<strong>Asia</strong>
Bronze Age travel routes revealed using pioneering research method
Ancient land use on the Prehistoric Silk Road
Archaeologists from the University of Sydney have reconstructed the ancient seasonal migration routes of Bronze Age herders in Xinjiang, north-western China. Published in the high-ranking journal *PLOS ONE*, their research was the result of innovative methodology. To determine snow cover and vegetation cycles, crucial to the survival of Bronze Age peopl...
The long and complex history of cereal cuisine in ancient China
Research reveals interplay of environment and culture have shaped modern cuisines Changing cuisines in ancient China were driven by multiple environmental and cultural practices over thousands of years, according to a study published November 4, 2020 in the ope...
Rare ancient child burial reveals 8,000-year-old secrets of the dead
Archaeologists from The Australian National University (ANU) have discovered a rare child burial dating back 8,000 years on Alor Island, Indonesia. The one-of-its-kind burial for the region is from the early mid-Holocene and gives important insights into burial practices of the time. Lead researcher Dr Sofia Samper Carro said the child, aged between four and eight, was la...
Bronze Age herders were less mobile than previously thought
Bronze Age pastoralists in what is now southern Russia apparently covered shorter distances than previously thought. It is believed that the Indo-European languages may have originated from this region, and these findings raise new questions about how technical and agricultural innovations spread to Europe. An international research team, with the participation of the University of Basel, has published a paper on this topic. During the B...
Central Asian horse riders played ball games 3,000 years ago
Today, ball games are one of the most popular leisure activities in the world, an important form of mass entertainment and big business. But who invented balls, where and when? The oldest balls that are currently known about were made in Egypt about 4,500 years ago using linen. Central Americans have been playing ball games for at least 3,700 years, as evidenced through monumental ball courts made of stone and depictions of ball players. Their oldest balls were made of r...
<strong>Neanderthal & Denisovan - Asia</strong>
Neanderthal children grew and were weaned similar to us
Neanderthals introduced solid food in their children's diet at around 5-6 months of age GOETHE UNIVERSITY FRANKFURT FRANKFURT/KENT/BOLOGNA/FERRARA. Teeth grow and register information in form of growth lines, akin to tree rings, that can be read through histological techniques. Combining such information with chemical data obtained with a laser-mass spectrometer, in particular strontium concentrations, the scientists were able to show that these Neanderthals introduced solid food in their children's diet at around 5-6 months of age. Not cultural but physiological Alessia Nava (...
Denisovan DNA in the genome of early East Asians
Scientists identify 34,000-year-old Early East Asian of mixed Eurasian descent
In 2006, miners discovered a hominin skullcap with peculiar morphological features in the Salkhit Valley of the Norovlin county in eastern Mongolia. It was initially referred to as Mongolanthropus and thought to be a Neandert...
Two studies expand insights into Denisovan ancestry and population history in East Asia
In a pair of studies, researchers provide evidence that expands our understanding of modern humans in eastern Asia and their interactions with their most elusive cousins, the Denisovans. While admixture between humans and Denisovans is widely recognized, physical remains of the archaic hominin species are exceedingly rare. What's more, ancient genomic evidence from early modern humans in eastern Asia, which would capture the nature of admixture events between the two species and inform on humans' timing and movement into and across Asia, is lacking. Recently, the fragment of ...
New Denisovan DNA expands diversity, history of specie
While the continents of Africa and Europe have been obvious and fruitful treasure troves for exploration and discovery of our modern human origins, Asia has been somewhat overlooked. Scientists have thought that modern humans left Africa about 60,000 years ago and, as they colonized Western Eurasia, found a world empty of any other archaic hominin species. This assumption stemmed in part from the fact that the prehistory of Asia is poorly known compared to that of Africa and Europe. But research publish...
<strong>Near East/Egypt</strong>
Archaeologists reveal human resilience in the face of climate change in ancient Turkey
An examination of two documented periods of climate change in the greater Middle East, between approximately 4,500 and 3,000 years ago, reveals local evidence of resilience and even of a flourishing ancient society despite the changes in climate seen in the larger region. A new study led by Unive...
Modern humans took detours on their way to Europe
Favourable climatic conditions influenced the sequence of settlement movements of Homo sapiens in the Levant on their way from Africa to Europe. In a first step, modern humans settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Only then did they spread out into the Sinai desert and the eastern Jordanian Rift Valley. This is the result of archaeological research conducted by Collaborative Research Centre 'Our Way to Europe' (CRC 806) at the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen. The article 'Al-Ansab and the Dead Sea: mid-MIS 3 Archaeology and Environment of the Early ...
Inks containing lead were likely used as drier on ancient Egyptian papyri
Analysing 12 ancient Egyptian papyri fragments with X-ray microscopy, University of Copenhagen researchers were surprised to find previously unknown lead compounds in both red and black inks and suggest they were used for their drying properties rather than as a pigment. A similar lead-base..
<strong>Europe</strong>
Bison engravings in Spanish caves reveal a common art culture across ancient Europe
Recently discovered rock art from caves in Northern Spain represents an artistic cultural style common across ancient Europe, but previously unknown from the Iberian Peninsula, according to a study published October 28, 2020 in the open-access journal *PLOS ONE* by Diego Garate o...
Medieval plague outbreaks picked up speed over 300 years
McMaster University researchers who analyzed thousands of documents covering a 300-year span of plague outbreaks in London, England, have estimated that the disease spread four times faster in the 17th century than it had in the 14th century. The findings, published today in the *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, show a striking acceleration in plague transmission between the Black Death of 1348, estimated to have wiped out more than one-third of the population of Europe, and later epidemics, which culminated in the Great Plague of 1665. Researchers found that in...
