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Category: Anthropology

Is anyone on Earth not an immigrant?

Is anyone on Earth not an immigrant?

Kelly Slivka writes: Human beings tend to be fascinated with their beginnings. Origin stories are found across cultures, religions, ethnicities and nationalities — and they are all deeply important. These stories tell people where they come from, how they fit in and how everyone fits together. One of these stories, of course, is the story of human genes, and it’s a story anyone with human DNA shares. As scientists find more ancient human DNA, sample more modern DNA and develop…

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Cahokian culture spread across eastern North America 1,000 years ago in an early example of diaspora

Cahokian culture spread across eastern North America 1,000 years ago in an early example of diaspora

Cahokia’s mound-building culture flourished a millennium ago near modern-day St. Louis. JByard/iStock via Getty Images Plus By Jayur Mehta, Florida State University An expansive city flourished almost a thousand years ago in the bottomlands of the Mississippi River across the water from where St. Louis, Missouri stands today. It was one of the greatest pre-Columbian cities constructed north of the Aztec city of Tenochititlan, at present-day Mexico City. The people who lived in this now largely forgotten city were part…

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Homo erectus, not humans, may have invented bone tools at least 800,000 years ago

Homo erectus, not humans, may have invented bone tools at least 800,000 years ago

Science News reports: A type of bone tool generally thought to have been invented by Stone Age humans got its start among hominids that lived hundreds of thousands of years before Homo sapiens evolved, a new study concludes. A set of 52 previously excavated but little-studied animal bones from East Africa’s Olduvai Gorge includes the world’s oldest known barbed bone point, an implement probably crafted by now-extinct Homo erectus at least 800,000 years ago, researchers say. Made from a piece…

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Turbulent environment set the stage for leaps in human evolution and technology 320,000 years ago

Turbulent environment set the stage for leaps in human evolution and technology 320,000 years ago

Drilling 139 meters down to volcanic rock provided scientists with a million-year environmental record. Human Origins Program, Smithsonian By Richard Potts, Smithsonian Institution People thrive all across the globe, at every temperature, altitude and landscape. How did human beings become so successful at adapting to whatever environment we wind up in? Human origins researchers like me are interested in how this quintessential human trait, adaptability, evolved. At a site in Kenya, my colleagues and I have been working on this…

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To uncover the habits of ancient humans, scientists are studying modern sports stars

To uncover the habits of ancient humans, scientists are studying modern sports stars

Bridget Alex writes: Archaeologist Annemieke Milks planned to test the ballistic properties of some of the world’s oldest spears. Crafted by Neanderthals 300,000 years ago, the wooden artifacts measure about 7 feet long and resemble oversized broomsticks with sharpened tips. When discovered in the 1990s at a site in Schöningen, Germany, they rested alongside the butchered remains of 35 horses. Apparently, Neanderthals, armed with the spears, had some very successful hunts. But just how fast and far could these ancient…

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If language started with hand gestures, why did it later become vocal?

If language started with hand gestures, why did it later become vocal?

Kensy Cooperrider writes: Some say language evolved by firelight, with our ancestors sharing stories deep into the night. Others suggest it began as baby talk, or as imitations of animal calls, or as gasps of surprise. Charles Darwin proposed that language started with snippets of song; Noam Chomsky thought it was just an accident, the result of a freak genetic mutation. Proposals about the origins of language abound. And it’s no wonder: language is a marvel, our most distinctive capacity….

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How the first Americans made their way from Siberia to Patagonia

How the first Americans made their way from Siberia to Patagonia

Gillen D’Arcy Wood writes: In the summer of 1977, on a field trip in northern Patagonia, the American archaeologist Tom Dillehay made a stunning discovery. Digging by a creek in a nondescript scrubland called Monte Verde, in southern Chile, he came upon the remains of an ancient camp. A full excavation uncovered the trace wooden foundations of no fewer than 12 huts, plus one larger structure designed for tool manufacture and perhaps as an infirmary. In the large hut, Dillehay…

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Art, adornment and sophisticated hunting technologies flourished not only in prehistoric Europe but across the globe

Art, adornment and sophisticated hunting technologies flourished not only in prehistoric Europe but across the globe

Gaia Vince writes: In 1868, workmen near the hamlet of Les Eyzies-de-Tayac-Sireuil in southwestern France opened up a rock shelter and found animal bones, flints and, most intriguingly, human skulls. Work on the road was paused while a geologist, Louis Lartet, was called to excavate the site. What he discovered would transform our understanding of the origins of humanity. Lartet unearthed the partial skeletons of four adults and an infant at the Cro-Magnon rock shelter, as well as perforated shells…

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48,000-year-old arrowheads reveal early human innovation in the Sri Lankan rainforest

48,000-year-old arrowheads reveal early human innovation in the Sri Lankan rainforest

M. C. Langley/Shutterstock/The Conversation By Michelle Langley, Griffith University; Oshan Wedage, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, and Patrick Roberts, Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History Archaeological excavations deep within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence for hunting with bows and arrows outside Africa. At Fa-Hien Lena, a cave in the heart of Sri Lanka’s wet zone forests, we discovered numerous tools made of stone, bone, and tooth – including…

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Why are there so many humans?

