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Categories: Anthropology: Cultures, Mathematics: Puzzles

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Using DNA from two ancient humans unearthed in two different archaeological sites in northeast Brazil, researchers have unraveled the deep demographic history of South America at the regional level with some surprising results. Not only do they provide new genetic evidence supporting existing archaeological data of the north-to-south migration toward South America, they also have discovered migrations in the opposite direction along the Atlantic coast -- for the first time. Among the key findings, they also have discovered evidence of Neanderthal ancestry within the genomes of ancient individuals from South America.

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A new study by mathematicians shows that math borrowed from neuroscience can describe how swarms of these unique insects coordinate their light show, capturing key details about how they behave in the wild.

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The use of ancient DNA, including samples of human remains around 45,000 years old, has shed light on a previously unknown aspect of human evolution.

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Music and arts classes are often first on the chopping block when schools face tight budgets and pressure to achieve high scores on standardized tests. But it's precisely those classes that can increase student interest in school and even benefit their math achievement, according to a new study.

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The first genetic data from Palaeolithic human individuals in the UK -- the oldest human DNA obtained from the British Isles so far -- indicates the presence of two distinct groups that migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age, according to new research. Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the new study by UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute researchers reveals for the first time that the recolonisation of Britain consisted of at least two groups with distinct origins and cultures.

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A new study on early human migration shows that semi-arid and desert zones of Central Asia may have served as key areas for the dispersal of hominins into Eurasia during the Middle Pleistocene. Central Asia is positioned at a crossroads linking several zones important to hominin dispersal during this period, however much evidence from this region lacks context for dating and climate conditions, making it difficult to understand these dynamics.

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In medieval Norway, high status individuals tended to be taller and to have stronger bones, possibly as a result of a favorable lifestyle, according to a new study.

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Researchers have managed to sequence multiple individuals from a remote Neanderthal community in Siberia. Among these thirteen individuals, the researchers identified multiple related individuals -- among these a father and his teenage daughter. The researchers were also able to use the thirteen genomes to provide a glimpse into the social organization of a Neanderthal community. They appear to have been a small group of close relatives, consisting of ten to twenty members, and communities were primarily connected through female migration.

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Carvings in boab trees are as significant as rock art for Indigenous Australians. Now, there is a race against time to document the ancient art in the bark of boabs before the remarkable heritage trees die.

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Electronic gaming can precipitate life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias in susceptible children whose predisposition may have been previously unrecognized, according to a new report. The investigators documented an uncommon, but distinct pattern among children who lose consciousness while playing electronic (video) games.

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Geneticists have discovered a previously unknown lineage of wild goats over ten millennia old. The new goat type, discovered from genetic screening of bone remains and referred to as 'the Taurasian tur', likely survived the Last Glacial Maximum (the ice age), which stranded their ancestors in the high peaks of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey where their remains were found.

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Mathematical models indicate that as few as one in five cases of COVID-19 which occurred during the first 29 months of the pandemic are accounted for in the half billion cases officially reported.

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With the help of geomagnetic surface surveys and subsequent hands-on digging, an excavation team has revealed new insights into the area in which the caliph's palace of Khirbat al-Minya was built on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. According to these findings, there had already been a settlement occupied by Christian or Jewish inhabitants in the immediate vicinity long before the palace was built.

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It was the money that grew on trees. Said to be a gift from the gods, cacao for the ancient Maya was considered sacred, used not only as currency, but in special ceremonies and religious rituals. It's the progenitor plant of chocolate, and notions of luxury are embedded in its lore.

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Interdisciplinary research in southern Ethiopia enabled the deciphering of eastern Africa's climatic heartbeat and shows how key phases of climate change influenced human evolution, dispersal and innovation.

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Researchers have identified climate-driven changes to food availability as a factor behind dramatic historical events that led the oasis city of Palmyra in Syria to its ultimate demise.

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In the largest early-medieval population study to date, an interdisciplinary team consisting of geneticists and archaeologists analyzed over 400 individuals from ancient Britain, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The results show in detail one of the largest population transformations in the post-Roman world.

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Archaeologists and primatologists have shown that stone tool using chimpanzees in West Africa have distinct and recognizable material cultures.

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Tiny crystals in ancient animal dung serve as key evidence in a new analysis suggesting the possibility that hunter-gatherers at Abu Hureyra, Syria, may have tended small numbers of animals just outside their dwellings between 12,800 and 12,300 years ago.

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The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, therefore provide fascinating insights. The increase in brain size, and in neuron production during brain development, are considered to be major factors for the increased cognitive abilities that occurred during human evolution. However, while both Neanderthals and modern humans develop brains of similar size, very little is known about whether modern human and Neanderthal brains may have differed in terms of their neuron production during development. Researchers now show that the modern human variant of the protein TKTL1, which differs by only a single amino acid from the Neanderthal variant, increases one type of brain progenitor cells, called basal radial glia, in the modern human brain.