Anthropology News

Canadian Eskimo dogs. Illustration by John James Audubon and John Bachman (1845-1848).

Ancient DNA Study Rewrites Origins of Europe’s First Dogs

Mar 26, 2026 by News Staff

Scientists have extracted and analyzed DNA from 216 canid remains, including 181 from Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe. The oldest data that they recovered...

The Acropolis at Athens by Leo von Klenze.

Democracy’s Roots Run Far Deeper than Ancient Greece, New Study Says

Mar 19, 2026 by News Staff

Examining 31 ancient societies across Europe, Asia, and the Americas, researchers found that democratic systems were more widespread than once believed...

A butterfly clay bead from the Final Natufian period in Eynan-Mallaha, the Upper Jordan Valley, colored red with ochre and marked with the fingerprints of the child (around 10 years old) who modeled it 12,000 years ago. Image credit: Laurent Davin.

Long Before Pottery, Children Shaped Clay to Tell Stories

Mar 19, 2026 by News Staff

A cache of 142 beads and pendants from five Natufian (15,000 to 11,650 years before the present) sites in Israel reveals that clay was first used not for...

The occasional use of stone tools as ‘strike-a-lights’ was a technocultural feature shared among Neanderthals in France.

Neanderthals May Have Used Birch Tar as Natural Antibiotic

Mar 18, 2026 by News Staff

New experiments show that tar made from birch bark — long known as a tool adhesive — can inhibit harmful bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus,...

Straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) were the largest land mammals of the European Pleistocene. Image credit: Hodari Nundu, CC-BY-4.0.

Neanderthals May Have Hunted Giant Elephants that Roamed across Prehistoric Europe

Mar 16, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Chemical clues preserved in the teeth of straight-tusked elephants (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) from the 125,000-year-old site of Neumark-Nord in Germany suggest...

Graecopithecus freybergi lived 7.2 million years ago in the dust-laden savannah of the Athens Basin. This view from Graecopithecus freybergi’s place of discovery, Pyrgos Vassilissis, to the southeast over the plain of Athens and under a reddish cloud of Sahara dust; in the background: Mount Hymettos and Mount Lykabettos. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski.

Graecopithecus May Have Been Partially Bipedal, New Fossil Suggests

Mar 5, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

A 7.2-million-year-old thigh bone unearthed at the fossil site of Azmaka in southern Bulgaria displays a mosaic of features suggesting a unique combination...

Neolithic Europeans Had Surprisingly Complex Cuisine, Archaeologists Say

Mar 5, 2026 by News Staff

An international team of archaeologists has examined a total of 85 pottery sherds with substantial amounts of foodcrusts from 13 archaeological sites across...

Reconstruction of the face of StW 573. Image credit: A. Beaudet.

Scientists Digitally Reconstruct Face of ‘Little Foot’

Mar 3, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Beyond their value for classification and evolutionary relationships, changes in the size and shape of the hominin face through time can reflect important...

Study: Ancient Mating Preferences Helped Shape Human Genome

Mar 2, 2026 by News Staff

Prehistoric humans and Neanderthals didn’t just interbreed, they did so with a consistent sex bias, as male Neanderthals and female modern humans mated...

The arrival of Homo erectus in Southeast Asia 1.8 million years ago triggered the evolution of major human malaria vectors.

Arrival of Homo erectus in Southeast Asia Changed Mosquito Menu, New Study Suggests

Feb 26, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The ancestors of today’s malaria-spreading mosquitoes in the Anopheles leucosphyrus (Leucosphyrus) group may have shifted to feeding on humans around...

Plaquette with hybrid creature (so-called ‘Adorant’), ivory, from the Swabian Aurignacian. Image credit: Christian Bentz & Ewa Dutkiewicz, doi: 10.1073/pnas.2520385123.

Early Humans May Have Invented System of Symbols Long Before Writing

Feb 25, 2026 by Sergio Prostak

Early humans living in Europe some 40,000 years ago developed a conventional system of geometric signs — deliberate, repeatable markings that went...

This is an artist's reconstruction of Homo erectus. Image credit: Yale University.

Early Homo Reached Jordan Valley by at Least 1.9 Million Years Ago

Feb 23, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New research recalibrates the age of the Jordan Valley’s Ubeidiya Formation to nearly two million years, putting it on par with the famous site of Dmanisi...

Homo erectus Reached East Asia Far Earlier than Previously Thought

Feb 18, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

New dating of fossil skulls from the Early Pleistocene site of Yunxian in China suggests that early members of Homo erectus lived in eastern Asia nearly...

Artist’s reconstruction of Xigou tool-hafting. Image credit: Hulk Yuan, IVPP.

China’s Xigou Site Yields Evidence of Advanced Stone Tool Technology

Jan 27, 2026 by News Staff

Technological innovations in Africa and Western Europe in the later part of the Middle Pleistocene signal the behavioral complexity of hominin populations....

Paranthropus boisei. Image credit: © Roman Yevseyev.

2.6-Million-Year-Old Fossil from Ethiopia Shows Paranthropus Hominins Were Widespread

Jan 21, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The newly-discovered fossil — a 2.6-million-year-old partial lower jaw found in the Afar region of Ethiopia — represents the first known specimen...

Facial reconstruction of Homo habilis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes.

2-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Offers Clearest Look Yet at Homo habilis

Jan 15, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A newly-described partial skeleton from the Koobi Fora Formation in northern Kenya is giving paleoanthropologists their most complete picture yet of Homo...

Leang Bulu Bettue in the Maros-Pangkep karst area of South Sulawesi. Image credit: Burhan et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0337993.

Enigmatic Hominins May Have Overlapped with Homo sapiens on Sulawesi

Jan 13, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

At Leang Bulu Bettue, a rock-shelter in the Maros-Pangkep karst region on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, paleoanthropologists have uncovered one of...

The 60,000-year-old backed microlith from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: (A) buphanidrine and (B) epibuphanisine detected in a sample from the microlith; (C) the microlith showing the reddish poisonous adhesive residue still adhering to the dorsal backed portion of the tool. Image credit: Isaksson et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.adz3281.

60,000-Year-Old Poisoned Arrowheads Found in South Africa

Jan 8, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists have identified traces of two toxic plant alkaloids — buphandrine and epibuphanisine — on artifacts from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter...

773,000-Year-Old Hominin Fossils from Morocco Offer New Clues to Roots of Homo sapiens

Jan 7, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

The hominin fossils discovered in the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I in Casablanca, Morocco, are providing new evidence about the deep origins...