News by Subject Archaeology

An international team of scientists, led by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, analyzed ancient human genomes from 38 northern Europeans dating from approximately 7,500 to 500 BCE. The study, published today in Nature Communications, found that Scandinavia was initially settled via a southern and a northern route and that the arrival of agriculture in northern Europe was facilitated by movements of farmers and pastoralists into the region.

Advances in recent years allow forensic practitioners to use bone mineral density to extract more information from human remains -- but many forensic experts are unfamiliar with the techniques and technology. Now forensic researchers have published a step-by-step methodology in the video journal JOVE, providing forensic professionals with a guide that can help them extract as much information as possible from this emerging tool.

Archaeologists say they may have discovered one of the earliest examples of a 'crayon' -- possibly used by our ancestors 10,000 years ago for applying color to their animal skins or for artwork.

A jawbone complete with teeth recently discovered at Israel's Misliya cave by Tel Aviv University and University of Haifa researchers has now been dated to 177,000-194,000 years ago. The finding indicates that modern humans were present in the Levant at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.

While it is largely believed that horses simply evolved with fewer digits, researchers at New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYITCOM) pose a new theory that suggests remnants of all five toes are still present within the hooves of the horse.

A large international research team, led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University and including Rolf Quam from Binghamton University, State University of New York, has discovered the earliest modern human fossil ever found outside of Africa. The finding suggests that modern humans left the continent at least 50,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Forensic researchers have found a more accurate way to assess an individual's age at death, based on the bone mineral density of the femur. The technique could be used to help identify human remains.

Artefacts revealed by melting ice patches in the high mountains of Oppland shed new light on ancient high-altitude hunting.

It has long been recognized that the Inka incorporated diverse peoples into their empire, but how these ethnic groups developed historically during the political upheaval of the preceding Late Intermediate Period (LIP; AD 1100-1450) is only now receiving commensurate attention.