Feature Channels: Archaeology and Anthropology

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Released: 9-Nov-2020 11:35 AM EST
Newly discovered fossil documents small-scale evolutionary changes in an extinct human species
Washington University in St. Louis

Males of the extinct human species Paranthropus robustus were thought to be substantially larger than females — much like the size differences seen in modern-day primates such as gorillas, orangutans and baboons. But a new fossil discovery in South Africa instead suggests that P. robustus evolved rapidly during a turbulent period of local climate change about 2 million years ago, resulting in anatomical changes that previously were attributed to sex.

Released: 4-Nov-2020 2:50 PM EST
Local cooking preferences drove acceptance of new crop staples in prehistoric China
Washington University in St. Louis

The food preparation preferences of Chinese cooks — such as the technological choice to boil or steam grains, instead of grinding or processing them into flour — had continental-scale consequences for the adoption of new crops in prehistoric China, according to research from Washington University in St. Louis. A new study in PLOS ONE led by Xinyi Liu, associate professor of archaeology in Arts & Sciences, focuses on the ancient history of staple cereals across China, a country well known for its diverse food products and early adoption of many domesticated plants.

Released: 30-Oct-2020 4:05 PM EDT
Archaeologists reveal human resilience in the face of climate change in ancient Turkey
University of Toronto

An examination of two documented periods of climate change in the greater Middle East, between approximately 4,500 and 3,000 years ago, reveals local evidence of resilience and even of a flourishing ancient society despite the changes in climate seen in the larger region.

Released: 29-Oct-2020 2:20 PM EDT
Book examines Black Jewish indigeneity in South Africa
Cornell University

In “Genetic Afterlives,” Noah Tamarkin, assistant professor of anthropology in the College of Arts and Sciences, writes about the Lemba with an ethnographic approach, opening larger questions about the relationship between genetics, citizenship, race, and origins.

Released: 23-Oct-2020 1:30 PM EDT
Ancient Maya built sophisticated water filters
University of Cincinnati

Ancient Maya in the once-bustling city of Tikal built sophisticated water filters using natural materials they imported from miles away, according to the University of Cincinnati.

Released: 21-Oct-2020 4:15 PM EDT
The First Book of Breathing: A new assessment based on an edition of papyrus FMNH 31324
University Of Chicago Press Journals

Papyrus FMNH31324 was acquired by the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago on May 24, 1894, after collector Edward E. Ayer purchased the papyrus for the museum while in Europe.

20-Oct-2020 8:55 AM EDT
Building Blocks of Language Evolved 30-40 Million Years Ago
University of Warwick

Language is one of the most powerful tools available to humanity, and determining why and when language evolved is central to understand what it means to be human

Released: 16-Oct-2020 2:35 PM EDT
When good governments go bad
Field Museum

All good things must come to an end. Whether societies are ruled by ruthless dictators or more well-meaning representatives, they fall apart in time, with different degrees of severity.

Released: 7-Oct-2020 2:00 PM EDT
Weizmann Institute Scientists Find that Ancient Hominins Used Fire to Make Stone Tools
Weizmann Institute of Science

Dr. Felipe Natalio and colleagues, studying flint tools from Qesem Cave, found that ancient humans first exposed the flint to different fire temperatures, depending on the type of tool desired. The discovery was made by a team using very modern tools, such as machine learning and spectroscopy.

Released: 6-Oct-2020 3:05 PM EDT
The first human settlers on islands caused extinctions
University of California, Riverside

Though some believe prehistoric humans lived in harmony with nature, a new analysis of fossils shows human arrival in the Bahamas caused some birds to be lost from the islands and other species to be completely wiped out.

Released: 5-Oct-2020 2:05 PM EDT
Anglo-Saxon warlord found by detectorists could redraw map of post-Roman Britain
University of Reading

Archaeologists have uncovered a warrior burial in Berkshire that could change historians' understanding of southern Britain in the early Anglo-Saxon era.