Why are there so many humans?

By Karen L. Kramer, Sapiens, June 9, 2020 Something curious happened in human population history over the last 1 million years. First, our numbers fell to as low as 18,500, and our ancestors were more endangered than chimpanzees and gorillas. Then we bounced back to extraordinary levels, far surpassing the other great apes. Today the total population of gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos, and orangutans is estimated to be only around 500,000, according to the World Wildlife Fund. Many species are critically…

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Fossil find suggests Homo erectus emerged 200,000 years earlier than thought

Fossil find suggests Homo erectus emerged 200,000 years earlier than thought

The ~2 Ma Homo erectus cranium, DNH 134, from the Drimolen Fossil Hominin site. Matthew V. Caruana Stephanie Baker, University of Johannesburg; Angeline Leece; Jesse Martin, La Trobe University; Matthew Caruana, University of Johannesburg; Prof. Andy I.R. Herries, La Trobe University, and Renaud Joannes-Boyau, Southern Cross University The human evolutionary path is complicated. It’s almost impossible to say exactly when we modern humans became “us”. This quandary is best articulated by the famous naturalist Charles Darwin in his book The…

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Why are we losing the wayfinding skills of our ancestors?

Why are we losing the wayfinding skills of our ancestors?

Michael Bond writes: On Dartmoor, in southwest England, search and rescue volunteers are regularly called out to look for people who have lost their way in the boundless wilderness. A significant proportion are Alzheimer’s patients who have wandered away from one of the many care homes on the fringes of the moor. The volunteers have noticed that Alzheimer’s patients move in a particular way across the open spaces: usually in a straight line. So resolutely do they stick to their…

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65,000-year-old plant remains show the earliest Australians spent plenty of time cooking

65,000-year-old plant remains show the earliest Australians spent plenty of time cooking

Researchers May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr and S. Anna Florin collecting plants in Kakadu National Park. Reproduced with permission of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. Elspeth Hayes, Author provided By S. Anna Florin, The University of Queensland; Andrew Fairbairn, The University of Queensland, and Chris Clarkson, The University of Queensland Australia’s first people ate a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, nuts and other plant foods, many of which would have taken considerable time and knowledge to prepare, according to our analysis of charred…

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Scientists find evidence of ‘ghost population’ of ancient humans

Scientists find evidence of ‘ghost population’ of ancient humans

The Guardian reports: Scientists have found evidence for a mysterious “ghost population” of ancient humans that lived in Africa about half a million years ago and whose genes live on in people today. Traces of the unknown ancestor emerged when researchers analysed genomes from west African populations and found that up to a fifth of their DNA appeared to have come from the missing relatives. Geneticists suspect that the ancestors of modern west Africans interbred with the yet-to-be-discovered archaic humans…

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Were Neanderthals more than cousins to Homo sapiens?

Were Neanderthals more than cousins to Homo sapiens?

By Josie Glausiusz Around 200,000 years ago, in what is now northern Israel, a small band of tech-savvy humans dragged home and dismembered a bounty of wildlife. Using exquisitely pointed flint spearheads and blades, they hunted and butchered myriad prey, including gazelles, deer, and now-extinct aurochs, the ancestors of modern cattle. In the cool, humid climate of the coastal plain, these early Homo sapiens foraged for acorns in nearby forests of oak, olive, and pistachio. They ate the saline leaves…

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Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals

Stone tools reveal epic trek of nomadic Neanderthals

Neanderthal hunting grounds in southern Siberia — the Charysh River valley, with Chagyrskaya Cave in the centre of the photo. Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Author provided By Kseniya Kolobova, Russian Academy of Sciences; Maciej T. Krajcarz, Polish Academy of Sciences, and Richard ‘Bert’ Roberts, University of Wollongong Neanderthal (Homo neanderthalensis) fossils were first discovered in western Europe in the mid nineteenth century. That was just the first in a…

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