Archaeology · Science · Nature

Bone strength in Little Foot and Homo from Dmanisi points to when human ancestors left the trees

Researchers have compared the strength of the arm and leg bones in two fossil human ancestors and suggest that it is possible to determine when our ancestors ceased to travel regularly through the trees. The first skeleton belongs to an individual australopithecine known as Little Foot. Australopithecines are a genus

Archaeology · The East · Science

First probable case of nose amputation as punishment found at Sanzhiyuan cemetery in China

Chinese historical texts repeatedly mention the cutting off of the nose as a judicial punishment, one of the so-called five punishments. Until now, archaeologists in China had found no skeletal confirmation of the practice. Now researchers describe the first probable case. The remains of a woman who lived some

Archaeology · Faith · Science

An 11th-century serpent amulet with a warrior and a snake-haired head found in Staraya Russa

A pendant of copper alloy, dated to the eleventh century, has been found in Staraya Russa. One side shows a warrior with a spear and shield, presumably a Christian saint; the other, a head with snakes, reminiscent of Medusa. Such objects are known as zmeeviki ("serpent amulets"). Four

Archaeology · Science · Nature

DNA analysis of seeds shows cultivated grapes reached Spain with the Phoenicians

A group of scholars from Spanish universities has studied the origins of Iberian viticulture through DNA from archaeological seeds and suggests that it appeared long before the arrival of the Romans. For a long time it was believed that the wine industry of Spain traces its descent to the Roman

Archaeology · Geography · Science · Rome

Tom Brughmans and his team test the saying that all roads lead to Rome

Not All Roads Lead to Rome. In 20 BC the Emperor Augustus set up the Golden Milestone in the Roman Forum, from which distances along all the roads of the empire were symbolically measured. A team of researchers led by Tom Brughmans has analysed this network, which covers some 300,

Archaeology · Science · Nature

Ancient DNA reveals plague in 18 of 46 hunter-gatherers of the Baikal region

Continuing our reading on plague among the hunter-gatherers of the Baikal region 5,500 years ago. An international team has studied ancient DNA from human remains at four burial grounds in the Lake Baikal area and, by sequencing genetic material preserved in teeth, has reconstructed bacterial genomes and identified

Archaeology · Science · Society · Ethnography

Model estimates Australia's Indigenous population at 2.22 million in 1788

A new estimate of the Indigenous population of Australia before the arrival of Europeans has been published. Modelling based on archaeological, genetic, ethnographic and ecological data has produced a median estimate of 2.22 million people by 1788, that is, by the arrival of the First Fleet. Earlier estimates ranged

Archaeology · Faith · Observations · Science

Astrophysicist Henriksson finds how Old Uppsala fixed the date of its winter sacrifice

Swedish astrophysicist Göran Henriksson of Uppsala University has established that the pagan inhabitants of Old Uppsala used an exact lunisolar calendar to fix the date of the great winter sacrifice. In the pre-Christian era Old Uppsala was the principal religious and political centre of the Svear, one of the

Archaeology · Science

Traces of cannibalism found on bones from three Neolithic caves

A team of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Palaeoecology and Social Evolution has found traces of cannibalism in three caves in southern Spain. The scholars examined some one thousand human bones and teeth from the caves of Malalmuerzo, Carigüela and Maiolicas. They looked for signs pointing to the

Archaeology · Geography · Science · Nature

DNA from Song-era melon seeds in a flooded port at Wenzhou points to a South Asian origin

This melon seed is more than 1,000 years old, and its DNA proves that melons reached China from South Asia. Melon seeds found during the 2024 excavations at the submerged medieval port of Shomen Gugan, in the present-day city of Wenzhou in south-eastern China, have preserved their

Archaeology · Heritage · Science

Decorrelation stretch from a NASA laboratory and the DStretch program in archaeology

A NASA Method for Processing Satellite Images Is Now Used to Read Faded Rock Art. The technique is called decorrelation stretch. The algorithm was developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, and its description was published in 1996 by a member of the laboratory's

Archaeology · The East · Science

Arrowheads 80,000 Years Old Found in Obi-Rakhmat Cave in Uzbekistan

Tiny stone points 80,000 years old have been found in Uzbekistan's Obi-Rakhmat cave, which by wear traces and mass can only have served as arrowheads: that is, the earliest evidence of ranged weapons in Eurasia. Such technology has hitherto been associated exclusively with Homo sapiens, so