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Categories: Archaeology: General, Engineering: Biometric

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Written sources from Mesopotamia suggest that kissing in relation to sex was practiced by the peoples of the ancient Middle East 4,500 years ago.

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Lining the Cape of South Africa and its southern coast are long chains of caves that nearly 200,000 years ago were surrounded by a lush landscape and plentiful food.

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A study has given an intriguing glimpse of the hunting habits and diets of Neanderthals and other humans living in western Europe.

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Scientists have used mitochondrial DNA to trace a female lineage from northern coastal China to the Americas. By integrating contemporary and ancient mitochondrial DNA, the team found evidence of at least two migrations: one during the last ice age, and one during the subsequent melting period. Around the same time as the second migration, another branch of the same lineage migrated to Japan, which could explain Paleolithic archeological similarities between the Americas, China, and Japan.

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Scientists have used sub-surface imaging and aerial surveys to see through floodplains in the Red Lily Lagoon area of West Arnhem Land in Australia. These ground-breaking methods showed how this important landscape in the Northern Territory was altered as sea levels rose about 8,000 years ago.

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An international research team has for the first time successfully isolated ancient human DNA from a Paleolithic artefact: a pierced deer tooth discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. To preserve the integrity of the artefact, they developed a new, nondestructive method for isolating DNA from ancient bones and teeth. From the DNA retrieved they were able to reconstruct a precise genetic profile of the woman who used or wore the pendant, as well as of the deer from which the tooth was taken. Genetic dates obtained for the DNA from both the woman and the deer show that the pendant was made between 19,000 and 25,000 years ago. The tooth remains fully intact after analysis, providing testimony to a new era in ancient DNA research, in which it may become possible to directly identify the users of ornaments and tools produced in the deep past.

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New research has found evidence -- locked into an ancient stalagmite from a cave in the Himalayas -- of a series of severe and lengthy droughts which may have upturned the Bronze Age Indus Civilization.

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Genetic analysis links 3,000-year-old bone found in cave to modern Alaska Natives.

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Researchers have discovered how long ago the Australian Nullarbor plain dried out, with a new approach shedding light on how ancient climate change altered some of the driest regions of our planet.

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The Xiongnu, contemporaries of Rome and Egypt, built their nomadic empire on the Mongolian steppe 2,000 years ago, emerging as Imperial China's greatest rival and even inspiring the construction of China's Great Wall. In a new study, researchers find that the Xiongnu were a multiethnic empire, with high genetic diversity found across the empire and even within individual extended elite families. At the fringes of the empire, women held the highest positions of power, and the highest genetic diversity was found among low-status male servants, giving clues to the process of empire building that gave rise to Asia's first nomadic imperial power.

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The question of how prehistoric populations obtained sustainable food in the barren heights of the Tibetan Plateau has long attracted academic and popular interest. A new study highlights the critical role of dairy pastoralism in opening the plateau up to widespread, long-term human habitation.

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Material left on the seafloor by bronze-age underwater volcanic eruptions is helping researchers better understand the size, hazards and climate impact of their parent eruptions, according to new research.

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It is possible to retrieve forensically relevant information from human DNA in household dust.

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For the first time, researchers have pinpointed a date when elite Mongol Empire people were drinking yak milk, according to a new study.

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Researchers are learning more about ancient graffiti -- and their intriguing comparisons to modern graffiti -- as they produce a state-of-the-art 3D recording of the Temple of Isis in Philae, Egypt.

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The largest-yet analysis of ancient DNA in Africa, which includes the first ancient DNA recovered from members of the medieval Swahili civilization, has now broken the stalemate about the extent to which people from outside Africa contributed to Swahili culture and ancestry.

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Ancient 2m-long amphibians swam like crocodiles long before true crocodiles existed, according to a new study.

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Traces of ancient empires that stretched across Africa remain in the DNA of people living on the continent, reveals a new genetics study.

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Volcanic relics scattered throughout the Australian landscape are a map of the northward movement of the continent over a 'hotspot' inside the Earth, during the last 35 million years.

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Chemical and isotopic analysis of artifacts from southern Africa called copper ingots reveals new cultural connections among people living in the region between the 5th and 20th centuries.