https://phys.org/science-news/archaeology-fossils en-us The latest news on archaeology, archaeological research and archaeological advancements. It's said that a dog is a man's best friend, but the wild dingo is much maligned in Australia. This may not always have been the case though, with new research led by experts at The Australian National University and The University of Western Australia suggesting that dingoes were buried—and even domesticated—by First Nations people prior to European colonization. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-dingoes-almost-human-status-pre-colonial-australia.html Archaeology Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:14:03 EDT news617030041 It's a familiar story to many of us: In prehistoric times, men were hunters and women were gatherers. Women were not physically capable of hunting because their anatomy was different from men. And because men were hunters, they drove human evolution. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-prehistoric-gender-roles-women-hunters.html Archaeology Fri, 20 Oct 2023 14:07:04 EDT news617029621 A team of scientists from the Universities of Granada and Cambridge, as well as the Government of Catalonia, have identified the oldest pieces of Baltic amber ever found on the Iberian Peninsula, revealing that this luxury material used in jewelry and handicrafts around the world was already being imported more than 5,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-oldest-pieces-baltic-amber-iberian.html Archaeology Thu, 19 Oct 2023 11:45:10 EDT news616934708 More than 500,000 years ago, our human ancestors used large, stone tools known as "Acheulean handaxes," to cut meat and wood, and dig for tubers. Often made from flint, these prehistoric oval and pear-shaped tools are flaked on both sides and have a pointed end. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-15th-century-french-depicts-ancient.html Archaeology Wed, 18 Oct 2023 10:10:06 EDT news616842602 For thousands of years, beavers had a big influence on the Dutch ecosystem and the people that lived there. This is the conclusion of research by archaeologist Nathalie Brusgaard. The rodents were used for food, clothing and tools, and created a landscape hospitable to many other species. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-beavers-big-people-stone-age.html Archaeology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 14:21:46 EDT news616771301 For many people seaweed holds a reputation as a superfood, heralded for its health benefits and sustainability, but it appears our European ancestors were ahead of the game and were consuming the nutrient-rich plant for thousands of years. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-reveals-european-ancestors-ate-seaweed.html Archaeology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news616756210 How much can the written records of ancient civilizations tell us about the animals they lived alongside? Published in Environmental Archaeology, Our latest research, based on the venomous snakes described in an ancient Egyptian papyrus, suggests more than you might think. A much more diverse range of snakes than we'd imagined lived in the land of the pharaohs—which also explains why these Egyptian authors were so preoccupied with treating snakebites! https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ancient-egypt-venomous-snakes-country.html Archaeology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 10:28:51 EDT news616757329 Pioneering early farmers who arrived on the Baltic coast 6,000 years ago may have taken up fishing after observing indigenous hunter-gatherer communities, a major new study has found. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-early-neolithic-farmers-baltic-coast.html Archaeology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 09:07:35 EDT news616752446 A piece of rock with mysterious markings that lay largely unstudied for 4,000 years is now being hailed as a "treasure map" for archaeologists, who are using it to hunt for ancient sites around north-western France. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-bronze-age-treasure.html Archaeology Tue, 17 Oct 2023 03:59:20 EDT news616733955 With its low quantities of rain and soaring high temperatures, the Sahara Desert is often regarded as one of the most extreme and least habitable environments on Earth. While the Sahara was periodically much greener in the distant past, an ancient society living in a climate very similar to today's found a way to harvest water in the seemingly dry Sahara—thriving until the water ran out. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ancient-society-sahara-rose-fell.html Archaeology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 16:22:37 EDT news616432954 Archaeologists have used 3D scanning to investigate inscriptions carved on two groups of Danish runestones, revealing that four stones were likely made in dedication to a powerful Viking Queen. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-runestones-reveal-power-viking-queen.html Archaeology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 11:13:55 EDT news616414430 The fact that Neanderthals were able to make a fire and use it, among other things, for cooking, demonstrates their intelligence. "This confirms our observations and theories from previous studies," explains Diego Angelucci, archaeologist at the University of Trento and co-author of the study. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-neanderthal-cuisine-excavations-reveal-neanderthals.html Archaeology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 09:41:50 EDT news616408905 An international team of geoscientists, archaeologists and anthropologists has found evidence that strongly suggests an infant jawbone found in the Ethiopian highlands came from a Homo erectus child. In their study, reported in the journal Science, the group conducted multiple tests to learn the true nature of the fossil. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-reexamination-ancient-jawbone-ethiopia-homo.html Archaeology Fri, 13 Oct 2023 08:50:50 EDT news616405845 Neanderthals hunted cave lions and used the skin of this dangerous carnivore, a new study has shown for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-neanderthals-dangerous-cave-lions.html Archaeology Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:19:45 EDT news616331982 New imaging and scientific investigations by a team including a King's College London academic has found traces of the original paint used to decorate the Parthenon Sculptures, revealing they were once in fact brightly colored. