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Brawn beats beauty to get the girl
PENN STATE (US)—Male physical competition, not attraction, was central in winning mates among human ancestors, according to a Penn State anthropologist.“There is sexual competition in many species,...
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Forget the forest. Prehumans lived in savannas
JOHNS HOPKINS (US)—Prehumans in East Africa 4.4 million years ago lived among grassy, tree-studded plains, not in the forests, according to a new study.The finding by a multi-university team of...
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Ancient beer brewed to include antibiotic
EMORY (US)—A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer.The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of...
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Mummy dogs were godly go-betweens
U. CARDIFF (UK) — Millions of ancient dogs buried in tunnels were likely used as intermediaries between ancient Egyptians and the gods, according to new research.The Catacombs of Anubis project, led by...
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Nutcracker Man had a taste for grass
U. COLORADO (US) — An ancient, bipedal hominid sporting huge molars preferred to slurp up vast quantities of grass, instead of crunching on the food that earned it the nickname Nutcracker...
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33,000-year-old teeth from domesticated dog
U. ARIZONA (US) — An ancient dog skull, preserved in a cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia for 33,000 years, presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication, say researchers.Together...
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Maya ‘sun’ masks discovered at pyramid
BROWN (US) — Archeologists have uncovered a pyramid believed to celebrate the Maya sun god at the El Zotz site in Guatemala.The ornately decorated structure is topped by a temple covered in a series of...
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CT scans find clogged arteries in mummies
USC (US) — Ancient people from around the world had plaque buildup in their arteries, even without modern diets or sedentary habits. Like nearly 4.6 million Americans, the mummified people also had the...
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Did China’s agriculture sprout in Ice Age?
STANFORD (US) — The discovery of grinding stones pushes the origins of agriculture in China back 12,000 years, and suggests it evolved independently around the world. The first evidence of agriculture...
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Tool gives hi-def origin of Syrian artifacts
U. SHEFFIELD (UK) — Magnetic analysis lets archaeologists match obsidian artifacts from Syria to the specific quarry—not just the volcano—of origin. While at the University of Sheffield from 1965 until...
View ArticleForget the forest. Prehumans lived in savannas
JOHNS HOPKINS (US)—Prehumans in East Africa 4.4 million years ago lived among grassy, tree-studded plains, not in the forests, according to a new study. The finding by a multi-university team of...
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Prehistoric women left their mark in caves
New analysis of cave art in France and Spain reveals that 75 percent of the handprints likely belonged to women. The assumption has been that men made the handprints, whether stencils—paint blown...
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Healers practiced this skull surgery 1,000 years ago
Cranial surgery is tricky business, even under 21st-century conditions—an aseptic environment, specialized surgical instruments, and lots of pain medication both during and afterward. However, evidence...
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Ice Age infant has ties to modern Native Americans
The first genome sequencing of the Ice Age skeletal remains of a one-year-old boy proves that the first human settlers in North America were from Asia, not Europe, and that these people were the direct...
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Underwater ‘trap’ reveals prehistoric caribou hunts
Evidence of 9,000-year-old caribou hunts could clarify the social and seasonal organization of early peoples who lived in the Great Lakes region, say underwater archaeologists. Researchers describe the...
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Ancient teen’s DNA may solve human migration mystery
The ancient remains of a teenage girl found in an underwater Mexican cave establish a definitive link between the earliest Americans and modern Native Americans, report scientists. The most ancient...
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‘Antibacterial’ cloth changes mummy history
New evidence suggests that the origins of mummification started 1,500 years earlier in ancient Egypt than previously thought. Traditional theories on ancient Egyptian mummification suggest that in...
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CT scans ‘unwrap’ secrets of three mummies
Scientists have put three unusually motionless patients through the CT scanner: Egyptian mummies. One of the mummies already was known to have a brain, but scans revealed she also still has lungs. In...
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Got milk? Humans did 5,000 years ago
Why do humans drink milk? Archaeologists and geneticists have been puzzling over this question since they discovered that the mutations allowing adults to drink milk are under the strongest selection...
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Did making stone tools get people talking?
Researchers taught modern college students ancient stone-knapping skills for a recent study. Their findings suggest that early Stone Age slaughtering tools evolved alongside humans’ ability to...
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