Nehandertals’ gut microbiota and the bacteria helping our health

Neanderthals’ gut microbiota already included some beneficial micro-organisms that are also found in our own intestine. An international research group led by the University of Bologna achieved this result by extracting and analysing ancient DNA from 50,000-year-old faecal sediments sampled…

Archaeology: Palaeolithic sea voyage to Japanese islands beyond the horizon

Modern humans may have deliberately crossed the sea to migrate to the Ryukyu Islands of southwestern Japan, even though the islands would not have been visible on the horizon when they set out, according to a study published Scientific Reports…

Ancient people relied on coastal environments to survive the Last Glacial Maximum

Humans have a longstanding relationship with the sea that spans nearly 200,000 years. Researchers have long hypothesized that places like coastlines helped people mediate global shifts between glacial and interglacial conditions and the impact that these changes had on local…

Middle Stone Age populations repeatedly occupied West African coast

Although coastlines have widely been proposed as potential corridors of past migration, the occupation of Africa’s tropical coasts during the Stone Age is poorly known, particularly in contrast to the temperate coasts of northern and southern Africa. Recent studies in eastern Africa have begun to resolve this, detailing dynamic behavioural changes near the coast of Kenya during the last glacial phase, but studies of Stone Age occupations along western Africa’s coasts are still lacking.

A more resistant material against microorganisms is created to restore cultural heritage

Solar radiation, rain, humidity and extreme temperatures. Cultural heritage is exposed to an array of external factors that deteriorate it over time. Among them, the most aggressive may well be microbial contamination, caused by an ample ecosystem of fungi, algae,…