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-scientific-analysis-reveals-true-parthenon.html Archaeology Wed, 11 Oct 2023 15:32:03 EDT news616257122 DNA analysis of mummified poop reveals two pre-Columbian Caribbean cultures ate a wide variety of plants, like maize, sweet potato, and peanuts—and tobacco and cotton traces were detected too, according to a study published October 11, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jelissa Reynoso-García from the University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-mummified-poop-reveals-pre-columbian-cultures.html Archaeology Wed, 11 Oct 2023 14:00:02 EDT news616237168 The development of the earliest cities in Mesopotamia and the Middle East led to a substantial increase in violence between inhabitants. Laws, centralized administration, trade and culture then caused the ratio of violent deaths to fall back again in the Early and Middle Bronze Age (3,300 to 1,500 BCE). This is the conclusion of an international team of researchers from the Universities of Tübingen, Barcelona and Warsaw. Their results were published in Nature Human Behaviour. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-cranial-traumas-cities-built-violence.html Archaeology Tue, 10 Oct 2023 11:09:02 EDT news616154941 New research confirms that fossil human footprints in New Mexico are likely the oldest direct evidence of human presence in the Americas, a finding that upends what many archaeologists thought they knew about when our ancestors arrived in the New World. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-evidence-footprints-mexico-oldest-humans.html Archaeology Thu, 05 Oct 2023 14:47:22 EDT news615736028 The world's most diverse forest, the Amazon, may also host more than 10,000 records of pre-Columbian earthworks (constructed prior to the arrival of Europeans), according to a new study. The new study combines cutting-edge remote sensing technology with archaeological data and advanced statistical modeling to estimate how many earthworks may still be hidden beneath the canopy of the Amazon rainforest and in which locations these structures are most likely to be found. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-amazon-forest-thousands-ancient-indigenous.html Archaeology Thu, 05 Oct 2023 14:41:04 EDT news615735661 The remains of human bones with cutmarks, breaks and human chewing marks found across northern Europe show that some human groups living around 15,000 years ago were eating their dead not out of necessity, but as part of their culture. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-oldest-evidence-human-cannibalism-funerary.html Archaeology Thu, 05 Oct 2023 10:35:07 EDT news615720902 An international team of scientists has found early human migrants left Africa for Eurasia, across the Sinai peninsula and on through Jordan, over 80,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-early-human-migrants-lush-corridor-route.html Archaeology Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:00:02 EDT news615632483 Paleolithic human populations survived even in the coldest and driest upland parts of Spain, according to a study published October 4, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Manuel Alcaraz-Castaño of the University of Alcalá, Spain, Javier Aragoncillo-del Rió of the Molina-Alto Tajo UNESCO Global Geopark, Spain and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-prehistoric-people-occupied-upland-regions.html Archaeology Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:00:02 EDT news615632517 In recent years, studies have revealed that the now-arid region of northern Arabia was once much wetter and greener, providing Neolithic human populations with access to both water and game. The present aridity of the region, however, preserves little organic matter, making a reconstruction of the Neolithic lifestyle difficult. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-analysis-tools-reveals-pigment-bone.html Archaeology Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:00:02 EDT news615633607 An international team of archaeologists has discovered life-size images of an extinct camel species carved into rock formations in Saudia Arabia. In their project, reported in the journal Archaeological Research in Asia, the group discovered the carvings on a rock outcropping in the Nefud desert. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-life-size-images-extinct-camel-species.html Archaeology Wed, 04 Oct 2023 11:59:30 EDT news615639521 Agriculture in Syria started with a bang 12,800 years ago as a fragmented comet slammed into the Earth's atmosphere. The explosion and subsequent environmental changes forced hunter-gatherers in the prehistoric settlement of Abu Hureyra to adopt agricultural practices to boost their chances for survival. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-prehistoric-cosmic-airburst-advent-agriculture.html Archaeology Wed, 04 Oct 2023 05:11:28 EDT news615615081 In the quest to build better for the future, some are looking for answers in the long-ago past. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-ancient-roman-mayan-scientists-secrets.html Archaeology Tue, 03 Oct 2023 04:03:58 EDT news615524624 A team led by researchers at the Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, Aberystwyth University, UK, has discovered a secret about Stonehenge stone 80, also known as the "Altar Stone," suggesting it did not come from the same source as other stones used in the construction. Many of the smaller stones are believed to be derived from a source 140 miles away from Stonehenge, but the Altar Stone is different and may be from a quarry much further away. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-stonehenge-upends-year-old-theory-discoveries.html Archaeology Mon, 02 Oct 2023 09:42:52 EDT news615458543 A team of scientists, led by researchers from the Universidad de Alcalá (UAH) and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), has discovered and analyzed the first direct evidence of basketry among hunter-gatherer societies and early farmers in southern Europe, (9,500 and 6,200 years ago), in the Cueva de los Murciélagos of Albuñol (Granada, Spain). https://phys.org/news/2023-09-evidence-oldest-hunter-gatherer-basketry-southern.html Archaeology Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:18:37 EDT news615115106 A project mapping medieval England's known murder cases has now added Oxford and York to its street plan of London's 14th century slayings, and found that Oxford's student population was by far the most lethally violent of all social or professional groups in any of the three cities. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-students-oxford-capital-late-medieval.html Archaeology Social Sciences Wed, 27 Sep 2023 19:00:05 EDT news615060001 Birds were an important source of food for hunter-gatherer communities in Upper Mesopotamia at the beginning of the Neolithic period, around 9,000 years BCE. This is shown in a new study by SNSB and LMU archaeozoologists Dr. Nadja Pöllath and Prof. Dr. Joris Peters. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-passerine-birds-cranes-neolithic-bird.html Archaeology Wed, 27 Sep 2023 09:31:03 EDT news615025861