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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....

An artist’s impression of a Marathousa 1 woman producing a digging stick from a small alder tree trunk with a small stone tool. Image credit: G. Prieto / K. Harvati.

430,000-Year-Old Wooden Handheld Tools are Earliest Ever Found

Jan 27, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

Archaeologists say they have discovered the ‘earliest known handheld wooden tools’ at the Middle Pleistocene site of Marathousa 1 in Greece. An artist’s...

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...

An artist’s concept of a Penghu Denisovan walking under the bright Sun during the Pleistocene of Taiwan. Image credit: Cheng-Han Sun.

Researchers Sequence Genome of 200,000-Year-Old Denisovan

Jan 2, 2026 by Enrico de Lazaro

A research team led by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology scientists has generated the high-quality genome assembly of a Denisovan using...

Ancient humans. Image credit: sjs.org / CC BY-SA 3.0.

European Homo sapiens May Have Been Hunting with Bow and Arrow Earlier than Previously Believed

Dec 30, 2025 by Enrico de Lazaro

In a new paper published this month in the journal iScience, researchers from the University of Tübingen and elsewhere present a multidisciplinary analysis...

The 3,000-year-old pottery workshop of Gird-i Bazar at the Dinka Settlement Complex in Kurdish Autonomous Region of Iraq. From this perspective, the walls of the buildings are clearly visible, along with the kilns. Image credit: Andrea Squitieri.

3,000-Year-Old Pottery Workshop Unearthed in Iraqi Kurdistan

Dec 29, 2025 by News Staff

Archaeologists from the University of Tübingen and the LMU Munich have unearthed the ruins of an ancient pottery workshop at the early Iron Age Dinka...

Reconstruction of Mezhirich’s mammoth bone structure in the National Museum of Nature and Science, Tokyo, Japan. Image credit: Momotarou2012.

18,000-Year-Old Circular Dwellings Made of Mammoth Bones Unearthed in Ukraine

Dec 25, 2025 by Sergio Prostak

The Upper Paleolithic site of Mezhyrich, located in Cherkasy oblast, central Ukraine, is home to four remarkable mammoth bone structures. Ranging from...

The facial depiction of the Beachy Head Woman. Image credit: Face Lab, Liverpool John Moores University.

‘Beachy Head Woman’ Originated from Southern England, Ancient DNA Study Shows

Dec 23, 2025 by News Staff

The skeletal remains of an individual colloquially referred to as Beachy Head Woman were re-discovered in the Eastbourne Town Hall collection in 2012,...

Photo of caulking fragment showing fingerprint on the left and high-resolution X-ray tomography scan of fingerprint region on the right. Image credit: Erik Johansson / Sahel Ganji.

Archaeologists Find Fingerprint of Ancient Seafarer on 2,400-Year-Old Boat

Dec 19, 2025 by News Staff

In the 4th century BCE, at least four wooden plank boats the island of Als off the coast of Denmark. The unknown attackers were defeated, with the defenders...

An artist’s impression of fire at Barnham around 400,000 years ago. Image credit: Craig Williams / The Trustees of the British Museum.

Archaeologists Discover Earliest Evidence of Fire-Making

Dec 10, 2025 by News Staff

Archaeologists have unearthed 400,000-year-old heated sediments and fire-cracked flint handaxes alongside two fragments of pyrite — a mineral used...

3D model of Rano Raraku quarry. Image credit: Lipo et al., doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0336251.

Archaeologists Create First 3D Model of Easter Island’s Primary Moai Quarry

Dec 2, 2025 by News Staff

Ethnohistoric and recent archaeological evidence suggest that Easter Island (Rapa Nui) was a politically decentralized society organized into small, relatively...

An artist’s reconstruction of the gateway and drain at the ancient city of Harappa. Image credit: Chris Sloan.

Study: Severe and Persistent River Droughts Led to Collapse of Indus Valley Civilization

Dec 2, 2025 by News Staff

Severe and persistent river droughts, each lasting longer than 85 years, affected the Indus basin between 4,400 and 3,400 years ago, according to new research....

The genomes of ancient cats from archaeological sites across Europe and Anatolia (circles in the map) revealed that domestic cats were introduced to Europe from North Africa starting at 2,000 years ago, several millennia after the onset of the Neolithic in Europe; African wildcats in Sardinia originate from a distinct wildcat population in Northwest Africa. Image credit: De Martino et al., doi: 10.1126/science.adt2642.

Domestic Cats Were Introduced to Europe around 2,000 Years Ago, Probably from North Africa: Study

Nov 28, 2025 by News Staff

The domestic cat (Felis catus) descends from the African wildcat (Felis lybica lybica). Its global distribution alongside humans testifies to its successful...

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

Ancient Humans Introduced Wolves to Remote Baltic Sea Island 5,000 Years Ago

Nov 25, 2025 by News Staff

Wolves, the wild ancestor of dogs, are the only large carnivores that have undergone domestication by humans. Yet, it remains unclear if this process took...

New research indicates the importance of sweet potato to the Easter Island diet prior to European contact in 1722. Image credit: Bjørn Christian Tørrissen / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Invasive Polynesian Rats Played Key Role in Deforestation of Easter Island, Study Suggests

Nov 20, 2025 by News Staff

The ecological transformation of Easter Island (Rapa Nui) has become among the most paradigmatic yet contested case studies in environmental archaeology....

Monte Sierpe. Image credit: Charles Stanish.

Monte Sierpe: Thousands of Mysterious ‘Holes’ in Peru May Have Been Ancient Barter Marketplace

Nov 11, 2025 by News Staff

Monte Sierpe (translated as ‘serpent mountain’ and known colloquially as the ‘Band of Holes’) is located in the Pisco Valley of southern Peru and...

Itiner-e is the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire. Image credit: de Soto et al., doi: 10.1038/s41597-025-06140-z.

New Map Reveals 300,000 Kilometers of Roman Empire’s Road System

Nov 6, 2025 by News Staff

The new map and digital dataset, named Itiner-e, increase the known length of the Roman Empire’s road system by over 110,000 km. Itiner-e is the most...