Cultures News

January 21, 2025

Top Headlines

Jan. 16, 2025 — Researchers carried out an archeogenetic study of human remains from more than 700 individuals from the Early Middle Ages. Two large burial sites, Modling and Leobersdorf, have been genetically analyzed in their entirety. The surprising result was ...

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 ritual sacrifices coincided with a large volcanic ...

Early Humans Adapted to Harsh Conditions More Than a Million Years Ago

Jan. 16, 2025 — A long-standing question about when archaic members of the genus Homo adapted to harsh environments such as deserts and rainforests has been answered in a new research ...

DNA Adds New Chapter to Indonesia's Layered Human History

Jan. 7, 2025 — A new study has outlined the first genomic evidence of early migration from New Guinea into the Wallacea, an archipelago containing Timor-Leste and hundreds of inhabited eastern Indonesian ...

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Dinosaurs Roamed the Northern Hemisphere Millions of Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, According to New Analysis of the Oldest North American Fossils

Jan. 7, 2025 — A newly described dinosaur whose fossils were recently uncovered is challenging the existing narrative, with evidence that the reptiles were present ...

Water and Gruel -- Not Bread: Discovering the Diet of Early Neolithic Farmers in Scandinavia

Dec. 20, 2024 — At a Neolithic settlement on the Danish island Funen dating back 5,500 years, archaeologists have discovered both grinding stones and grains from ...

Unique Insights Into Lives of People Who Lived Over 5,600 Years Ago Near Kosenivka, Ukraine

Dec. 11, 2024 — A new study sheds light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Researchers present the first detailed ...

A New Timeline for Neanderthal Interbreeding With Modern Humans

Dec. 12, 2024 — Neanderthal genes make up 1-2% of the genomes of non-Africans. Scientists analyzed the lengths of regions of Neanderthal DNA in 58 ancient Eurasian genomes of early modern humans and determined that ...

Oldest Modern Human Genomes Sequenced

Dec. 12, 2024 — Few genomes have been sequenced from early modern humans, who first arrived in Europe when the region was already inhabited by Neanderthals. An international team has now sequenced the oldest modern ...

Genetic Study of Native Hazelnut Challenges Misconceptions About How Ancient Indigenous Peoples Used the Land

Dec. 6, 2024 — By decoding the DNA of the beaked hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), a native plant that thrives in British Columbia, a team of multidisciplinary scientists ...

Chimpanzees Perform the Same Complex Behaviors That Have Brought Humans Success

Dec. 5, 2024 — A new study suggests that the fundamental abilities underlying human language and technological culture may have evolved before humans and apes ...

Mammoth as Key Food Source for Ancient Americans

Dec. 4, 2024 — Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of ...

How Did Humans and Dogs Become Friends? Connections in the Americas Began 12,000 Years Ago

Dec. 4, 2024 — A new study sheds light on how long humans in the Americas have had relationships with the ancestors of today's dogs -- and asks an 'existential ...

Earliest Evidence of Humans Using Fire to Shape the Landscape of Tasmania

Nov. 16, 2024 — Some of the first human beings to arrive in Tasmania, over 41,000 years ago, used fire to shape and manage the landscape, about 2,000 years earlier than previously ...

Genetic Legacy of Jomon Hunter-Gatherers Linked to Increased BMI in Modern Japanese, Study Finds

Nov. 14, 2024 — New research exploring the roots of modern Japanese populations has linked the genetic signature of Jomon hunter-gatherers to a higher body mass index (BMI) among individuals, underlining that ...

New Insights Into the Denisovans: New Hominin Group That Interbred With Modern Day Humans

Nov. 8, 2024 — Scientists believe individuals of the most recently discovered 'hominin' group (the Denisovans) that interbred with modern day humans passed on some of their genes via multiple, distinct ...

DNA Evidence Rewrites Story of People Buried in Pompeii Eruption

Nov. 7, 2024 — Researchers have used ancient DNA to challenge long-held interpretations of the people of Pompeii. Contrary to physical appearances, the DNA evidence revealed unexpected variations in gender and ...

