Archaeology

Anthropology

Origins of Egyptian mummy making may predate pyramids

Preservative mixture for mummy wrapping found on linens that covered the dead as early as 6,300 years ago.

Anthropology

Clovis people may have hunted elephant-like prey, not just mammoths

The ancient American Clovis culture started out hunting elephant-like animals well south of New World entry points, finds in Mexico suggest.

Anthropology

Neanderthals reveal their diet with oldest excrement

50,000-year-old fossil poop hints at Neanderthals’ omnivorous, but meat-heavy, diet.

Humans

Skulls reveal Neandertal’s hodge-podge genealogy

A new analysis of ancient hominid skulls reveals a patchy anatomical start of the Neandertal lineage.

Archaeology

First pants worn by horse riders 3,000 years ago

A new study indicates horse-riding Asians wove and wore wool trousers by around 3,000 years ago.

Anthropology

Peruvian glyphs pointed way to ancient celebrations

At least 2,300 years ago, Paracas people in the Chincha Valley of Peru were engineering their landscape to keep time and host ritual and social activities.

Archaeology

Written in bone

Researchers are reconstructing the migrations that carried agriculture into Europe by analyzing DNA from the skeletons of early farmers and the people they displaced.

Genetics

Farmers assimilated foragers as they spread agriculture

While some European hunter-gatherers remained separate, others mated with the early farmers that introduced agriculture to the continent.

Anthropology

Bronze Age herders spread farming around Asia

Ancient seeds indicate that Central Asian animal raisers had an unappreciated impact on early agriculture.

Archaeology

Black Death grave reveals secrets of 14th century life

Skeletons dug up by London Crossrail excavations are giving scientists a more detailed look at the bubonic plague, or Black Death, of the 1300s.

Archaeology

Roman gladiator school digitally rebuilt

Imaging techniques unveil a 1,900-year-old Roman gladiators’ training center that’s buried beneath a site in Austria.

Archaeology

Fire used regularly for cooking for 300,000 years

Israeli cave yields a fireplace where Stone Age crowd may have cooked up social change.