Plague likely a Stone Age arrival to central Europe
A team of researchers led by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History has sequenced the first six European genomes
Category : Anthropology
HeritageDaily – Anthropology news and anthropological press releases from across the globe
‘Wooden shoe’ rather wear sneakers?
Bio-archeologists have discovered a pattern of unusual bone chips in the feet of clog-wearing 19th-Century Dutch farmers -- injuries that offer clues to the damage
Neolithic farmers coexisted with hunter-gatherers for centuries in Europe
New research answers a long-debated question among anthropologists, archaeologists and geneticists: when farmers first arrived in Europe, how did they interact with existing hunter-gatherer groups?
Science meets archaeology with discovery that dental X-rays reveal Vitamin D deficiency
Human teeth hold vital information about Vitamin D deficiency, a serious but often hidden condition that can now be identified by a simple dental X-ray,
6,000-year-old skull could be from the world’s earliest known tsunami victim
Tsunamis spell calamity. These giant waves, caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and underwater landslides, are some of the deadliest natural disasters known; the 2004 tsunami
Genome-wide data from a 40,000-year-old man in China reveals complicated genetic history of Asia
The biological makeup of humans in East Asia is shaping up to be a very complex story, with greater diversity and more distant contacts than
Paleogenomic analysis sheds light on Easter Island mysteries
Easter Island is a place of mystery that has captured the public imagination. Famous for ancient carved statues and a location so remote it boggles
Prehistoric humans are likely to have formed mating networks to avoid inbreeding
Prehistoric humans are likely to have formed mating networks to avoid inbreeding
Morbidity and mortality of leprosy in the Middle Ages
During the Middle Ages, nearly everyone in Europe was exposed to the disfiguring, painful and ostracizing disease of leprosy. But did contracting the disease necessarily
Bones reveal social differences between the people buried in dolmens and those in caves
The researcher Teresa Fernández-Crespo, lead author of this study, had in a previous piece of work found demographic differences between the people buried in dolmens
Isotopic analyses link the lives of Late Neolithic individuals to burial location in Spain
An isotopic analysis of megalithic graves and caves in Spain may suggest the existence of a degree of differentiation in the lifeways of people buried
Dawn of agriculture linked with poor start to life in ancient Atacama, Chile
Learning to cultivate crops and other agricultural food – rather than relying on hunter-gathering – is often thought of as a key milestone in the
New clue may reveal the fate of famous French explorer
An anthropologist at The Australian National University (ANU) may have stumbled across a clue to resolving one of the most enduring mysteries of Pacific history
Mobile women were key to cultural exchange in Stone Age and Bronze Age Europe
At the end of the Stone Age and in the early Bronze Age, families were established in a surprising manner in the Lechtal, south of
Stalagmite reveals age of Yucatán cave skeleton
A prehistoric human skeleton found on the Yucatán Peninsula is at least 13,000 years old and most likely dates from a glacial period at the
Ancient pottery reveals insights on Iroquoian population’s power in 16th century
An innovative study published today in the journal Science Advances demonstrates how decorations on ancient pottery can be used to discover new evidence for how groups interacted
Maize from El Gigante Rock Shelter shows early transition to staple crop
Mid-summer corn on the cob is everywhere, but where did it all come from and how did it get to be the big, sweet, yellow
The Ii Hamina cemetery reveals adaptation to the “Little Ice Age”
The medieval cemetery in Ii Hamina in northern Finland on the Iijoki river was originally discovered by accident. A recent study examined the isotope compositions
Carved skulls provide the first evidence of a neolithic ‘skull cult’ at Göbekli Tepe
In Turkey, Carved Skulls Provide the First Evidence of a Neolithic "Skull Cult": Three carved skull fragments uncovered at a Neolithic dig site in Turkey
Ancient skulls shed light on migration in the Roman empire
Skeletal evidence shows that, hundreds of years after the Roman Republic conquered most of the Mediterranean world, coastal communities in what is now south and
Forensic technique uses forehead X-rays to assess age of juvenile remains
Forensic anthropology researchers at North Carolina State University have developed a technique that can provide an approximate age for juveniles and young people based on
Why was a teenager with bone cancer buried on Witch Hill in Panama?
A new report by Smithsonian archaeologists identifies a bone tumor in the upper right arm of an adolescent who was buried in about 1300 AD