Showing 20 articles starting at article 141

< Previous 20 articles

Categories: Anthropology: Cultures

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A vast paleogenetic study reveals insights on migration patterns, the expansion of farming and language development from the Caucasus over western Asia and Southern Europe from the early Copper Age until the late middle ages.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A modern scientific analysis of ancient stone tools is challenging long-held beliefs about what caused radical change on the island of Crete, where the first European state flourished during the Bronze Age: the 'Minoan civilization.'

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Research has established that there are traces of Neandertal DNA in the genome of modern humans. Now an exploratory study that assessed the facial structure of prehistoric skulls is offering new insights, and supports the hypothesis that much of this interbreeding took place in the Near East -- the region ranging from North Africa to Iraq.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study into the multipurpose uses of boomerangs has highlighted the hardwood objects were used to shape the edges of stone tools used by Australian Indigenous communities.  The research demonstrated how boomerangs could function as lithic (or stone) tool retouchers by investigating the use-wear generated on the boomerangs' surfaces during retouching activities. It was found that these use-wear impacts on boomerangs comparable to those observed on Paleolithic bone retouching tools, which date back to more than 200,000 years ago.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers find that stem cells in the developing brain of modern humans take longer to divide and make fewer errors when distributing their chromosomes to their daughter cells, compared to those of Neanderthals.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Beaver fur was a symbol of wealth and an important trade item in 10th Century Denmark, according to a new study.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data suggests that the mysterious hominin belonged to an extinct maternal branch of modern humans that might have contributed to the origin of Native Americans.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world's earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and the ancestral populations of the people living there today.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists reveal an advanced, innovative method that they have developed and used to detect nonvisual traces of fire dating back at least 800,000 years -- one of the earliest known pieces of evidence for the use of fire. The newly developed technique may provide a push toward a more scientific, data-driven type of archaeology, but -- perhaps more importantly -- it could help us better understand the origins of the human story, our most basic traditions and our experimental and innovative nature.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers say people with developmental dyslexia have specific strengths relating to exploring the unknown that have contributed to the successful adaptation and survival of our species.