Released: 25-Sep-2020 1:55 PM EDT
How do Americans view the virus? Anthropology professor examines attitudes of COVID
Northern Arizona University

In her ongoing research about Americans' responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, Northern Arizona University anthropology professor Lisa Hardy and her collaborators have talked to dozens of people.

Released: 25-Sep-2020 11:15 AM EDT
New funerary and ritual behaviors of the Neolithic Iberian populations discovered
University of Seville

Experts from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Seville have just published a study in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE on an important archaeological find in the Cueva de la Dehesilla (Cádiz).

Released: 24-Sep-2020 2:10 PM EDT
Artifacts from upstate Indigenous towns digitized, repatriated
Cornell University

Unearthed, digitized and soon to be repatriated, artifacts from two Native American towns are beginning to share their rich stories online thanks to a collaborative project by anthropologists, librarians and Indigenous community members.

Released: 24-Sep-2020 1:05 PM EDT
How do Americans view the virus? Anthropology professor examines attitudes, perceptions of COVID-19
Northern Arizona University

In her latest study, Northern Arizona University professor Lisa Hardy looks at how Americans’ attitudes and responses have changed during the time of the pandemic and how to many people, the virus is not a biological agent but instead a malicious actor.

Released: 23-Sep-2020 4:35 PM EDT
New study first to define link between testosterone and fathers’ social roles outside the family
University of Notre Dame

Lee Gettler, associate professor of anthropology at Notre Dame, led a team that worked with the BaYaka and Bondongo societies in the Republic of the Congo.

Released: 21-Sep-2020 1:10 PM EDT
Archaeology uncovers infectious disease spread - 4000 years ago
University of Otago

New bioarchaeology research from a University of Otago PhD candidate has shown how infectious diseases may have spread 4000 years ago, while highlighting the dangers of letting such diseases run rife.

Released: 18-Sep-2020 1:55 PM EDT
Ancient human footprints in Saudi Arabia give glimpse of Arabian ecology 120000 years ago
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History

Situated between Africa and Eurasia, the Arabian Peninsula is an important yet understudied region for understanding human evolution across the continents.

Released: 18-Sep-2020 12:20 PM EDT
Raids and bloody rituals among ancient steppe nomads
University of Bern

Ancient historiographers described steppe nomads as violent people dedicated to warfare and plundering.

   
Released: 17-Sep-2020 2:55 PM EDT
A 48,000 years old tooth that belonged to one of the last Neanderthals in Northern Italy
Universita di Bologna

A milk-tooth found in the vicinity of "Riparo del Broion" on the Berici Hills in the Veneto region bears evidence of one of the last Neanderthals in Italy.

Released: 16-Sep-2020 5:30 PM EDT
Vulnerable groups affected by public transit cuts amid pandemic
McGill University

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, public transport agencies across North America have made significant adjustments to services, including cutting trip frequency in many areas while increasing it in others.

Released: 16-Sep-2020 3:05 PM EDT
Did our early ancestors boil their food in hot springs?
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

Some of the oldest remains of early human ancestors have been unearthed in Olduvai Gorge, a rift valley setting in northern Tanzania where anthropologists have discovered fossils of hominids that existed 1.8 million years ago.

Released: 15-Sep-2020 2:35 PM EDT
Study reveals impact of centuries of human activity in American tropics
University of East Anglia

The devastating effects of human activity on wildlife in the American tropics over the last 500 years are revealed in a new study published today.

Released: 11-Sep-2020 5:40 PM EDT
Netflix - a zebra among horses: QUT researcher
Queensland University of Technology

Media studies expert Professor Amanda Lotz, from QUT’s Digital Media Research Centre, said there is a lot of misunderstanding about the world’s biggest internet-distributed video service.

   
Released: 11-Sep-2020 3:05 PM EDT
Ancient Earthquake May Have Caused Destruction of Canaanite Palace at Tel Kabri
George Washington University

A team of Israeli and American researchers has uncovered new evidence that an earthquake may have caused the destruction and abandonment of a flourishing Canaanite palatial site about 3,700 years ago.

