Did the Polynesians beat Columbus to South America? Not according to the tale of migration uncovered by analysis of ancient DNA from chicken bones recovered in archaeological digs across the Pacific.
A new exhibit at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute Museum will show how the living cared for the dead, and how the ancients conceptualized the idea of the human soul in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt and Israel/Palestine.
In a new book, University of Chicago Prof. Russell Tuttle, one of the nation’s leading paleoanthropologists, incorporates his research with a synthesis of a vast amount of research from other scientists who study primate evolution and behavior. The book explains how apes and humans evolved in relation to one another, and why humans became a bipedal, tool-making, culture-inventing species.
The ruins of Sardis have been a rich source of knowledge about classical antiquity since the 7th century B.C., when the city was the capital of Lydia. Now, Sardis has given up another treasure in the form of two enigmatic ritual deposits, which are proving more difficult to fathom than the coins for which the city was famous.
Genetic and environmental evidence indicates that after the ancestors of Native Americans left Asia, they spent 10,000 years on a land bridge that once linked Siberia and Alaska. Archaeological evidence is lacking because it drowned when sea levels rose. University of Utah anthropologist Dennis O’Rourke and colleagues make that argument in the Friday, Feb. 28, issue of the journal Science.
A new program, SPatial Archaeometry Research Collaborations, is acting as a national hub for geospatial research and addressing a critical need in archaeology research.
A casual look at Easter Island yields familiar and enduring images of stone statues scattered on a barren, wind-swept landscape—a popularized symbol of catastrophic environmental collapse. But what Britton Shepardson sees with archaeologist eyes is not a sterile monument to human futility.
Baylor University researchers find definitive evidence that early ape Proconsul lived in a closed, canopy forest.
An international team of anthropologists has discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island, Kenya. The findings provide new insights into understanding and interpreting the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage.
Researchers at the University of Arkansas have established that pits and scratches on the teeth of mammal fossils give important clues to the diet of creatures that lived millions of years ago. A new study of dental microwear on shrews suggests that environment may impact teeth, as well.
The first genome sequencing of the Ice Age skeletal remains of a 1-year-old boy has given scientists definitive proof that the first human settlers in North America were from Asia and not Europe, and that these people were the direct ancestors of modern Native Americans, according to research that includes a Texas A&M University professor.
Genetic adaptations for life at high elevations found in residents of the Tibetan plateau likely originated around 30,000 years ago in peoples related to contemporary Sherpa. These genes were passed on to more recent migrants from lower elevations via population mixing, and then amplified by natural selection in the modern Tibetan gene pool, according to a new study by scientists from the University of Chicago and Case Western Reserve University, published in Nature Communications on Feb. 10. The transfer of beneficial mutations between human populations and selective enrichment of these genes in descendent generations represents a novel mechanism for adaptation to new environments.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at Harvard Medical School have analyzed exactly which areas of the human genome retain segments of Neanderthal DNA, passed down throughout the generations. By studying which genes modern humans still retain from our Neanderthal ancestors, researchers are able to tell a clearer story about the biological impact of human-Neanderthal interbreeding.
In a new book, Farha Ghannam studies how masculinity is actualized and reproduced in the daily life of Egyptians and how these views explain many of the political and social changes in the country.
Dr. Ruth Shahack-Gross of Weizmann’s Kimmel Center for Archeological Science, part of a team of Israeli scientists, used high-tech tools to identify proof of repeated fire-building over time. The ancient hearth, found in the Qesem Cave in central Israel, helps answer questions such as, “when did people begin to control and use fire?”
A study of skeletal remains from the ancient city of Harappa provides evidence that inter-personal violence and infectious diseases played a role in the demise of the Indus Civilization
Prehistoric shell mounds found on some of Florida’s most pristine beaches are at risk of washing away as the sea level rises, wiping away thousands of years of archaeological evidence.
A recently discovered bone from the hand of an East African hominim provides the earliest record of a structural feature related to tool use.
Neanderthals, forerunners to modern humans, buried their dead, an international team of archaeologists has concluded after a 13-year study of remains discovered in southwestern France.
Indigenous use of fire for hunting is an unlikely contributor to long-term carbon emissions, but it is an effective environmental management and recovery tool against agribusiness deforestation, a new study from Indiana University and Brazil’s Oswaldo Cruz Foundation has found.
An analysis of the femur of one of the oldest human ancestors reveals the six-million-year-old “Millenium Man” was bipedal but lived in the trees.The research could provide additional insight to the origins of human bipedalism.
A team of American and Israeli researchers has unearthed what could be the largest and oldest wine cellar in the Near East.
Results from a DNA study of a young boy’s skeletal remains believed to be 24,000 years old could turn the archaeological world upside down – it’s been proven that nearly 30 percent of modern Native American’s ancestry came from this youngster’s gene pool, suggesting First Americans came directly from Siberia.
Indiana University’s first archaeo-informaticist, Bernie Frischer, will bring to life one of the Roman Empire’s best-known and best-preserved imperial villas -- Hadrian’s Villa -- during a public launch of the Digital Hadrian’s Villa Project on Friday, Nov. 22, in Washington, D.C.
