We’re closer to learning when humans first daubed arrows with poison
Exactly when did human beings start tipping their weapons with poison to hunt prey? This is a question at the forefront of recent archaeological research.
Prehistoric alpine farming in the Bernese Oberland
The people in Switzerland were on the move in the High Alps and running alpine pastures 7,000 years ago and therefore much earlier than previously assumed. A study by the University of Bern that combines archaeological knowledge with findings from palaeoecology comes to this conclusion. Prehistoric finds from the Schnidejoch Pass played a crucial part in this.
Crete’s Late Minoan tombs points way to early European migration
Researchers at the University of Huddersfield have visited Rethymnon in Crete, to collect samples from the late Bronze Age Necropolis of Armenoi, one of the world’s finest archaeological sites. DNA analysis of the ancient skeletal remains could provide fresh insights into the origins of European civilisation.
Researchers uncover prehistoric art and ornaments from Indonesian ‘Ice Age’
Griffith University archaeologists are part of a joint Indonesian-Australian team that has unearthed a rare collection of prehistoric art and ‘jewellery’ objects from the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, dating in some instances to as early as 30,000 years ago.
Archaeologist explains innovation of ‘fluting’ ancient stone weaponry
Approximately 13,500 years after nomadic Clovis hunters crossed the frozen land bridge from Asia to North America, researchers are still asking questions and putting together clues as to how they not only survived in a new landscape with unique new challenges but adapted with stone tools and weapons to thrive for thousands of years.
New archaeological evidence throws light on efforts to resist ‘the living dead’
A new scientific study of medieval human bones, excavated from a deserted English village, suggests the corpses they came from were burnt and mutilated. Researchers from the University of Southampton and Historic England believe this was carried out by villagers who believed that it would stop the corpses rising from their graves and menacing the living.
Steppe migrant thugs pacified by Stone Age farming women
Research suggests that large demographic changes during the first part of the Bronze Age happened as a result of massive migrations of Yamnaya people from the Pontic-Caspian steppes into Neolithic Europe. They were also able to show that plague was widespread in both Europe and Central Asia at this time.
Egyptian ritual images from the Neolithic period
Egyptologists at the University of Bonn discovered rock art from the 4th millennium BC during an excavation at a necropolis near Aswan in Egypt.
A new perspective on the European colonization of Asia
In the past, researchers have paid limited attention to this fact, which has led to a dearth of modern anthropological, historical and archaeological investigations as well as insights regarding this period of proto-globilisation in this region of the world.
The Upper Palaeolithic Beads of Aquitaine
The Upper Palaeolithic is best understood period of the Old Stone Age, beginning shortly after the extinction of Homo neanderthalensis and the encroachment of the new hominin Homo sapiens from Africa into Europe.
Fish, selective hunting strategies and a delayed-return lifestyle among ancient foragers
A unique trove of bone material from the 9,200 year old coastal settlement Norje Sunnansund in Blekinge, Sweden, has revealed that surpisingly sophisticated hunting strategies were used at the time.
Discovery of widespread platinum may help solve Clovis people mystery
No one knows for certain why the Clovis people and iconic beasts -- mastodon, mammoth and saber-toothed tiger - living some 12,800 years ago suddenly disappeared. However, a discovery of widespread platinum at archaeological sites across the United States by three University of South Carolina archaeologists has provided an important clue in solving this enduring mystery.
Ancient peoples shaped the Amazon rainforest
An international team of ecologists and social scientists has shown in a new study published 3 March in the journal Science that tree species domesticated and distributed throughout the Amazon basin by indigenous peoples before 1492 continue to play an important role in modern-day forests.
Uncovered after 2,000 years: gold torcs fit for an Iron Age queen
Found by two metal detectorists in a Staffordshire field, the Leekfrith torcs are a spectacular example of late Iron Age jewellery and show just how skilled the pre-Roman inhabitants of Britain were in metalwork. But the torcs are not just beautiful and valuable objects, they also help archaeologists understand how Iron Age society worked.
Where were all the women in the Stone Age?
Were there any women around in the Palaeolithic Era? If popular culture is any guide you’d think not. And even archaeology itself has a long way to go to address a deeply ingrained bias towards men.