Released: 10-Sep-2020 11:05 AM EDT
Colors evoke similar feelings around the world
Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz

People all over the world associate colors with emotions. In fact, people from different parts of the world often associate the same colors with the same emotions.

4-Sep-2020 9:55 AM EDT
High literacy rate among military in late biblical kingdom of Judah
PLOS

The ability to read and write was more widespread than expected among the people of Judah in the late 7th century BCE, according to a study published September 9, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Arie Shaus of Tel Aviv University, Israel, and colleagues.

   
Released: 8-Sep-2020 6:30 PM EDT
The oldest Neanderthal DNA of Central-Eastern Europe
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

Around 100,000 years ago, the climate worsened abruptly and the environment of Central-Eastern Europe shifted from forested to open steppe/taiga habitat, promoting the dispersal of wooly mammoth, wooly rhino and other cold adapted species from the Arctic.

Released: 4-Sep-2020 3:35 PM EDT
Study looks at smoking in pre-colonization North America
University of Chicago

For the first time, researchers use a metabolomics approach to find more detailed information about how tobacco use and smoking practices changed after colonization in North America.

Released: 4-Sep-2020 11:00 AM EDT
Drone survey reveals large earthwork at ancestral Wichita site in Kansas
Dartmouth College

A Dartmouth-led study using multisensor drones has revealed a large circular earthwork at what may be Etzanoa, an archaeological site near Wichita, Kansas.

Released: 3-Sep-2020 2:50 PM EDT
'Attack Helicopters' an online sub-culture to watch out for
Queensland University of Technology

While 'trolls' have been around almost as long as the Internet, 'Incels' are a more recent and distinctly different cyber sub-culture which warrants more study says a QUT researcher.

Released: 3-Sep-2020 2:35 PM EDT
True size of prehistoric mega-shark finally revealed
Swansea University

A new study led by Swansea University and the University of Bristol has revealed the size of the legendary giant shark Megalodon, including fins that are as large as an adult human.

Released: 3-Sep-2020 1:25 PM EDT
New mathematical method shows how climate change led to fall of ancient civilization
Rochester Institute of Technology

A Rochester Institute of Technology researcher developed a mathematical method that shows climate change likely caused the rise and fall of an ancient civilization.

25-Aug-2020 9:00 AM EDT
Radiocarbon dating and CT scans reveal Bronze Age tradition of keeping human remains
University of Bristol

Using radiocarbon dating and CT scanning to study ancient bones, researchers have uncovered for the first time a Bronze Age tradition of retaining and curating human remains as relics over several generations.

Released: 27-Aug-2020 11:55 AM EDT
Atlantic sturgeon in the king's pantry -- unique discovery in Baltic sea wreck from 1495
Lund University

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden can now reveal what the Danish King Hans had planned to offer when laying claim to the Swedish throne in 1495: a two-metre-long Atlantic sturgeon.

Released: 26-Aug-2020 4:25 PM EDT
Revised tree ring data confirms ancient Mediterranean dates
Cornell University

Sturt Manning is leading investigations into the timelines of ancient events, using tree ring data to refine the widely used radiocarbon dating method.

Released: 21-Aug-2020 3:35 PM EDT
Research links Southeast Asia megadrought to drying in Africa
University of Pennsylvania

Physical evidence found in caves in Laos helps tell a story about a connection between the end of the Green Sahara, when once heavily vegetated Northern Africa became a hyper-arid landscape, and a previously unknown megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago.

Released: 21-Aug-2020 10:20 AM EDT
UCI and international institutions link Southeast Asia megadrought to drying in Africa
University of California, Irvine

Irvine, Calif., Aug. 21, 2020 – Physical evidence found in caves in Laos helps tell a story about a connection between the end of the Green Sahara – when once heavily vegetated Northern Africa became a hyper-arid landscape – and a previously unknown megadrought that crippled Southeast Asia 4,000 to 5,000 years ago. In a paper published today in Nature Communications, scientists at the University of California, Irvine, the University of Pennsylvania, William Paterson University of New Jersey and other international institutions explain how this major climate transformation led to a shift in human settlement patterns in Southeast Asia, which is now inhabited by more than 600 million people.

