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Categories: Archaeology: General, Mathematics: Statistics

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People often wonder why one nutritional study tells them that eating too many eggs, for instance, will lead to heart disease and another tells them the opposite. The answer to this and other conflicting food studies may lie in the use of statistics, according to a new report.

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A giant kangaroo that once roamed on four legs through remote forests in the Papua New Guinea Highlands may have survived as recently as 20,000 years ago -- long after large-bodied megafauna on mainland Australia went extinct, new research indicates. Palaeontologists, archaeologists and geoscientists, have used new techniques to re-examine megafauna bones from the rich Nombe Rock Shelter fossil site in Chimbu Province in a bid to better understand the intriguing natural history of PNG.

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Researchers recently published new findings from the excavations of the Berenike site, a Greco-Roman seaport in the Egyptian Eastern desert. The study results describes the excavation of a religious complex from the Late Roman Period (between the fourth and sixth centuries) with unprecedented discoveries linked to the presence of the Blemmyes, a nomadic people. Fifteen falcons, many of them headless and buried around a pedestal, point to a ritual performed by the Blemmyes people to their falcon god. The shrine, located at the Hellenistic-Roman seaport of Berenike, contains a curious inscription prohibiting the boiling of animal heads inside the shrine.

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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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The Viking Age bead makers were more advanced than previously believed. A new interdisciplinary study shows that around year 700 AD, craftsmen in Ribe, Denmark, used surprisingly sophisticated and sustainable methods when giving old Roman glass mosaics new life as glass beads.

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Pacific island nations suffered severe depopulation from introduced diseases as a consequence of contact with European vessels, a new study shows. The research indicates population declines were a lot larger than previously thought and shows a big reassessment of the impact of globalization in the 19th century.

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Researchers followed the birth and death of tens of thousands of nematode worms using the 'Lifespan Machine', which collects lifespan data at unprecedented statistical resolution. They found that worms have at least two distinct 'biological ages', and that these have consistent correlations between each other, suggesting the existence of an invisible hierarchical structure that regulates the ageing process. The findings challenge the idea of living organisms having a single, universal biological age. It also means mean that biomarkers used to assess biological age can be changed by interventions such as diet, exercise, or drug treatments without actually turning a 'fast ager' into a 'slow ager'. The study calls into question the use of ageing biomarkers -- what exactly are they measuring?

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The Plinian eruption of Mount Vesuvius around 4,000 years ago -- 2,000 years before the one that buried the Roman city of Pompeii -- left a remarkably intact glimpse into Early Bronze Age village life in the Campania region of Southern Italy. The village offers a rare glimpse into the lives of the people who lived there, and the degree of preservation led the researchers to pinpoint the timing of the eruption, based on archaeobotanical record.

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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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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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Archaeologists hope to settle one of modern archaeology's longstanding disputes: the date of a volcanic eruption on the Greek island of Santorini, traditionally known as Thera.

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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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The contact.engineering platform enables users to create a digital twin of a surface and thus to help predict, for example, how quickly it wears out, how well it conducts heat, or how well it adheres to other materials.

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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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A commentary advocates the proper application of artificial intelligence in healthcare and warns of the dangers when machine learning algorithms are misused.

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Scientists have developed a method to identify symmetries in multi-dimensional data using Bayesian statistical techniques. Bayesian statistics has been in the spotlight in recent years due to improvements in computer performance and its potential applications in artificial intelligence. However, this statistical approach requires complex calculations of integrals, which are often considered approximations only. In their new study, the research team successfully derived new exact integral formulas. Their findings contribute to improving the accuracy of methods to identify data symmetries, possibly extending their applications to wider areas of interest, such as genetic analysis.

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Researchers using advanced satellite imagery have discovered an ancient reef-like landform 'hidden' in plain view on the Nullarbor Plain, which has been preserved for millions of years since it first formed when the Plain was underwater.

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In 2004, construction workers in Norwich, UK, unearthed human skeletal remains that led to a historical mystery -- at least 17 bodies at the bottom of a medieval well. Using archeological records, historical documents, and ancient DNA, British researchers have now identified the individuals to be a group of Ashkenazi Jews who may have fallen victim to antisemitic violence during the 12th century. Their findings shed new light on Jewish medical history in Europe.