<strong>Americas</strong>
Early big-game hunters of the americas were female, researchers suggest
For centuries, historians and scientists mostly agreed that when early human groups sought food, men hunted and women gathered. However, a 9,000-year-old female hunter burial in the Andes Mountains of South America reveals a different story, according to new resea...
New clues revealed about Clovis people
There is much debate surrounding the age of the Clovis -- a prehistoric culture named for stone tools found near Clovis, New Mexico in the early 1930s -- who once occupied North America during the end of the last Ice Age. New testing of bones and artifacts show th...
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Ancient Maya built sophisticated water filters
Ancient Maya in the once-bustling city of Tikal built sophisticated water filters using natural materials they imported from miles away, according to the University of Cincinnati. UC researchers discovered evidence of a filter system at the Corriental reservoir, an important source of drinking water for the ancient Maya in what is now northern Guatemala. A multidisciplinary team of UC anthropologists, geographers and biologists identified crystalline quartz and zeolite imported miles from the city. The quartz found in the coarse sand along with zeolite, a crystalline compound co...
New evidence found of the ritual significance of a classic Maya sweat bath in Guatemala
Sweat baths have a long history of use in Mesoamerica. Commonly used by midwives in postpartum and perinatal care in contemporary Maya communities, these structures are viewed as grandmother figures, a pattern that can also be traced to earlier periods of history. At the site of Xultun, Guatemala, a Classic Maya sweat bath with an unus...
The first human settlers on islands caused extinctions
Though some believe prehistoric humans lived in harmony with nature, a new analysis of fossils shows human arrival in the Bahamas caused some birds to be lost from the islands and other species to be completely wiped out. The researchers examined more than 7,600 fossils over a decade and concluded that human arrival in the Bahamas about 1,000 years ago was the main factor in the birds...
<strong>Africa</strong>
Major new African genome study finds varieties that inform African history, migration and immunity
The study, in which six Wits researchers were involved, show that these newly discovered variants were found mostly among newly sampled ethnolinguistic groups. Researchers identified new evidence for natural selection in and around 62 previously unreported genes associated with viral immunity, DNA repair and metabolism. They observed complex patterns of ancestral mixing within and between populations, alongside evidence that populations from Zambia was a likely intermediate site along the routes of expansion of Bantu-speaking populations. These findings improve the current unde...
Turbulent era sparked leap in human behavior, adaptability 320,000 years ago
New drill core shows a boom-bust landscape in the east African rift valley at a defining moment in human evolution, technology and culture For hundreds of thousands of years, early humans in the East African Rift Valley could expect certain things of their environment. Freshwater lakes in the region ensured a reliable source of water, and large grazing herbivores roamed the grasslands. Then, around 400,000 years ago, things changed. The environment became less predictable, and human ancestors faced new sources of instability and uncertainty that challenged their previous long-s...
Climate change likely drove early human species to extinction
Of the six or more different species of early humans, all belonging to the genus Homo, only we Homo sapiens have managed to survive. Now, a study reported in the journal *One Earth*on October 15 combining climate modeling and the fossil record in search of clues to what led to all those earlier extinctions of our ancient ancestors suggests that climate change--the inability to adapt to either warming or cooling temperatures--likely played a major role in sealing their fate. "Our findings show that despite technological innovations including the use of fire and refined stone tools...
<strong>
Israel</strong>
Stone Weight Used in Commerce During First Temple Period Discovered Near Western Wall in Jerusalem
A limestone weight that dates to the First Temple era and may have been used in marketplace commerce or for the acquirement of animals to sacrifice was recently discovered in Jerusalem during a soil sift from an excavation near the Western Wall. The weight, inscribed with a symbol representing the word “shekel,” was found while archaeologists wet-sifted soil from a landfill area as part of a joint project between the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. “The weight is dome-shaped with a flat base. On the top of the weight is an incis...
Tradition of petrified birds in the Dome of the Rock
On the southern exterior wall of the Dome of the Rock, a very important Islamic shrine in Jerusalem's Old City, there are two marble slabs, both carved from the same stone and placed side by side to form a symmetrical pattern, that depicts two birds. In a recent article published in the *Journal of Near Eastern Studies*, "Solomon and The Petrified Birds on the Dome of the Rock," ...
Byzantine—Early Islamic resource management detected through micro-geoarchaeological investigations of trash mounds (Negev, Israel)
Sustainable resource management is of central importance among agrarian societies in marginal drylands. In the Negev Desert, Israel, research on agropastoral resource management during Late Antiquity emphasizes intramural settlement contexts and landscape features. The importance of hinterland trash deposits as diachronic archives of resource use and disposal has been overlooked until recently. Without these data, assessments of community-scale responses to societal, economic, and environmental disruption and reconfiguration remain incomplete. In this study, micro-geoarchaeologi...
An astonishing common denominator among storage jars in Israel over a period of 350 years: the inner-rim diameter of the jar's neck.
Israeli archaeologists found an astonishing common denominator among storage jars in Israel over a period of 350 years: the inner-rim diameter of the jar's neck. It's consistent with measurements of the palm of a (male) hand and may reflect the use of the original metrics for the biblical measurement of the "tefach," a unit of measurement that was used primarily by ancient Israelites, appears frequently in the Old Testament and is the basis for many legal and purity laws...
