Early evidence of clothing manufacture discovered in a Moroccan cave
Excavations in Contrebandiers Cave from 2007 to 2010 found 62 bone tools used for leather and fur manufacture in Middle Stone Age layers.
Palaeolithic
Ice Age mammoth bones and Neanderthal tools found in Swindon
The find has been dubbed the ‘biggest mammoth discovery for a generation’
Ostrich eggshell beads reveal ancient social network across Africa
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute collected data from more than 1500 ostrich eggshell beads recovered from 31 sites
Molecular analysis identifies earliest known Denisovan fossils
Discovered at Denisova Cave in Siberia, the bones have been dated to 200,000 years ago
Face to face with the Netherlands’ first Neanderthal
The young Neanderthal man, known as ‘Krijin’, lived between 50,000 and 70,000 years ago in Doggerland, the prehistoric landscape that lies subsumed in the North Sea.
Engraved deer bone
What is it? This 51,000-year-old engraved toe bone is one of the oldest works of art ever found. The bone, which is the second phalanx of a giant deer, is 56.8mm long, 38.9mm wide, and 30.9mm thick, and weighs 36.1g.…
Footprints offer early evidence of human occupation in North America
These tracks could offer concrete evidence that humans reached North America before glacial advances closed the ice-free corridor and Pacific Coastal Route
Doggerland and Malta
Gillis Kersting explores the lost worlds of Doggerland and prehistoric Malta through two new exhibitions at the Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.
World News: Saudia Arabia, South Africa, and Russia
The latest stories in archaeology from around the world, including the discovery of the oldest monumental landscape, new evidence of early human behaviour in South Africa, and the analysis of the Shigir Idol.
Mammoths and Neanderthals in the Thames Valley: excavations at Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire
This book presents the results of excavations at the Dix Pit quarry near the village of Stanton Harcourt, Oxfordshire, which revealed one of the largest and most-remarkable Pleistocene assemblages yet to be found in Britain, with finds spanning over c.200,0000…
New theory emerges on how early humans learned to control fire
Researchers propose that knowledge of fire was transmitted across vast regions within a short period of time due to cultural diffusion.
A Short History of Humanity: How Migration Made Us Who We Are
Over the last decade, revolutions in the scientific analysis of archaeological material have allowed us to delve deeper into the origins and migrations of modern humans. Through the lens of Johannes Krause, director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary…
Made of stone: seeking the dawn of technology
In this dizzying digital era, it can be startling to remember that our love affair with technology began millions of years ago with someone banging two stones together. But it is increasingly apparent that desiring tools with which to shape our world is not just a human trait. As Tomos Proffitt and Alastair Key told Current World Archaeology's Matthew Symonds, we were not – and are not – alone.
Growing up in the Ice Age
Growing Up in the Ice Age represents both the first book-length work on the lives of children throughout the Plio-Pleistocene, and a superlative example of how the study of children can be fully integrated into more traditional areas of Palaeolithic…
Cloggs Cave: a temporary hunting camp or secluded retreat and source of magical supplies?
How do we interpret archaeological sites? Excavations conducted 50 years ago at Cloggs Cave, in south-eastern Australia, revealed what seemed to be a temporary hunting camp. Fresh research, though, points to this cavity having been used as a secluded place of magic and danger, accessed only by a few powerful individuals. Russell Mullett and Bruno David told Current World Archaeology's Matthew Symonds what has changed.
Early human activity at Wonderwerk Cave
The site, which was first excavated in the 1940s, has a unique stratigraphic record containing evidence of human activity from the Early Stone Age to the present day.
25,000-year-old human genome recovered from cave soil
Further analysis revealed the genome derived from a female individual, or multiple females.
Previously unknown ancient hominin discovered in Israel
A team of researchers has identified 140,000-year-old fossilised remains found in Israel as belonging to a previously unknown type of ancient hominin, which may have been an early precursor of Neanderthals that co-existed alongside other prehistoric groups, including Homo sapiens.…
New theory emerges about how humans learned to count
The Les Pradelles hyena bone is ‘potentially the earliest known example of this type of mark-making’, and suggests Neanderthals possessed the cognitive abilities for numeracy.
