Humans evolved by sharing technology and culture
Blombos Cave in South Africa has given us vast knowledge about our early ancestors. In 2015, four open access articles, with research finds from Blombos as a starting point, have been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Boat discovered at Abusir from pyramid age
A unique boat from the pyramid age has been discovered at Abusir by the expedition of the Czech Institute of Egyptology.
Turtle soup, perchance? Prehistoric man had a penchant for tortoises
Grilled, boiled or salted? Turtles, or tortoises, are rarely consumed today, but a select few cultures, primarily those in East Asia, still consider turtle soup, made from the flesh of the turtle, a delicacy.
New research sharpens understanding of poison-arrow hunting in Africa
While academic awareness of African peoples' hunting with poison-tipped arrows extends back for centuries, knowledge of the ingenious practice has been scattered among chemistry, entomology and anthropology texts.
Mammoth Bones Unearthed on Oregon State Football Field
Evidence dug up during an expansion of the Valley Football Center has revealed that much larger creatures once roamed this location more than 10,000 years ago.
Babylonian Astronomers Computed the Position of Jupiter with Geometric Methods
The discovery was made by an analysis of three published and two unpublished cuneiform tablets from the British Museum by Prof. Mathieu Ossendrijver, historian of science of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Spanish missions triggered Native American population collapse, indirect impact on climate
New evidence shows severe and rapid collapse of Pueblo populations occurred in the 17th century and triggered a cascade of ecological effects that ultimately had consequences for global climates
Cats domesticated in China earlier than 3000 BC
Were domestic cats brought to China over 5 000 years ago? Or were small cats domesticated in China at that time?
Seabed Scanning for East Anglian windfarm reveals Uncharted WWI German Submarine
Whilst undertaking detailed seabed scanning for the development of windfarm projects in the East Anglia Zone, off the coast of Norfolk and Suffolk, windfarm developers ScottishPower Renewables (SPR) and Vattenfall uncovered something they weren’t expecting – an ‘uncharted’ wreck of a WWI German submarine, missing in action since 1915.
Evidence of a prehistoric massacre extends the history of warfare
The fossilised bones of a group of prehistoric hunter-gatherers who were massacred around 10,000 years ago have been unearthed 30km west of Lake Turkana, Kenya, at a place called Nataruk.
Neolithic tomb reveals community stayed together, even in death
A Neolithic Spanish burial site contains remains of a closely-related local community from 6000 years ago, according to a study published January 20th, 2015 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Kurt W. Alt from Danube Private University, Austria, and colleagues.
Piecing together the gruesome story of York’s headless Romans
University of York archaeological scientists were part of an international team that used cutting edge genome technology to cast more light on a mystery that has perplexed archaeologists for more than a decade.
Mounting evidence suggests early agriculture staved off global cooling
A new analysis of ice-core climate data, archeological evidence and ancient pollen samples strongly suggests that agriculture by humans 7,000 years ago likely slowed a natural cooling process of the global climate, playing a role in the relatively warmer climate we experience today.
The remote Irish monastery where medieval Christianity meets fictional Jedi spiritualism
Star Wars is many things to many people: nostalgia-tinted staple of childhood memory, space opera extraordinaire, modern day merchandising behemoth.
Dig to unearth Tasmania’s military and convict past
Archaeology students from The Australian National University (ANU) are set to uncover the history of a former penal colony and military site in Tasmania dating back 160 years.
