A legal battle over a 10,600 year old ancient skeleton—called the ‘Spirit Cave Mummy’ – has ended after advanced DNA sequencing found it was related to a Native American tribe. The revelation has been published in Science today as part of a wide ranging international study that genetically analysed the DNA of a series of …
Using evidence found in teeth from two Neanderthals from southeastern France, researchers from the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai report the earliest evidence of lead exposure in an extinct human-like species from 250,000 years ago. This study is the first to report lead exposure …
An international team of scientists has completed the first 3-D virtual reconstruction of the ribcage of the most complete Neandertal skeleton unearthed to date, potentially shedding new light on how this ancient human moved and breathed. The team, which included researchers from universities in Spain, Israel, and the United States, including the University of Washington, …
Washington State University researchers have determined that Nez Perce Indians grew and smoked tobacco at least 1,200 years ago, long before the arrival of traders and settlers from the eastern United States. Their finding upends a long-held view that indigenous people in this area of the interior Pacific Northwest smoked only kinnikinnick or bearberry before …
Texas A&M University researchers have discovered what are believed to be the oldest weapons ever found in North America: ancient spear points that are 15,500 years old. The findings raise new questions about the settlement of early peoples on the continent. Michael Waters, distinguished professor of anthropology and director of the Center for the Study …
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have found the oldest clue yet of animal life, dating back at least 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion of animal fossils. The study, led by Gordon Love, a professor in UCR’s Department of Earth Sciences, was published today in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The first …
This is a nearly complete skeleton of Sarahsaurus aurifontanalis; the only major missing piece is the skull. Paleontologist Adam Marsh used this skeleton and one other to describe the anatomy of Sarahsaurus. Credit: The Jackson School Museum of Earth History Vertebrate Paleontology Collections / The University of Texas at Austin. By the time non-avian dinosaurs …
For centuries dogs and humans have developed close relationships, that in many cases, have solidified each other as family. The close bond between humans and domesticated dogs can be traced back to some of New Mexico’s earliest settlers. But what interests anthropologists at The University of New Mexico is whether or not these dog were …
Historians from the University of Bristol have uncovered compelling new evidence concerning the first English-led expedition to North America in 1499 hidden deep within huge parchment rolls and only legible by using ultra-violet light. Nine years ago, Dr. Evan Jones from the University’s Department of History, published a long-lost letter from King Henry VII which …
Humans did not accelerate the decline of the ‘Green Sahara’ and may have managed to hold back the onset of the Sahara desert by around 500 years, according to new research led by UCL. The study by a team of geographers and archaeologists from UCL and King’s College London, published in Nature Communications, suggests that …
