreting the emotions carved onto sculptures from long ago offers a new way to study how humans perceive facial expressions.
- Anthropology
Better playground design could help kids get more exercise
Playgrounds designed for imaginative play can make a difference in how much kids move
- Genetics
South Americans may have traveled to Polynesia 800 years ago
DNA analyses suggest that Indigenous people from South America had a role in the early peopling of Polynesia.
- Life
Scientists want to build a Noah’s Ark for the human microbiome
Just as the Svalbard Global Seed Vault protects global crop diversity, the Microbiota Vault may one day protect the microbes on and in our bodies.
- Genetics
The oldest genetic link between Asians and Native Americans was found in Siberia
DNA from a fragment of a 14,000-year-old tooth suggests that Native Americans have widespread Asian ancestry.
