Archaeology
- Humans
Ancient farmers swiftly spread westward
A sudden influx of Neolithic farmers in southern Europe led to agricultural practices still in play today.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