Indigenous Cultural Burning Has Protected Australia's Landscape for Millennia, Study Finds

Nov. 1, 2024 — Ancient cultural burning practices carried out by Indigenous Australians limited fuel availability and prevented high intensity fires in southeastern Australia for thousands of years, according to ...

Into the Great Wide Open: How Steppe Pastoralist Groups Formed and Transformed Over Time

Oct. 30, 2024 — With the 'time-traveling ability' of archaeogenetic studies it has become possible to shed light onto the dynamic past of human populations world-wide. Integrated with archaeological and ...

The 'Urban Revolution' Was Slow in Bronze Age Arabia

Oct. 30, 2024 — Settlements in northern Arabia were in a transitional stage of urbanization during the third to second millennium BCE, according to a new ...

Rare Fossils of Extinct Elephant Document the Earliest Known Instance of Butchery in India

Oct. 21, 2024 — Scientists have discovered the earliest evidence of animal butchery by humans in ...

Underwater Caves Yield New Clues About Sicily's First Residents

Oct. 9, 2024 — Archaeological surveys suggest that coastal and underwater cave sites in southern Sicily contain important new clues about the path and fate of early human migrants to the ...

World's Oldest Cheese Reveals Origins of Kefir

Sep. 25, 2024 — Scientists successfully extracted and analyzed DNA from ancient cheese samples found alongside the Tarim Basin mummies in China, dating back approximately 3,600 years. The research suggests a new ...

Multilingual Gossip in Elizabethan London

Sep. 24, 2024 — Stranger churches in early modern London had 'eyes everywhere' to hear, spread and dispel gossip in multiple languages, according to new ...

Insights Into South African Population History from 10,000-Year-Old Human DNA

Sep. 19, 2024 — Ancient DNA has provided spectacular insights into human history, particularly in Europe and Asia, where researchers have reconstructed the genomes of thousands of people. However, fewer than two ...

South African Rock Art Possibly Inspired by Long-Extinct Species

Sep. 18, 2024 — A mysterious tusked animal depicted in South African rock art might portray an ancient species preserved as fossils in the same region, according to a new ...

Research Reveals Reality of Ice Age Teen Puberty

Sep. 12, 2024 — Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day ...

The Neanderthals May Have Become Extinct Because of Their Isolated Lifestyle

Sep. 12, 2024 — Neanderthal remains recently discovered in a cave in France support well-known theory of why the Neanderthals became extinct, researchers behind a new study ...

Clovis People Used Great Lakes Camp Annually 13,000 Years Ago

Sep. 11, 2024 — The earliest humans to settle the Great Lakes region likely returned to a campsite in southwest Michigan for several years in a row, according to a new ...

Ancient DNA from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) Refutes Best-Selling Population Collapse Theory

Sep. 11, 2024 — Rapa Nui (Easter Island) with its gigantic statues and treeless landscape has fascinated researchers for centuries. A new genetic study disproves the popular theory that the Rapanui population ...

New Population Model Identifies Phases of Human Dispersal Across Europe

Sep. 4, 2024 — Researchers have developed a model that captures the dynamics of human dispersal across the continent during the last Ice Age in unprecedented ...

Explaining the Mechanism of Social Evolution Driven by Gift Giving

Sep. 3, 2024 — New findings provide quantitative criteria for classifying social organizations in human history, together with potential explanatory variables that can be empirically measured for anthropology, ...

To Kill Mammoths in the Ice Age, People Used Planted Pikes, Not Throwing Spears, Researchers Say

Aug. 21, 2024 — Archeologists say new findings might help resolve the debate about Clovis points and reshape how we think about what life was like roughly 13,000 years ago. After an extensive review of writings and ...

Ancient DNA Reveals Indigenous Dog Lineages Found at Jamestown, Virginia

Aug. 16, 2024 — Previous scientific studies have indicated that North American dog lineages were replaced with European ones between 1492 and the present day. To better understand the timing of this replacement, ...