https://phys.org/science-news/archaeology-fossils en-us The latest news on archaeology, archaeological research and archaeological advancements. Ancient stone tools found in western Ukraine may be the oldest known evidence of early human presence in Europe, according to research published Wednesday in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-ancient-stone-tools-ukraine-date.html Archaeology Wed, 06 Mar 2024 14:30:36 EST news628957816 Archaeologists have analyzed chemical residues from ceramic vases at the city of Cotzumalhuapa, Guatemala, revealing physical evidence of tobacco use in Mesoamerica, likely for ritual and therapeutic purposes. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-ancient-mesoamericans-drunk-tobacco-rituals.html Archaeology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 12:11:03 EST news628863061 A new study from the Nihewan basin of China has revealed that hominins who possessed advanced knapping abilities equivalent to Mode 2 technological features occupied East Asia as early as 1.1 million years ago (Ma), which is 0.3 Ma earlier than the date associated with the first handaxes found in East Asia. This suggests that Mode 2 hominins dispersed into East Asia much earlier than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-timeline-east-asian-hominins-tool.html Archaeology Tue, 05 Mar 2024 11:22:49 EST news628860167 The identification of an eleventh-century Islamic astrolabe bearing both Arabic and Hebrew inscriptions makes it one of the oldest examples ever discovered and one of only a handful known in the world. The astronomical instrument was adapted, translated, and corrected for centuries by Muslim, Jewish, and Christian users in Spain, North Africa, and Italy. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-rare-eleventh-century-astrolabe-discovery.html Archaeology Sun, 03 Mar 2024 19:00:01 EST news628516526 If we could stand in a landscape that our Mesolithic ancestors called home, what would we see around us? Scientists have devised a method of analyzing preserved hazelnut shells to tell us whether the microhabitats around archaeological sites were heavily forested or open and pasture-like. This could help us understand not only what a local environment looked like thousands of years ago, but how humans have impacted their habitats over time. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-wood-trees-archaeologists-hazelnuts-reconstruct.html Archaeology Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:02 EST news628356149 Thousands of historic and archaeological sites in Georgia are at risk from tropical storm surges, and that number will increase with climate change, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Matthew D. Howland and Victor D. Thompson of Wichita State University and the University of Georgia. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-climate-threatens-thousands-archaeological-sites.html Archaeology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news628326283 Potters of different cultural backgrounds learn new types differently, producing cultural differences even in the absence of differential cultural evolution. Kobe University-led research, published in PNAS Nexus, has implications for how we evaluate the difference of archaeological artifacts across cultures. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-captures-pottery-culturally-distinct.html Archaeology Social Sciences Wed, 28 Feb 2024 08:35:03 EST news628331701 Blood relations and kinship were not all-important for the way hunter-gatherer communities lived during the Stone Age in Western Europe. A new genetic study, conducted at several well-known French Stone Age burial sites, shows that several distinct families lived together. This was probably a deliberate system for avoiding inbreeding. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-genetic-stone-age-strategy-inbreeding.html Archaeology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 07:02:15 EST news628326130 People living in ancient Eastern Arabia appear to have developed resistance to malaria following the appearance of agriculture in the region around five thousand years ago, a new study reveals. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-dna-ancient-eastern-arabians-reveals.html Archaeology Tue, 27 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news628247442 Early hunter–gatherers from the Middle Stone Age in southern Africa were selecting the most suitable material available for stone tools and spearheads more than 60,000 years ago, according to a study by Dr. Patrick Schmidt from the University of Tübingen's Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology section. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-physical-quantify-quality-stones-tools.html Archaeology Tue, 27 Feb 2024 09:28:01 EST news628248478 The enigmatic Philistine culture, which flourished during the Iron Age (ca. 1200–604 BCE), profoundly affected the southern Levant's cultural history, agronomy, and dietary customs. More than a quarter century of excavations at Tell es-Safi/Gath in central Israel, identified as the biblical Gath of the Philistines and the home of Goliath, has provided a unique window into the world of this ancient civilization. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-seed-fruit-analysis-biblical-home.html Archaeology Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:53:03 EST news628170781 A team of archaeologists with the Aranzadi Science Society has found a word inscribed on an ancient Basque bronze hand that resembles a modern Basque word. Their paper is published in the journal Antiquity. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-word-inscribed-ancient-bronze-resembles.html Archaeology Thu, 22 Feb 2024 10:40:01 EST news627817150 How old are these bones? This standard question in archaeology can be answered quite precisely in many cases with the help of the carbon isotope 14C. But there are exceptions. Certain living habits, such as that of prehistoric hunter-gatherer-fisher communities, can distort 14C dating, because carbon in aquatic ecosystems typically contains less 14C than carbon from terrestrial plants and animals. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-approach-carbon-dating-age-prehistoric.html Archaeology Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:42:03 EST news627759722 Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-neanderthals-usage-complex-adhesives-reveals.html Archaeology Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news627715394 For many years, researchers at MPI-EVA have been collecting and analyzing ancient DNA from humans who lived during the past tens of thousands of years. Analyzing these data has allowed the researchers to trace the movement and mixing of people, and even to uncover ancient pathogens that affected their lives. However, a systematic study of uncommon genetic conditions had not been attempted. One of those uncommon conditions, known as Down syndrome, nowadays affects around one in 1,000 births. