Anthropology
- Archaeology
Humans first settled in Australia as early as 65,000 years ago
Australia may have said “G’day” to humankind thousands of years earlier than previously believed.
- Archaeology
Copper in Ötzi the Iceman’s ax came from surprisingly far away
Copper for the ancient Iceman’s blade traveled about 500 kilometers to his northern Italian home region.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
Fossil tooth pushes back record of mysterious Neandertal relative
A Denisovan child’s fossil tooth dates to at least 100,000 years ago, researchers say.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
How humans (maybe) domesticated themselves
Prior to taming other species, humans selected for more docile traits among fellow Homo sapiens, a slew of recent studies suggest.
- Anthropology
The southern drawl gets deconstructed
Analysis of the diversity of vowel sounds found in southern accents could help developers of speech recognition software.
- Anthropology
Carved human skulls found at ancient worship center in Turkey
Visitors to an ancient ritual site may have carved human skulls as part of ancestor worship.
By Bruce Bower - Archaeology
Sound-reflecting shelters inspired ancient rock artists
Ancient Europeans sought rock art sites where sounds carried.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
Oldest known Homo sapiens fossils come from northern Africa, studies claim
Moroccan fossils proposed as oldest known H. sapiens, from around 300,000 years ago.
By Bruce Bower - Archaeology
Peru’s plenty brought ancient human migration to a crawl
Ancient Americans reached Peru 15,000 years ago and stayed put, excavations suggest.
By Bruce Bower - Archaeology
Tool sharpens focus on Stone Age networking in the Middle East
Stone Age tool’s route to Syrian site covered at least 700 kilometers.
By Bruce Bower - Anthropology
European fossils may belong to earliest known hominid
With new analyses of Graecopithecus fossils from Greece and Bulgaria, researchers argue for possible hominid origins in Europe, not Africa.
By Bruce Bower - Animals
Orangutans take motherhood to extremes, nursing young for more than eight years
Weaning in orangutans has been tricky to see in the wild, so researchers turned to dental tests to reveal long nursing period.
By Susan Milius