Anthropology News

April 7, 2025

Top Headlines

The Lush Past of the World's Largest Desert

Apr. 7, 2025 — The vast desert of the Arabian Peninsula was not always an arid landscape. A recent study reveals that this region was once home to a vast lake and river system. These favorable conditions fostered grasslands and savannahs, enabling human migration ...

Machine Learning Helps Construct an Evolutionary Timeline of Bacteria

Apr. 3, 2025 — Scientists have helped to construct a detailed timeline for bacterial evolution, suggesting some bacteria used oxygen long before evolving the ability to produce it through ...

Animal Behavioral Diversity at Risk in the Face of Declining Biodiversity

Apr. 3, 2025 — Drastic declines in biodiversity due to human activities present risks to understanding animal behaviors such as tool use, according to new research. Shrinking animal populations make the study of these behaviors increasingly difficult, underscoring ...

Seeing Humanity's Transition from Hunting to Farming as a Cultural Shift

Apr. 2, 2025 — Using a mathematical model, researchers have shed new light on the transition from hunter-gatherer to farming societies. Rather than focusing exclusively on external factors, they looked at internal demographics and the significant impact of human ...

Latest Headlines

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First Ancient Genomes from the Green Sahara Deciphered

Apr. 2, 2025 — An international team has sequenced the first ancient genomes from the so-called Green Sahara, a period when the largest desert in the world temporarily turned into a humid savanna-like environment. ...

Discovery of Quina Technology Challenges View of Ancient Human Development in East Asia

Mar. 31, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered a complete Quina technological system in the Longtan site in southwest China. The discovery challenges the widely held ...

Biologists Discover Ancient Neurohormone That Controls Appetite

Mar. 24, 2025 — Biologists have discovered that bombesin, a neurohormone controlling appetite in humans, also regulates feeding in starfish, revealing its ancient evolutionary origin dating back over 500 million ...

How Did the Large Brain Evolve?

Mar. 26, 2025 — Two specific genes that evolve exclusively in humans jointly influence the development of the cerebrum. Researchers have provided evidence that these genes contribute together to the evolutionary ...

Researchers Propose New Hypothesis for the Origin of Stone Tools

Mar. 17, 2025 — Sharp stone technology chipped over three million years allowed early humans to exploit animal and plant food resources. But how did the production of stone tools -- called 'knapping' -- start? ...

Genetic Study Reveals Hidden Chapter in Human Evolution

Mar. 18, 2025 — Modern humans descended from not one, but at least two ancestral populations that drifted apart and later reconnected, long before modern humans spread across the ...

The 'Frontiers' of Southeast Iberian Bronze Age Communities Identified

Mar. 17, 2025 — Researchers have identified the economic and political borders separating El Argar, considered to be the first state-society in the Iberian Peninsula, from its La Mancha and Valencia Bronze Age ...

When Did Human Language Emerge?

Mar. 18, 2025 — Humans' unique language capacity was present at least 135,000 years ago, according to a survey of genomic evidence. As such, language might have entered social use 100,000 years ...

A 62-Million-Year-Old Skeleton Sheds Light on an Enigmatic Mammal

Mar. 11, 2025 — For more than 140 years, Mixodectes pungens, a species of small mammal that inhabited western North America in the early Paleocene, was a mystery. What little was known about them had been mostly ...

Evolution of Plant Network: 600 Million Years of Stress

Mar. 10, 2025 — Without plants on land, humans could not live on Earth. From mosses to ferns to grasses to trees, plants are our food, fodder and timber. All this diversity emerged from an algal ancestor that ...

World's Oldest Impact Crater Found, Rewriting Earth's Ancient History

Mar. 6, 2025 — Researchers have discovered the world's oldest known meteorite impact crater, which could significantly redefine our understanding of the origins of life and how our planet was shaped. The team ...

Prehistoric Bone Tool 'Factory' Hints at Early Development of Abstract Reasoning in Human Ancestors

Mar. 5, 2025 — The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new ...

Humans Inherited Their Flexible Joints from the Earliest Jawed Fish

Feb. 25, 2025 — The efficient architecture of our joints, which allows our skeletons to be flexible and sturdy, originated among our most ancient jawed fish ancestors, according to a new ...