Palaeolithic children’s footprints discovered in Spanish cave
The footprints were left by a group children, aged between six to seven years old, playing in the cave recess sometime during the Middle-Upper Palaeolithic c. 60,000-15,000 years ago.
Australia’s ancient rock art
Researchers in Australia have used wasp nests on a cave wall to identify the earliest known example of in situ rock art in the country: a painting of a kangaroo created over 17,000 years ago.
Dating techniques identify possible earliest evidence for cave occupation
Wonderwerk Cave was first excavated in the 1940s. Its archaeological stratigraphy comprises evidence of human activity spanning from the Early Stone Age in South Africa to the present day.
New dating for Australia’s ancient paintings
While the kangaroo is the oldest known painting in Australia so far, there may even be older paintings yet to be discovered.
World news: Indonesia, Germany, Mexico
Earliest known rock art ever found in Indonesia; skulls relating to sacrificial ceremony found in Tenochtitlan; German enigma machine discovered in Bay of Gelting.
Reassessing the timeline for Neanderthals in Europe
The team from the ORAU and a group of researchers from across Europe have applied a compound-dating technique to Neanderthals, this time from Belgium, and once again the results have caused a re-evaluation of the timeline of Neanderthals in Eurasia.
The Archaeology of Seeing
We, as modern humans, tend to look at ancient art with a 21st-century mindset. It is all too easy to stare (in wonder) at Palaeolithic rock art and conceive some idea, however complex, and consider it to be a plausible interpretation.
Food fads and fashions
At a time of food scarcity, obesity became a desirable condition… the Venus figurines represented an ideal body type.
Indonesia’s oldest cave art discovered
Archaeologists now believe that they have found a painting on the island of Sulawesi that pre-dates all other examples in the region, and may even be the earliest piece of representational art currently known.
The Horse Butchery Site: a high-resolution record of Lower Palaeolithic hominin behaviour at Boxgrove, UK
As a first-year undergraduate at UCL’s Institute of Archaeology in London, I spent seven weeks during the summer of 1991 at Boxgrove, enjoying stints working at several sites there, including GTP17, Q2/D, and Q1/A (as well as a week as…
Reassessing Neanderthal teeth in Jersey
Recent analysis of 12 teeth, first excavated at the Palaeolithic site of La Cotte de St Brelade in Jersey between 1910 and 1911, may provide new evidence of cross-breeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in this region. The teeth were…
Current Archaeology 372
• Exploring the British Isles’ earliest art
• Tracing evidence for our closest hominin relatives in Britain
• Sunken ships: Britain’s colonial past
• Discoveries by lockdown gardeners
• Keith Marischal: searching for a lost castle and Renaissance palace
Painting prehistoric pigs
A Sulawesi warty pig painted in red ochre on an Indonesian cave wall may be the world’s oldest known representational image of an animal, dating back at least 45,500 years, according to a study recently published in Science Advances. Archaeologists…
Assessing the accessibility of Atxurra
Cave painting is one of the earliest forms of human culture, one of the first outlets of our creativity. But the meaning that these paintings had to the communities who created them remains a bit of a mystery. Who painted…
Artists on the edge of the world: exploring the British Isles’ earliest art at Les Varines, Jersey
Archaeologists excavating a 15,000-year-old campsite at Les Varines, Jersey, have recovered ten fragments of stone decorated with hundreds of interweaving lines. Recently published analysis of these ‘plaquettes’ suggests that they may represent the earliest artworks yet identified in the British Isles. Carly Hilts reports.
Neanderthal neighbours: tracing evidence for our closest hominin relatives in Britain
Neanderthals have long been stereotyped as our less-capable cousins, but advances in archaeological research have given fascinating new insights into the lives of our closest hominin relatives and the world they inhabited, as Dr Rebecca Wragg Sykes explains.
Current Archaeology 371
• Rise of the mega-henges
• Glassmaking in England
• WWI Home Front aerodrome
• Boxford’s mythological mosaic
• Exploring Victorian wash houses in Britain