The mechanisms by which bone degrades in the burial environment are poorly understood, with large amounts of variation seen even within the same cemetery containing the same environmental and soil conditions. While it has been hypothesised since the 19th century…
A recent Netflix documentary, Secrets of the Neanderthals, has attracted a massive worldwide audience, and taken a major step forward in dealing with the widespread myth that Neanderthals were brutish and backward. As we now know from comparing their DNA and ours, we can count them among our remote ancestors.
Poem to remember This poem was written at a time when I was a Chemistry Lecturer at Llandaff College of Technology and also an amateur archaeologist. At the time, I marvelled that chemists were detecting cholesterol in graves where only…
What name is given to the chalk ridge that once provided a land connection between England and France?
The ‘hippy generation’ prefers to tell archaeological narratives that paint our ancestors as egalitarian, caring for weaker members of society and welcoming migrants for the new skills and ideas.
This is the first molecular evidence of beer production in Iron Age Europe.
Examining ancient DNA is revolutionising our knowledge of the past. Being able to detect family relationships is revealing ever more about connections between people buried in cemeteries and even individual coffins. Caroline Arcini introduces three cases where DNA evidence has opened new windows into past lives.
Discovered at Denisova Cave in Siberia, the bones have been dated to 200,000 years ago
Each of the bodies showed signs of serious injury and were buried with swords, maces, and arrows.
It is believed that this group may represent a Viking population who had settled in Oxford for some years.
Further analysis revealed the genome derived from a female individual, or multiple females.
After decades of slowly piecing together the puzzle of our human origins, the last ten years have seen a gigantic leap forward in our knowledge, spurred by advances in aDNA (see CA 338), radiocarbon dating, and other areas of archaeological…
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.
Scientific analysis of a human skeleton discovered at Tarrant Hinton in Dorset has shed new light on life – and the transmission of infectious disease – in Iron Age Britain. The remains were originally found during excavations at a small…
Over the last decade, developments in genetic sequencing, as well as in the successful extraction of DNA from increasingly older and even contaminated remains, have allowed our knowledge of ancient hominins to expand exponentially. But even with these advances, our…
A large study, led by researchers from the University of Copenhagen, has mapped the DNA of the Viking world. The results (recently published in Nature: https:// doi.org) paint a complex picture of population movement across Europe during this period. Over…
Charles Higham looks at how a routine DNA analysis resulted in a stunning discovery about the prehistory of our human past
The Neolithic was a period of momentous change in which can be seen the birth of our modern world. It marks the moment when humans took control of the planet (not necessarily for the good), rather than simply existing upon it. Chris Catling reports on a recent debate hosted by the Royal Archaeological Institute focusing on why Britain and Ireland finally became Neolithic almost 1,000 years after farming had become the predominant lifestyle on the Continent.