Released: 12-Aug-2020 1:55 PM EDT
Mutations may have saved brown howlers from yellow fever virus
University of Utah

From 2007 to 2009, a yellow fever virus outbreak nearly decimated brown and black and gold howler monkey populations at El Parque El Piñalito in northeastern Argentina. A study found that in brown howlers, there were two mutations on immune genes that resulted in amino acid changes in the part of the protein that detects the disease.

Released: 11-Aug-2020 1:30 PM EDT
Anthropology professor finds evidence of wine, caffeine in 500-year-old pottery
Wichita State University

From suburbia to cities across the globe, caffeine and wine are often a source of collective comfort: the first for a morning pick-me-up, the latter to unwind. Now a Wichita State University professor has discovered evidence to suggest that even our ancient ancestors enjoyed these drinks.

   
4-Aug-2020 1:55 PM EDT
DNA from an ancient, unidentified ancestor was passed down to humans living today
PLOS

A new analysis of ancient genomes suggests that different branches of the human family tree interbred multiple times, and that some humans carry DNA from an archaic, unknown ancestor.

23-Jul-2020 10:10 AM EDT
Archaeological site in peril: accelerated bone deterioration over the last 70 years at famous Mesolithic peat bog site Ageröd
PLOS

Alarming results from a 2019 survey of well-known archaeological site Ageröd reveal drastic bone and organic matter deterioration since the site’s initial excavations in the 1940s, suggesting action is needed to preserve findings from Ageröd and similar sites, according to a study published July 29, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Adam Boethius from Lund University, Sweden, and colleagues.

Released: 27-Jul-2020 12:30 PM EDT
Leaving money on the table to stay in the game: New paper squares economic choice with evolutionary survival
Santa Fe Institute

Unlike businesses or governments, organisms can't go into evolutionary debt -- there is no borrowing one's way back from extinction. This can lead to seemingly irrational economic choices that suddenly make sense when viewed as a multiplicative, evolutionary process.

   
Released: 27-Jul-2020 8:05 AM EDT
‘Selfish and Loveless’ Society in Uganda Really Is Not
Baylor University

A mountain people in Uganda — branded as selfish and loveless by an anthropologist half a century ago — really is not, according to a study led by a Baylor University anthropologist.

Released: 23-Jul-2020 6:05 PM EDT
Reexamining the history of slavery through 23andMe African ancestry data
Cell Press

The effects of the forced deportation of over 10 million African people during the transatlantic slave trade remain entrenched in the DNA of people from North, Central, and South America as well as the Caribbean.

Released: 23-Jul-2020 4:40 PM EDT
Neandertals may have had a lower threshold for pain
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

As several Neandertal genomes of high quality are now available researchers can identify genetic changes that were present in many or all Neandertals, investigate their physiological effects and look into their consequences when they occur in people today.

   
Released: 21-Jul-2020 8:20 AM EDT
DNA reveals 2,500-year-old Siberian warrior was a woman
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT)

In 1988, archaeologists from the RAS Institute for the History of Material Culture discovered a unique Scythian burial mound dating from the seventh century B.C. In one of the coffins, they found what was long believed to be the mummified remains of a teenage warrior boy buried with his weapons. According to cutting-edge DNA analysi by researchers from the Historical Genetics Lab at MIPT, the body actually belongs to a female, confirming Herodotus’ 2,500-year-old accounts of the Amazons, previously considered mythical.

Released: 20-Jul-2020 7:35 PM EDT
Archaeologists use tooth enamel protein to show sex of human remains
University of California, Davis

A new method for estimating the biological sex of human remains based on reading protein sequences rather than DNA has been used to study an archaeological site in Northern California.



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