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Categories: Archaeology: General, Paleontology: Fossils

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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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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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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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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.

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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.

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Using new scientific tools, archaeologists discovered that an ancient Greek leader known today as the Griffin Warrior likely grew up around the seaside city he would one day rule. The findings are part of three new studies that examined the ancient DNA of the Griffin Warrior and 726 other people who lived before and during the Bronze Age to learn more about their origins and movements across three continents surrounding the Mediterranean Sea.

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Scientists investigating the remains of an old wooden ship off the cold, windy coast of far southern Argentina say it almost certainly is the Dolphin, a globe-trotting whaling ship from Warren, R.I., lost in 1859. Archaeologists have spent years researching the ship's origin without making a definitive identification, but a new analysis of tree rings in its timbers has provided perhaps the most compelling evidence yet.

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By analyzing DNA with the help of artificial intelligence (AI), an international research team has developed a method that can accurately date up to ten-thousand year-old human remains.

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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.'

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Research examining traces of parasites in medieval Cambridge residents suggests that monks were almost twice as likely as ordinary townspeople to have intestinal worms -- despite monasteries of the period typically having far more sanitary facilities.

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New research has provided the strongest evidence yet that Earth's continents were formed by giant meteorite impacts that were particularly prevalent during the first billion years or so of our planet's four-and-a-half-billion year history.

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An archaeological study has determined that cowrie-shell artifacts found throughout the Mariana Islands were lures used for hunting octopuses and that the devices, similar versions of which have been found on islands across the Pacific, are the oldest known artifacts of their kind in the world.

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Feral horses have roamed freely across the island of Assateague off the coast of Maryland and Virginia for hundreds of years, but exactly how they got there has remained a mystery. In a new study, ancient DNA extracted from a 16th century cow tooth from one of Spain's first Caribbean colonies turns out to be from a horse. Analysis of the DNA suggest that old folk tales claiming that horses were marooned on Assateague following the shipwreck of a Spanish galleon are likely more fact than fiction.