Archaeology, features and articles | Educational Science

Feb 2, 2024

Our mixed-up human family: 8 human relatives that went extinct (and 1 that didn't)

The ancient human family tree is complicated. An evolutionary trajectory that was once presented as a straight line has been abandoned, and our history is envisioned as a muddy delta or braided stream representing the interplay between physical and cultural adaptations across species. The story of the Homo genus is...

Feb 2, 2024

13 of the world's oldest artworks, some crafted by extinct human relatives

What constitutes art is heavily debated, and that's especially true for prehistoric art. But here are some of the contenders for the title of the world's oldest art. Many were made by anatomically modern humans, but some were not. Related: Did art exist before modern humans? New discoveries raise big...

Feb 2, 2024

1st known tuberculosis cases in Neanderthals revealed in prehistoric bone analysis

Neanderthals living in Central Europe around 35,000 years ago suffered from tuberculosis (TB), a new DNA analysis of their bones reveals. This is the first time this disease has been identified in Neanderthals, raising questions about whether tuberculosis contributed to their extinction. In two research studies published in the journal...

Feb 4, 2024

Farming began in North Africa about 7,500 years ago thanks to immigrants, DNA from Neolithic burials reveals

The Neolithic age — when agriculture and animal farming were adopted — has become one of the most widely studied periods of social and economic transition in recent years. It was a period that drove great change in the evolution of human society. Recent research — the fruit of projects...

Feb 6, 2024

Bronze Age 'treasure' was crafted with extraterrestrial metal

A dazzling Bronze Age hoard discovered in Spain more than 60 years ago contains some out-of-this-world metal, as a new analysis reveals that parts of the treasures were made from meteoric iron. The hoard, known as the Treasure of Villena and discovered by archaeologists in 1963, encompasses a total of...

Feb 7, 2024

'Simply did not work': Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak

Since the late 1800s, we've known that other types of humans once roamed our planet. At that time, scientists recognized that fossils unearthed in caves across Europe belonged to archaic humans now known as Neanderthals. Over that time, our understanding of Neanderthals has undergone dramatic upheavals. In the early 1900s,...

Feb 7, 2024

10 old shoes found in archaeological excavations from around the world

Losing a shoe (or shoes) is nothing new. In fact, based on these archaeological finds, it's always been common. In recent years, archaeologists have found numerous shoes hidden in caves, salt mines, wells and other locations that have excellent preservation conditions, such as a low-oxygen environment. Here are a dozen...

Feb 9, 2024

Undeciphered script from Easter Island may predate European colonization

A tablet of wood inscribed with the undeciphered rongorongo script from the Eastern Pacific island Rapa Nui, also called Easter Island, predates the arrival of Europeans there, strengthening the likelihood that the script is one of the few independently invented writing systems. The wood from one of four rongorongo tablets...

Feb 12, 2024

Medieval iron glove, likely worn by a knight, discovered near Swiss castle

Archaeologists in Switzerland have unearthed an impeccably preserved gauntlet that was likely worn by a knight in the 14th century. Completely preserved, the right-handed iron glove was found inside a cellar at a known medieval town near Kyburg Castle, about 11 miles (18 kilometers) northeast of Zurich. The four-fold finger...

Feb 12, 2024

11,000-year-old submerged stone wall discovered off Germany was once used to trap reindeer

An underwater stone wall discovered in the Baltic Sea near Germany was built about 11,000 years ago for hunting reindeer when the location was dry land, a new study indicates. The researchers suggest the local prehistoric people built the wall; its remaining parts were crafted from 1,670 stones and stretch...

Feb 14, 2024

Ancient tomb really does hold Alexander the Great's father, controversial study claims

Archaeologists may have finally identified the remains of Alexander the Great's father, half-brother and son in a trio of tombs at a necropolis in Greece. Researchers have long debated which members of the Macedonian royal family were buried in each tomb. Now, a controversial new review suggests that researchers previously...

Feb 14, 2024

Skull of Neolithic 'bog body' from Denmark was smashed by 8 heavy blows in violent murder

The bones of a Neolithic man found over a century ago in a Danish peat bog reveal that he was an immigrant who was brutally murdered. To solve the 5,000-year-old cold case, researchers studied everything from dental plaque to DNA. They concluded that this Vittrup Man, as researchers call him,...

Feb 14, 2024

Ancient rock art in Argentinian cave may have transmitted information across 100 generations

A gallery's worth of rock art decorating the inside of a cave in Argentina is several millennia older than once thought and contains hundreds of drawings that span 100 generations. At one time, archaeologists dated the art — located in Patagonia, a region in South America's southern tip — as...

Feb 15, 2024

2 waves of mass murder struck prehistoric Denmark, genetic study reveals

Hunter-gatherers in what's now Denmark were wiped out within a few generations of the arrival of the first farmers in the region around 5,900 years ago, a new study finds. But these farmers were the new top dogs for only about a millennium — about 4,850 years ago, immigrants of...

Feb 16, 2024

13,000-year-old bone bead is the oldest of its kind in the Americas

Archaeologists in Wyoming have discovered the oldest known bead in the Western Hemisphere: a nearly 13,000-year-old bone ornament crafted by the prehistoric Clovis people. The tubular, 0.3-inch-long (7 millimeters) polished bead has several grooves and was crafted from the bone of a hare, according to the researchers. The bead's slight...