In ancient Egypt, Sacred Ibises were collected from their natural habitats to be ritually sacrificed, according to a study released November 13, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sally Wasef of Griffith University, Australia and colleagues.
St. Mary’s College of Maryland (SMCM) has been awarded a $24,000 Chesapeake Material Cultural Studies Grant from The Conservation Fund. The grant will advance the College’s work using archaeological artifacts to examine how Native American groups in the Chesapeake’s major river drainages responded to the region’s occupation by European settlers.
Experiments at Berkeley Lab are casting a new light on Egyptian soil and ancient mummified bone samples that could provide a richer understanding of daily life and environmental conditions thousands of years ago. In a two-monthslong research effort that concluded in late August, two researchers from Cairo University in Egypt brought 32 bone samples and two soil samples to study using X-ray and infrared light-based techniques at the Lab's Advanced Light Source.
Invisible footprints hiding since the end of the last ice age – and what lies beneath them – have been discovered by Cornell University researchers using a special type of radar in a novel way.
Scholars have been all over Rome for hundreds of years, but it still holds some secrets – for instance, relatively little is known about where the city’s denizens actually came from. Now, an international team led by Researchers from the University of Vienna, Stanford University and Sapienza University of Rome, is filling in the gaps with a genetic history that shows just how much the Eternal City’s populace mirrored its sometimes tumultuous history.
Using an electromagnetic spectrum to provide details the eye cannot see, a religion professor will translate the inscriptions from ostraca -pottery- thought to be from the era of John the Baptist.
The largest water management feature in Khmer history was built in the 10th century as part of a short-lived ancient capital in northern Cambodia to store water but the system failed in its first year of operation, possibly leading to the return of the capital to Angkor.
A landmark study led by Sydney researchers pinpoints the birthplace of modern humans in southern Africa and suggests how climate change may have driven the first migrations.
Fossil coral records provide new evidence that frequent winter shamals, or dust storms, and a prolonged cold winter season contributed to the collapse of the ancient Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia.
Compared with other world groups, the DNA of Melanesian populations carries some of the largest percentage of ancestry from now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans. A genomic study of Melanesians suggests that certain genetic variants inherited from archaic human-like species may have helped these modern people adapt to their tropical island environment.
An ancient walkway most likely used by pilgrims as they made their way to worship at the Temple Mount has been uncovered in the "City of David" in the Jerusalem Walls National Park.
University at Buffalo researchers discovered that the human diet — a result of increased meat consumption, cooking and agriculture — has led to stark differences in the saliva of humans compared to that of other primates.
An international research team led by scientists from McMaster University has unearthed new evidence in Greece proving that the island of Naxos was inhabited by Neanderthals and earlier humans at least 200,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously believed.
A small Bolivian society of indigenous forager-farmers, known for astonishingly healthy cardiovascular systems, is seeing a split in beliefs about what makes a good life. Some are holding more to the traditional — more family ties, hunting and knowledge of forest medicine — but others are starting to favor material wealth, a Baylor University study finds.
An international team of researchers including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York, has published a new study examining a 430,000-year-old cranium of a human ancestor that was previously described as deaf, representing the oldest case of deafness in human prehistory.
The Neolithic Agricultural Revolution is one of the most thoroughly-studied episodes in prehistory. But a new paper by Sam Bowles and Jung-Kyoo Choi shows that most explanations for it don’t agree with the evidence, and offers a new interpretation.
For nearly two decades, Brent Seales has doggedly labored to do the impossible — reveal the elusive texts within the carbonized Herculaneum scrolls. Now, he believes new scans are the best chance yet at revealing the mysterious contents.
A nearly 4,000-year-old burial site found off the coast of Georgia hints at ties between hunter-gatherers on opposite sides of North America, according to research led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.
The Golden Ratio, described by Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli as the Divine Proportion, is an infinite number often found in nature, art and mathematics. It’s a pattern in pinecones, seashells, galaxies and hurricanes.
Climate crisis impacts, such as sea-level rise, coastal erosion and flooding pose a serious threat to archaeology and heritage, according to new research
In the thorny desert along the Mexican border west of Del Rio, Texas State University students are learning methods of field archaeology and rock art recording and preservation. Dr. Carolyn Boyd, Shumla Endowed Research Professor, and Dr. David Kilby, associate professor, both in the Department of Anthropology, are leading this unusual joint field school.