Just as fragments of ancient pottery and bones offer valuable information about human history, music can also reveal clues about the past, according to new research from an international team led by McMaster University psychologist Steven Brown.
Why are men's noses bigger than women's? The answer, according to a new study from the University of Iowa, lies in our physiology. Men's noses are about 10 percent larger than female noses, on average, because males have more lean muscle mass, which requires more oxygen for muscle tissue growth and maintenance. It also explains why we have smaller noses than our ancestors. Results appear in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Experts in anthropology and cybersecurity are examining the unspoken knowledge shared by cybersecurity analysts as a way to develop new automated tools that help analysts strengthen their cyber defenses.
A study of the full genetic code of a common human virus offers a dramatic confirmation of the “out-of-Africa” pattern of human migration, which had previously been documented by anthropologists and studies of the human genome.
Researchers, using quantitative methods focused on the shape of dental fossils, find that none of the usual suspects fits the expected profile of an ancestor of Neanderthals and modern humans.
Scientists have proposed that the most recently discovered ancient human relatives – the Denisovans ¬¬– somehow managed to cross one of the world’s most prominent marine barriers in Indonesia, and later interbred with modern humans moving through the area on the way to Australia and New Guinea.
Ancient DNA recovered from a time series of skeletons in Germany spanning 4,000 years of prehistory has been used to reconstruct the first detailed genetic history of modern-day Europeans.
A 2,700-year-old portico was discovered this summer on the site of the ancient city of Argilos in northern Greece, following an archaeological excavation led by Jacques Perreault, Professor at the University of Montreal’s Centre of Classical Studies and Zisis Bonias, an archaeologist with the Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports.
UT Austin anthropologists confirm a direct link between upright two-legged (bipedal) walking and the position of the foramen magnum, a hole in the base of the skull that transmits the spinal cord.
An archeological team led by University of Nebraska-Lincoln Professor Michael Hoff uncovers more Roman treasures at the site of Antiochia ad Cragnum in southern Turkey.
A team of researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden has designed a microplasma source capable of exciting matter in a controlled, efficient way. This miniature device may find use in a wide range of applications in harsh environments, but can also help revolutionize archaeology.
Readers will glean hundreds of surprising pieces of information from How We Do It, a new book by Robert Martin of the University of Chicago and the Field Museum.
California’s rich diversity of Native American ethnic-and-language groups took shape during the past 12,000 years as migrating tribes settled first on the lush Pacific coast and then in progressively drier, less-vegetated habitats, says a new University of Utah study.
New research suggests that Neandertals in Paleolithic Europe made specialized tools from animal bones before the arrival of modern humans, and that modern humans may have acquired knowledge of this early technology from Neandertals.
A Maya pyramid beautifully decorated with a rare polychrome- painted stucco frieze was unearthed in July 2013 at the site of Holmul, a Classic Maya city in northeastern Peten region of Guatemala.
New research published in Nature and led by Amy Balanoff, a Research Instructor in the Department of Anatomical Sciences, Stony Brook University School of Medicine, provides evidence that dinosaurs evolved the brainpower necessary for flight well before they actually took to the air as birds. “Evolutionary origins of the avian brain” takes a comprehensive look at the so-called “bird brain.” Contrary to the cliché, the term describes a relatively enlarged brain that has the capacity required for flight and was present in one of the earliest known birds, Archaeopteryx.
A science team that includes researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego has linked increasing oxygen levels and the rise and evolution of carnivores (meat eaters) as the force behind a broad explosion of animal species and body structures millions of years ago.
University of Texas anthropologists find ancient Miocene ape was physically incapable of walking on two legs.
Archaeologists tunneling beneath the main temple of the ancient Maya city of El Perú-Waka’ in Guatemala have discovered a stone monument with hieroglyphic text detailing the exploits of a little-known sixth-century princess whose progeny prevailed in a bloody struggle between two of the civilization’s most powerful royal dynasties.
When we think of our prehistoric ancestors, we don’t usually imagine them lining graves with flowers – yet Weizmann scientists have now identified the oldest such grave. Using the Institute’s new accelerator mass spectrometer, the team will not only uncover new information about prehistoric life, but also overturn some long-held theories.
Based on the analysis of 3-D landmark data from skull surfaces of Homo floresiensis, scientists provide compelling support for the hypothesis that Homo floresiensis was a distinct Homo species.
The modern custom of laying flowers in graves or using them for funerals dates back to as early as 13,700 years ago, to our Natufian ancestors living in Mt. Carmel. “Even back then, the Natufians had burial rituals much similar to ours, nowadays”, said Prof. Dani Nadel, from the University of Haifa, who led the excavations.
It is likely some of the most widespread and oldest art in the United States. Pieces of rock art dot the Appalachian Mountains, and research by University of Tennessee, Knoxville, anthropology professor Jan Simek finds each engraving or drawing is strategically placed to reveal a cosmological puzzle.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right