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-ancient-genomes-reveal-syndrome-societies.html Archaeology Tue, 20 Feb 2024 11:00:01 EST news627640440 Roughly 14,500 to 10,500 years ago, in the transition from the last glacial period, Epipaleolithic and Neolithic peoples harvesting vegetation from the wetlands of eastern Jordan created a habitat for birds that would otherwise have migrated, a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory reveals. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-birds-human-millennia.html Archaeology Mon, 19 Feb 2024 14:33:30 EST news627575607 Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University crafted replica Stone Age tools and used them for a range of tasks to see how different activities create traces on the edge. They found that a combination of macroscopic and microscopic traces can tell us how stone edges were used. Their criteria help separate tools used for wood-felling from other activities. In addition, dated stone edges may be used to identify when timber use began for early humans. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scientists-stone-age-tools.html Archaeology Mon, 19 Feb 2024 09:35:05 EST news627557702 In the late 1800s and early 1900s, anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States was high, as working-class laborers in the country viewed Chinese workers as a threat. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-chinese-migrants-los-angeles-chinatown.html Archaeology Social Sciences Thu, 15 Feb 2024 16:23:21 EST news627236596 The first Neolithic farmers and shepherds in Andalusia settled permanently on the island of San Fernando, Cadiz, 6,200 years ago, where they continued to collect and consume shellfish throughout the year, preferably in winter. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-reveals-neolithic-groups-south-iberian.html Archaeology Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:56:03 EST news627213361 An international team of scientists reports that cave art at a site in Patagonia is the oldest of its type ever found in South America. In their study, published in the journal Science Advances, the group conducted radiocarbon dating of the material used to create the art thousands of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-cave-art-patagonia-oldest-pigment.html Archaeology Thu, 15 Feb 2024 09:55:19 EST news627213312 Two University of Wyoming anthropology professors have discovered one of the earliest circular plazas in Andean South America, showcasing monumental megalithic architecture, which refers to construction that uses large stones placed upright with no mortar. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-anthropologists-unveils-early-stone-plaza.html Archaeology Wed, 14 Feb 2024 16:51:29 EST news627151887 Vittrup Man was born along the Scandinavian coast before moving to Denmark, where he was later sacrificed, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Anders Fischer of the University of Gothenburg, Sweden and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-vittrup-forager-farmer-sacrificed-denmark.html Archaeology Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news627129134 Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might indicate an enduring companion relationship between these humans and animals, or religious sacrificial practices, according to a study published in PLOS ONE by Zita Laffranchi from the University of Bern, Stefania Zingale from the Institute for Mummy Studies, Eurac Research Bozen, Umberto Tecchiati from the University of Milan, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-pre-roman-humans-dogs-horses.html Archaeology Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:00:01 EST news627121441 Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997) is Jared Diamond's Pulitzer Prize-winning effort to explain the contrasting histories of Native Americans, Africans, and aboriginal Australians vs. Europeans and Asians. One of his intriguing proposals was that Eurasian political and military dominance could be partially explained by its unique continental orientation. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-eurasia-dominant-east-west-axis.html Archaeology Political science Wed, 14 Feb 2024 12:23:45 EST news627135823 A team of philologists, chemists, environmental physicists and engineers affiliated with several institutions across Europe has found evidence of an undeciphered script on wooden tablets created on Easter Island that represents an independent writing system. Their paper is published in the journal Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-evidence-independent-written-language-easter.html Archaeology Wed, 14 Feb 2024 11:20:01 EST news627131045 University of Wyoming archaeology Professor Todd Surovell and his team of collaborators have discovered a tube-shaped bead made of bone that is about 12,940 years old. The bead, found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Converse County, is the oldest known bead in the Americas. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-archaeologists-oldest-bead-americas.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Feb 2024 16:31:03 EST news626977862 In autumn 2021, geologists discovered an unusual row of stones, almost 1 km long, at the bottom of Mecklenburg Bight. The site is located around 10 kilometers off Rerik at a 21-meter water depth. The approximately 1,500 stones are aligned so regularly that a natural origin seems unlikely. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-stone-age-hunter-baltic-sea.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Feb 2024 16:12:04 EST news626976722 Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study from Lund University in Sweden, among others. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-scandinavia-farmers-slaughtered-hunter-population.html Archaeology Mon, 12 Feb 2024 09:45:18 EST news626953513 A team of archaeologists led by Dr. Maaike Groot from Freie Universität Berlin has provided the first firm evidence that the Romans deliberately collected and used the poisonous seeds of the black henbane plant. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-painkiller-pleasure-conclusive-evidence-intentional.html Archaeology Thu, 08 Feb 2024 10:25:02 EST news626610301 In 2020, the pandemic disrupted everyone's lives, isolated people from each other and ushering in a new reality for all. At universities, activities shifted into low gear and moved online. And in Université de Montréal's Department of Anthropology, then-director Guy Lanoue took the opportunity to do something he'd never had time for: Tidy up. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-journey-child-died-years.html Archaeology Wed, 07 Feb 2024 12:33:29 EST news626531605