New Study Reveals Neanderthals Experienced Population Crash 110,000 Years Ago

Feb. 25, 2025 — A new study suggests that Neanderthals experienced a dramatic loss of genetic variation during the course of their evolution, foreshadowing their eventual extinction. Examination of semicircular ...

Origin and Diversity of Hun Empire Populations

Feb. 24, 2025 — A multidisciplinary and international research project has brought fresh insights into the origins and diversity of the populations that lived under and after the Hun empire between the late 4th and ...

Iberian Nailed Head Ritual Was More Complex Than Expected

Feb. 21, 2025 — The nailed heads ritual did not correspond to the same symbolic expression among the Iberian communities of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, but rather a practice that differed in each ...

Near-Complete Skull Discovery Reveals 'Top Apex', Leopard-Sized 'Fearsome' Carnivore

Feb. 17, 2025 — A rare discovery of a nearly complete skull in the Egyptian desert has led scientists to the 'dream' revelation of a new 30-million-year-old species of the ancient apex predatory carnivore, ...

Does Planetary Evolution Favor Human-Like Life? Study Ups Odds We're Not Alone

Feb. 14, 2025 — Humanity may not be extraordinary but rather the natural evolutionary outcome for our planet and likely others, according to a new model for how intelligent life developed on ...

Birds Have Developed Complex Brains Independently from Mammals

Feb. 13, 2025 — New research has revealed that birds, reptiles, and mammals have developed complex brain circuits independently, despite sharing a common ancestor. These findings challenge the traditional view of ...

Evidence of Cannibalism 18,000 Years Ago

Feb. 11, 2025 — An international research team has gained new insights into the burial rituals of Late Ice Age societies in Central Europe. Signs of human remains from the Maszycka Cave in southern Poland being ...

New Study Unravels the History of the Largest Pastoral Population in Africa

Feb. 11, 2025 — Researchers have uncovered the origins and genetic diversity of the Fulani, one of Africa's largest pastoral populations. The study reveals a complex genetic ancestry with influences from both ...

The Early Roots of Carnival? Research Reveals Evidence of Seasonal Celebrations in Pre-Colonial Brazil

Feb. 5, 2025 — An international team of scientists has tentatively found some of the earliest indications of alcoholic drink production in the Patos Lagoon region of Brazil. State-of-the-art analysis of pottery ...

Missing Link in Indo-European Languages' History Found

Feb. 5, 2025 — Where lies the origin of the Indo-European language family? Researchers contribute a new piece to this puzzle. They analyzed ancient DNA from 435 individuals from archaeological sites across Eurasia ...

'Altar Tent' Discovery Puts Islamic Art at the Heart of Medieval Christianity

Jan. 31, 2025 — A 13th-century fresco rediscovered in Ferrara, Italy, provides unique evidence of medieval churches using Islamic tents to conceal their high altars. The 700-year-old fresco is thought to be the only ...

Ancient DNA Analyses Bring to Life the 11,000-Year Intertwined Genomic History of Sheep and Humans

Jan. 30, 2025 — The rise of pastoralist peoples in the Eurasian steppes and their westward spread some 5,000 years ago may have been fueled by sheep herding and people exploiting their milk. As early as 8,000 years ...

Lead Contamination in Ancient Greece Points to Societal Change

Jan. 30, 2025 — Studies of sediment cores from the sea floor and the coastal regions surrounding the Aegean Sea show that humans contaminated the environment with lead early on in antiquity. Geoscientists conducted ...

Archaeologists Find 'Lost' Site Depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry

Jan. 27, 2025 — Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that a house in England is the site of a lost residence of Harold, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, and shown in the Bayeux Tapestry. By reinterpreting ...

How Camellias Evolved With the Formation of the Japanese Archipelago?

Jan. 26, 2025 — Japan Sea element plants are generally thought to have evolved from closely related species on the Pacific side. Camellia japonica and Camellia rusticana were also believed to follow this pattern. ...

New Evidence Pushes Back Arrival of Early Hominins in Europe

Jan. 24, 2025 — Research reveals new evidence of early hominin activity in Europe, suggesting that hominins were present on the continent far earlier than previously ...

Volcanic Eruption Caused Neolithic People to Sacrifice Unique 'Sun Stones'

Jan. 16, 2025 — 4,900 years ago, a Neolithic people on the Danish island Bornholm sacrificed hundreds of stones engraved with sun and field motifs. Archaeologists and climate scientists can now show that these ...