Anthropology News

Homo heidelbergensis was Extremely Resourceful, New Research Shows

An artistic rendering of the Horse Butchery Site and the Boxgrove people; it shows how the site was situated in front of towering chalk cliffs on the edge of an intertidal lagoon; the cliffs to the north provided all the flint used in tool making at the site and, within a few hours, the tide would have begun to cover the site in fine silt, preserving evidence of the day’s activity. Image credit: Lauren Gibson / Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Sep 3, 2020 by News Staff

New research pieces together the activities and movements of a group of Homo heidelbergensis, a poorly understood species of archaic humans that lived between 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, as they made tools, including the oldest bone tools documented in Europe, and extensively butchered a large horse at the 480,000-year-old archaeological site near Boxgrove, Sussex, the United Kingdom. An artistic rendering of the Horse Butchery Site and the Boxgrove...

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A stone plaquette engraved with abstract designs from the Magdalenian site of Les Varines, Jersey, Channel Islands. Image credit: Bello et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236875.

15,000-Year-Old Abstract Art Found in Channel Islands

Sep 2, 2020 by News Staff

A team of archaeologists from the United Kingdom has uncovered 15,000-year-old stone plaquettes extensively engraved with abstract designs at the Magdalenian...

Various types of fluted points and preforms from Manayzah, Yemen: (1) double-fluted preform on a plano-convex elongated bifacial piece; (2) broken fluted preform on a bifacial elongated piece with symmetrical section; (3) base-fluted projectile point; (4 and 5) tip-fluted projectile points. Image credit: Crassard et al, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0236314.

Neolithic People in Arabia Used Same Fluting Technology as Ancient Native Americans

Aug 11, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of archaeologists has excavated and examined 8,000-year-old projectile points (spear- and arrowheads) at two sites in Yemen and Oman....

Denisovans Interbred with Mysterious Archaic Hominin: Study

Aug 7, 2020 by News Staff

In a new study published in the journal PLoS Genetics, researchers analyzed the genomes of two Neanderthals, a Denisovan, and two African humans; and found...

Neanderthals are commonly thought to have relied on dangerous close range hunting techniques, using non-projectile weapons like the thrusting spears depicted here; this hunting approach is thought to have brought them into violent contact with large mammals, resulting in high levels of injury especially to the head and neck when compared to modern humans; Beier et al found similar head injury levels in both Neanderthals and Upper Paleolithic humans, casting doubt on this hypothesis. Image credit: Gleiver Prieto.

Neanderthals May Have Had Heightened Sensitivity to Pain

Jul 27, 2020 by News Staff

Neanderthals may have experienced more pain than average modern humans do, according to new research led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for...

Team members entering Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico. Image credit: Devlin A. Gandy.

Archaeologists Find 30,000-Year-Old Stone Tools in Mexican Cave

Jul 22, 2020 by News Staff

Archaeologists have uncovered 1,900 stone artifacts in Chiquihuite Cave, a high-altitude site in the Astillero Mountains in northern Mexico. DNA analysis...

1.4-Million-Year-Old Handaxe Unearthed in Ethiopia

Jul 14, 2020 by Sergio Prostak

Paleoanthropologists working at the Konso research area in Ethiopia have found a 1.4-million-year-old large bone fragment shaped into handaxe-like form. The...

Tahitian warrior dugouts from ‘Le Costume Ancien et Moderne’ by Giulio Ferrario, Milan, between 1816 and 1827.

Ancient Polynesians and Native Americans Had Contact Long Before Europeans Arrived

Jul 14, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of genetic researchers has found conclusive evidence for a single contact between Polynesian individuals and a Native American group...

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

Homo erectus Had Stocky Body Shape

Jul 8, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has created the first 3D reconstruction of the ribcage of the Turkana Boy, a skeleton of the juvenile Homo erectus...

A group of Neanderthals in a cave. Image credit: Tyler B. Tretsven.

Researchers Sequence Genome of Neanderthal Woman from Chagyrskaya Cave

Jun 18, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

An international team of researchers has sequenced and analyzed the genome of an 80,000-year-old Neanderthal woman from Chagyrskaya Cave in the Altai Mountains,...

Illustration of one of the early settlers in the Caribbean. Image credit: Tom Björklund.

Humans Colonized Caribbean Islands in Three Waves: Study

Jun 5, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has sequenced and analyzed the genomes of 93 ancient Caribbean islanders and found evidence of at least three separate...

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

Study: Women with Neanderthal Progesterone Gene Have Higher Fertility

May 29, 2020 by Enrico de Lazaro

A hormone called progesterone is important for preparing the uterine lining for egg implantation and in maintaining the early stages of pregnancy. Almost...

Facial reconstruction of Australopithecus sediba. Image credit: Cicero Moraes et al.

Australopithecus sediba Used Their Hands for Both Climbing and Human-Like Manipulation

May 21, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists has found that the hand of Australopithecus sediba, a small hominin that lived about 2 million years ago...

Stone artifacts from the Initial Upper Paleolithic at Bacho Kiro Cave: (1-3, 5-7) pointed blades and fragments from Layer I; (4) sandstone bead with morphology similar to bone beads; (8) the longest complete blade. Image credit: Tsenka Tsanova / CC-BY-SA 2.0.

Humans Created Earliest Modern Artifacts in Europe, Research Shows

May 12, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of researchers has discovered and dated the remains of Homo sapiens and associated artifacts — including pendants manufactured...

The Gateway of the Sun, Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Image credit: Mhwater.

Ancient DNA Study Sheds Light on Deep Population History of Andes

May 11, 2020 by News Staff

A large international team of researchers has conducted the first in-depth, wide-scale study of the genomic history of pre-Columbian Andean civilizations...

Neanderthals consumed plants, too. Image credit: University of Utah via kued.org.

Neanderthals Made Leather-Working Tools from Bison and Aurochs Ribs

May 11, 2020 by News Staff

Neanderthals selected rib bones from specific animals to make the lissoirs (French for ‘smoothers’), which are bone tools that have been intentionally...

Neolithic rock art in Tassili n’Ajjer National Park, Sahara, Algeria. Image credit: Patrick Gruban, Munich, Germany / CC BY-SA 2.0.

Neolithic East African Pastoralist Societies Consumed Milk

Apr 16, 2020 by News Staff

New research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the first evidence for diet and subsistence practices of Neolithic...

This is an artist's reconstruction of female Homo from Dmanisi, Georgia. Image credit: Elisabeth Daynes, via tabula.ge.

Homo erectus Existed 200,000 Years Earlier than Previously Thought

Apr 3, 2020 by News Staff

An international team of paleoanthropologists has unearthed a 2-million-year-old skull of Homo erectus, the first of our ancestors to be nearly human-like...

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

Homo sapiens Interbred with Various Neanderthal Populations, Study Says

Apr 2, 2020 by News Staff

Modern humans in Eurasia carry genetic material inherited from Altai Neanderthals, according to a study published in the journal Genetics. This is noteworthy...

Forensic facial reconstruction of another Australopithecus species - A. afarensis. Image credit: Cicero Moraes / CC BY-SA 3.0.

Australopithecus afarensis Had Ape-Like Brain Organization, But Prolonged Brain Growth Like Humans

Apr 2, 2020 by News Staff

Human brains are three times larger, are organized differently, and mature for a longer period of time than those of our closest living relatives, the...

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