Near an old mining town in Central Europe, known for its picturesque turquoise-blue quarry water, lay Rudapithecus. For 10 million years, the fossilized ape waited in Rudabánya, Hungary, to add its story to the origins of how humans evolved.
A rocky start in college hasn’t stopped alumnus Zachary Heck (BS Geology, ’16) from pursuing his prehistoric passions. Having a year off due to academic suspension helped him get back on track, giving him time to a begin career in paleontology before he even graduated.
For some, it is written in artifacts. For others, truth can be found in cool, hard genetic code. Both kinds of data factor into an ambitious new study that reports genome-wide DNA information from 523 ancient humans collected at archaeological sites across the Near East and Central and South Asia. Washington University in St.
Researchers analyzed the genomes of 524 never before-studied ancient people, including the first genome of an individual from the ancient Indus Valley Civilization
Insights answer longstanding questions about the origins of farming and the source of Indo-European languages in South and Central Asia
Study increases the worldwide total of published ancient genomes by some 25 percent
A new, global synthesis of regional archaeological knowledge on land-use changes over the past 10,000 years reveals that humans have reshaped landscapes, ecosystems and potentially climate over millennia in a manner that challenges conventional ideas that man’s impact has been "mostly recent."
A new map synthesized from more than 250 archaeologists worldwide, including from the University of Washington, argues that the human imprint on our planet's soil goes back much earlier than the nuclear age.
By analysing the fossilised teeth of some of our most ancient ancestors, a team of scientists led by the universities of Bristol (UK) and Lyon (France) have discovered that the first humans significantly breastfed their infants for longer periods than their contemporary relatives.
Led by Ron Pinhasi from the University of Vienna, Austria and Mario Novak from the Institute for Anthropological Research in Zagreb, Croatia the study combines bioarchaeological isotopic and ancient DNA methods to analyze the dietary patterns, sex, and genetic affinities of three Migration Period (5th century CE) individuals who were recovered from a pit in the city of Osijek in eastern Croatia. They are associated with the presence of various nomadic people such as the Huns and/or Germanic tribes like the Gepids and Ostrogoths in this part of Europe. The results of the study are published in the recent issue of "PLOS ONE".
Recent primate research has had a heavy focus on a few charismatic species and nationally protected parks and forests, leaving some lesser known primates and their habitats at risk, according researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and Santa Clara University.
Researchers digging at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte’s ongoing archaeological excavation on Mount Zion in Jerusalem have announced a second significant discovery from the 2019 season – clear evidence of the Babylonian conquest of the city from 587/586 BCE.
A genetic mutation that slowed down the development of the prefrontal cortex (PFC) in two or more children may have triggered a cascade of events leading to acquisition of recursive language and modern imagination 70,000 years ago.
A long-term study of western gorillas in Gabon has revealed an unexpected behavior: they use their teeth to crack open and eat nuts. New research by Adam van Casteren, lecturer in biological anthropology in Arts & Sciences, may have important implications for the way researchers predict the diet of human ancestors based on the shape of their teeth.
The human ranging style is unique among hominoids. The Mbendjele BaYaka people move from camp to camp every few months, and thus have a large lifetime range of approximately 800 square meters.
Archaeologists of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU), Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS (Russia), Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral (ESPOL) (Ecuador)
The University of North Carolina at Charlotte-led archaeological dig on Jerusalem’s Mount Zion has been going on for over a decade. This year's findings confirm previously unverified details from nearly thousand-year-old historical accounts of the First Crusade.
The development of new hunting projectiles by European hunter-gatherers during the Mesolithic may have been linked to territoriality in a rapidly-changing climate.
Pick your chicken wisely. The choice could make or break your marriage. For generations, household farmers in the Horn of Africa have selectively chosen chickens with certain traits that make them more appealing. Some choices are driven by the farmers’ traditional courtship rituals; others are guided by more mundane concerns, such as taste and disease resistance.
Mount Sinai researchers working as part of an international team have discovered previously unknown breastfeeding patterns of an extinct early human species by studying their 2-million-year-old teeth, providing insights into the evolution of human breastfeeding practices, according to a study published in Nature in July.
Genetic analysis has revealed that the ancestors of modern humans interbred with at least five different archaic human groups as they moved out of Africa and across Eurasia.