Archaeology
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Archaeology
Jamestown settlers’ trash confirms hard times
Analyses of discarded oyster shells confirm a deep drought during the Virginia colony’s earliest years.
- 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.
- Archaeology
Stone Age engraving traditions appear on ostrich eggshells
Fragments indicate symbolic communication on 60,000-year-old water containers.
- Archaeology
Skeleton of Western man found in ancient Mongolian tomb
A genetic analysis of a skeleton from an ancient Asian tomb illuminates the spread of Indo-Europeans.
- Archaeology
Ancient hominids may have been seafarers
Researchers have discovered hundreds of African-style stone hand axes on Crete, suggesting that sea-going hominids reached the island hundreds of thousands of years ago en route to Europe.
- Anthropology
Stone Age campers set up separate activity areas
Hominids displayed advanced organizational thinking almost 800,000 years ago
