Cultures News

November 20, 2024

Top Headlines

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 kinship, revising the story as written since 1748. The ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:26pm EST

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

Impact of 700 Years of Inuvialuit Subsistence Hunting on Beluga Whales

Aug. 14, 2024 — An international team of researchers analyzed beluga whale bones retrieved from archaeological sites in the Mackenzie Delta, Northwest Territories, Canada, to shed light on the sustainability of ...

Great Scott! Stonehenge's Altar Stone Origins Reveal Advanced Ancient Britain

Aug. 14, 2024 — New research has revealed Stonehenge's monumental six-ton Altar Stone, long believed to originate from Wales, actually hails from ...

Rare Archaeological Site Reveals 'Surprising' Neanderthal Behaviour at Pyrenees Foothills

Aug. 14, 2024 — An unchartered area in the foothills of the Southern Pyrenees in Spain is providing insights into a poorly known period of Neanderthal history, offering clues that could help archaeologists uncover ...

House Call: A New Study Rethinks Early Christian Landmark

Aug. 13, 2024 — Since its discovery by modern researchers a century ago, an ancient structure known as the 'Christian building' has become widely considered the cornerstone of early Christian architecture. ...

Carvings at Ancient Monument May Be World's Oldest Calendars

Aug. 6, 2024 — Markings on a stone pillar at a 12,000 year-old archaeological site in Turkey likely represent the world's oldest solar calendar, created as a memorial to a devastating comet strike, experts ...

Demographics of North African Human Populations Unravelled Using Genomic Data and Artificial Intelligence

Aug. 2, 2024 — A new study places the origin of the Imazighen in the Epipaleolithic, more than twenty thousand years ago. The research concludes that the genetic origin of the current Arab population of north ...

Hunter-Gatherers Kept an 'Orderly Home' in the Earliest Known British Dwelling

July 23, 2024 — Archaeological evidence from the world-famous Mesolithic site of Star Carr in North Yorkshire has shown that hunter-gatherers likely kept an orderly home by creating 'zones' for particular ...

Evidence for Butchery of Giant Armadillo-Like Mammals in Argentina 21,000 Years Ago

July 17, 2024 — Cut marks on fossils could be evidence of humans exploiting large mammals in Argentina more than 20,000 years ago, according to a new ...

'A History of Contact': Geneticists Are Rewriting the Narrative of Neanderthals and Other Ancient Humans

July 11, 2024 — Using genomes from 2,000 living humans as well as three Neanderthals and one Denisovan, an international team mapped the gene flow between the hominin groups over the past quarter-million ...

The Plague May Have Caused the Downfall of the Stone Age Farmers

July 10, 2024 — Ancient DNA from bones and teeth hints at a role of the plague in Stone Age population collapse. Contrary to previous beliefs, the plague may have diminished Europe's populations long before the ...

Ancient Dingo DNA Shows Modern Dingoes Share Little Ancestry With Modern Dog Breeds

July 8, 2024 — A study of ancient dingo DNA revealed that the distribution of modern dingoes across Australia, including those on K'gari (formerly Fraser Island), pre-dates European colonization and ...

New Research Finds Biases Encoded in Language Across Cultures and History

June 30, 2024 — Researchers share evidence that people's attitudes are deeply woven into language and culture across the globe and ...

The Beginnings of Fashion

June 28, 2024 — A team of researchers suggest that eyed needles were a new technological innovation used to adorn clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to ...