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UrduFew sites in the world preserve a continuous archaeological record spanning millions of years. Wonderwerk Cave, located in South Africa’s Kalahari Desert, is one of those rare sites.
Tag: Archaeology
When Chauvet Cave artists created its artwork, the Pont d’Arc was already there
The Chauvet Cave, which lies by the entrance to the Gorges of the Ardèche, is home to the world’s oldest cave paintings, dating back 36,000 years. Their state of preservation and aesthetic qualities earned them a spot on the World…
Fat-footed tyrannosaur parents could not keep up with their skinnier adolescent offspring
New research by the University of New England’s Palaeoscience Research Centre suggests juvenile tyrannosaurs were slenderer and relatively faster for their body size compared to their multi-tonne parents.
New results about the diets of people who lived on the Great Hungarian Plain
A transdisciplinary study of the dietary evolution of the first agricultural and pastoral communities in Central Europe
Human land use wasn’t always at nature’s expense
Nearly three-quarters of Earth’s land had been transformed by humans by 10,000BC, but new research shows it largely wasn’t at the expense of the natural world.
Tarantula’s ubiquity traced back to the cretaceous
Tarantulas are among the most notorious spiders, due in part to their size, vibrant colors and prevalence throughout the world. But one thing most people don’t know is that tarantulas are homebodies. Females and their young rarely leave their burrows…
Scientists uncover the last meal of a cretaceous pollinator
While pollinators such as bees and butterflies provide crucial ecosystem services today, little is known about the origin of the intimate association between flowering plants and insects. Now, a new amber fossil unearthed by researchers from the Nanjing Institute of…
Genomes of the earliest Europeans
An international research team has sequenced the genomes of the oldest securely dated modern humans in Europe who lived around 45,000 years ago in Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria.
Early humans in the Kalahari were as innovative as their coastal neighbours
Archaeological evidence in a rockshelter at the edge of the Kalahari Desert, South Africa, is challenging the idea that the origins of our species were linked to coastal environments
Modern analysis of rock art
Machine learning opens new doors in archaeology
Increased precipitation and the watery miracles of Italian saints
A new study published in the journal Climatic Change examines the cultural impacts of climate change in Italy during the first millennium AD
Mummified parrots point to trade in the ancient Atacama desert
Ancient Egyptians mummified cats, dogs, ibises and other animals, but closer to home in the South American Atacama desert, parrot mummies reveal that between 1100 and 1450 CE, trade from other areas brought parrots and macaws to oasis communities, according…
AI and satellite images come together to discover hidden archaeological sites
The Cultural Landscapes Scanner pilot project will exploit Artificial Intelligence to detect the archaeological heritage of the subsoil. The project will last three years and will be carried out by IIT in collaboration with the European Space Agency
Ancient genomes trace the origin and decline of the Scythians
Because of their interactions and conflicts with the major contemporaneous civilizations of Eurasia, the Scythians enjoy a legendary status in historiography and popular culture. The Scythians had major influences on the cultures of their powerful neighbors, spreading new technologies such…
Warriors’ down bedding could ease journey to realm of the dead
The burial field in Valsgärde outside Uppsala in central Sweden contains more than 90 graves from the Iron Age.
Ancient megafaunal mutualisms and extinctions as factors in plant domestication
Of the vast diversity of plants on Earth, only a few evolved to become prominent agricultural crops. Scholars now suggest they originally evolved to secure mutualistic relationships with now-extinct megafauna
Warriors’ down bedding could ease journey to realm of the dead
This may well be the most interesting story about pillows and bedding you will ever read
For ancient farmers facing climate change, more grazing meant more resilience
How changing their lifestyle helped people in an ancient settlement adapt to a new reality
The world’s earliest stone technologies are likely to be older than previously thought
A new study from the University of Kent’s School of Anthropology and Conservation has found that Oldowan and Acheulean stone tool technologies are likely to be tens of thousands of years older than current evidence suggests.
