This sweeping history of hunting is the archaeologist and anthropologist Brian Fagan’s final book, helped into publication by his friend and collaborator Nadia Durrani. Fagan was an extraordinarily prolific writer, and his ability to communicate with popular audiences is much…
The extraordinary diversity of modern dog types is often attributed to Victorian breeding practices, which led to a major increase in the number of dog breeds. A recent study looking into canine skull forms, however, has found that there was…
Stone tools recently discovered on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi are rewriting the story of the early human occupation of island Southeast Asia. Perhaps the most famous hominin from this region is Homo floresiensis (the ‘Hobbit’), a small-statured species found…
The way these features changed in size and shape across ancient human species can provide important information about how their skulls changed over time
Analysis of more than 3,000 remains of the now-extinct elephant species has revealed the first 'clear-cut' evidence of elephant hunting in human evolution.
Researchers conducted genetic analysis of bone and tooth remains from 13 Neanderthals from two sites in the foothills of the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia.
Review by Eugenia Ellanskaya Why do we spend what makes up almost 20 per cent of our life being children? What is the purpose of our incredibly drawn-out pregnancies and post-birth investment into our offspring? These are just some of…
The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Svante Pääbo for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution.
History, as we know, has been driven by the complicated love affair between humans and booze. Writing in the fourth-century BC, the Greek philosopher Plato summed it up for many, when he observed: ‘He was a wise man who invented…
The latest on acquisitions, exhibitions, and key decisions.
Showcasing 12 articles in four parts, Explorations in Archaeology and Philosophy emerged from a 2017 interdisciplinary conference, and the editors aimed to represent the diversity of topics that arise when archaeology and philosophy meet. This target is emphatically achieved. Part…
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute collected data from more than 1500 ostrich eggshell beads recovered from 31 sites
Discovered at Denisova Cave in Siberia, the bones have been dated to 200,000 years ago
Current Archaeology rounds up some of the latest discoveries across the globe, including the world's oldest shark attack victim found in Japan, a scene of honey-gathering from a cave in Spain, and the analysis of a previously unknown ancient hominin species.
The fossil human cranium, thought to belong to a male about 50 years old, was found in 1933
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.
Researchers propose that knowledge of fire was transmitted across vast regions within a short period of time due to cultural diffusion.
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.
In this month’s ‘Science Notes’, we are looking at a recent study from a team of researchers led by Aleksandar Kostic from Harvard Medical School, which analysed examples of palaeofaeces, or coprolites, from the Americas.
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…
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.
A few days ago I saw a notice that said ‘BeGambleAware’. It warned of the dangers of addiction, but it could have referred to the author of this book. Readers of Current Archaeology will already be aware that Clive Gamble,…
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.
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…
Victims of Vesuvius Excavations at a large villa in Civita Guiliana, 700m north-west of Pompeii’s city walls, have uncovered two more victims of the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed many settlements in this region of Italy in AD 79. The…
The discovery of a two-million-year-old skull in South Africa is shedding important new light on microevolution in an early hominin species, as Jesse Martin and Angeline Leece reveal.
Footprints in the desert The earliest-known human footprints from the Arabian Peninsula have been discovered in an ancient lake deposit in the south-west of the Nefud Desert. They were discovered as part of the Palaeodeserts Project, which is studying the…
The footprints were discovered as part of the Palaeodeserts Project, which is examining climate change and human evolution in Saudi Arabia.
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…