Ancient Maya houses show wealth inequality is tied to despotic governance
States with more collective governance had more similarly sized houses
Towards a better understanding of societal responses to climate change
Scholars of archaeology, geography, history and paleoclimatology lay out a new framework for uncovering climate-society interactions
Assessing Classic Maya multi-scalar household inequality in southern Belize
Assessments of house size in Classic Maya communities (250-900 CE) suggests that they experienced higher wealth inequalities than Mesoamerican areas with more collective governance. ### Article Title: Assessing Classic Maya multi-scalar household inequality in southern Belize Funding: Data used in…
Bronze Age mining sites received deliveries of pre-processed foods
Cereal plant remains at an Austrian mining site were processed, but not on site
The lambs break their silence
A study of ancient bones shows that Early Neolithic sheep-breeders were faced with high levels of mortality among young animals in their herds. A statistical model, partly developed at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich, allowed the age distribution of the bones…
Worth one’s salt
Researchers at LSU uncover more on the ancient Maya commodity
New studies in indigenous languages
Articulating lingual life histories and language ideological assemblages
Stegosaurus teeth from Eastern Siberia show high wear and replacement rate
Stegosaurus teeth from Eastern Siberia show high wear and replacement rate, and could indicate adaptations to life at high latitudes. ### Article Title: Wear patterns and dental functioning in an Early Cretaceous stegosaur from Yakutia, Eastern Russia Funding: Financial support…
Roof-tiles in imperial China: Creating Ximing Temple’s lotus-pattern tile ends
Researchers from Kanazawa University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences cast light on the production of roof tiles during the Tang dynasty through a study of variations in lotus-pattern tile ends recovered from the Ximing Temple in Xi’an
Ancient bone artefact found
Archaeologists describe rare Lower Murray find
PNAS announces six 2020 Cozzarelli Prize recipients
WASHINGTON, DC – The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2020 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines…
An ancient Maya ambassador’s bones show a life of privilege and hardship
Ajpach’ Waal forged an alliance between two dynasties but died in obscurity
Research discovers malaria devastating humans far earlier than expected
New bioarchaeological research shows malaria has threatened human communities for more than 7000 years, earlier than when the onset of farming was thought to have sparked its devastating arrival.
Experts recreate a mechanical Cosmos for the world’s first computer
Researchers at UCL have solved a major piece of the puzzle that makes up the ancient Greek astronomical calculator known as the Antikythera Mechanism, a hand-powered mechanical device that was used to predict astronomical events. Known to many as the…
Research discovers malaria devastating humans far earlier than expected
New bioarchaeological research shows malaria has threatened human communities for more than 7000 years, earlier than when the onset of farming was thought to have sparked its devastating arrival. Lead author Dr Melandri Vlok from the Department of Anatomy, University…
Scythian people weren’t just nomadic warriors, but sometimes settled down
Varied diets and limited mobility challenge stereotypes of ancient steppe populations
Ancient group once considered nomadic stayed local
Images As far back as the Greek historian Herodotus, a group of people called the Scythians were considered highly mobile warrior nomads. Scythian-era people lived across Eurasia from about 700 BCE to 200 BCE, and have long been considered highly…
Researchers solve more of the mystery of Laos megalithic jars
‘Plain of Jars’ dates put at 1240 to 660 BCE
Fossil lamprey larvae overturn textbook assumptions on vertebrate origins
Study shows studies of the origin of vertebrates – including human – were based on incorrect assumptions since the late 1800s
Research reveals oldest documented site of indiscriminate mass killing
In previous research, ancient massacre sites found men who died while pitted in battle or discovered executions of targeted families. At other sites, evidence showed killing of members of a migrant community in conflict with previously established communities, and even…
Fossils from “Vegetational Pompeii” Resolve Deep Palaeontology Mystery
A recent study on spectacular fossil plants preserved in a volcanic ash fall deposit–known as China’s “vegetational Pompeii,” in Inner Mongolia, China–has resolved a mystery that puzzled palaeontology for over a century: What are Noeggerathiales? The study, published in PNAS…
Extracting information from ancient teeth
There’s a surprising amount of information stored in the hardened plaque, or calculus, between teeth. And if that calculus belongs to the remains of a person who lived in ancient times, the information could reveal new insights about the past.…
Genetic analysis of ancient massacre reveals instance of indiscriminate killing
Genetic analysis provides clarity and also prompts further questions around an ancient massacre in Potočani, Croatia, in a study published March 10, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Mario Novak from the Institute for Anthropological Research, Croatia, Ron…
World’s first dinosaur preserved sitting on nest of eggs with fossilized babies
The fossil in question is that of an oviraptorosaur, a group of bird-like theropod dinosaurs that thrived during the Cretaceous Period, the third and final time period of the Mesozoic Era (commonly known as the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’) that extended…
Woolly mammoths may have shared the landscape with first humans in New England
Researchers trace the age of a rib fragment of the Mount Holly mammoth
Fermented wool is the answer
FAU researchers reveal the secret of the famous Pazyryk carpet
Journey of a skull: How a single human cranium wound up alone in a cave in Italy
Rare evidence from Eneolithic cranium suggests funerary treatment of corpse
Study: Bahamas were settled earlier than believed
It’s believed early settlers to the islands eventually changed the landscape of the Bahamas
Prehistoric killing machine exposed
Previously thought of as heavy, slow and sluggish, the 260-million-year-old predator, Anteosaurus, was a ferocious hunter-killer
New technology allows scientists first glimpse of intricate details of Little Foot’s life
In June 2019, an international team brought the complete skull of the 3.67-million-year-old Little Foot Australopithecus skeleton, from South Africa to the UK and achieved unprecedented imaging resolution of its bony structures and dentition in an X-ray synchrotron-based investigation at…
The human brain grew as a result of the extinction of large animals
A new paper by Dr. Miki Ben-Dor and Prof. Ran Barkai from the Jacob M. Alkow Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University proposes an original unifying explanation for the physiological, behavioral and cultural evolution of the human species, from its first appearance about two million years ago, to the agricultural revolution (around 10,000 BCE).