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Landmark new research shows Ice Age teens from 25,000 years ago went through similar puberty stages as modern-day adolescents. In a study published today in the Journal of Human Evolution of the timing of puberty in Pleistocene teens, researchers are addressing a knowledge gap about how early humans grew up.Found in the bones of 13 ancient humans between 10 and 20 years old is evidence of puberty stages. Co-led by University of Victoria (UVic) paleoanthropologist April Nowell, researchers found specific markers in the bones that allowed them to assess the progress of adolescence."By analyzing specific areas of the skeleton, we...

Archaeologists think the earliest skeleton from the Malaysian excavation may be up to 16,000 years old.Archaeologists investigating caves in Malaysia ahead of their flooding for a hydroelectric reservoir have discovered more than a dozen prehistoric burials they think are up to 16,000 years old.The caves, in the remote Nenggiri Valley about 135 miles (215 kilometers) north of Kuala Lumpur, will be underwater if the reservoir fills as planned in mid-2027, creating a 20-square-mile (53 square km) lake to feed a 300-megawatt hydroelectric power station.Zuliskandar Ramli, an archaeologist at the National University of Malaysia, told Live Science that most of the...

The Slovak Spectator reports that a 5,000-year-old skeleton has been unearthed in eastern Slovakia by researchers from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and the Polish Academy of Sciences. The skeleton belonged to a young man of the Indo-European Pit Grave culture who died between the ages of 16 and 18. The grave was found in the center of a burial mound with a 72-foot diameter, surrounded by a channel measuring more than 12 feet wide. The remains of a charred wooden structure that once covered the grave pit were also identified, said Eva Horváthová of the Slovak Academy of Sciences....

A team of researchers from Sweden and Spain have conducted a comprehensive archaeogenetic study on a community that lived on the border between the northern Christian kingdoms and Al-Andalus during the early Medieval period. This dynamic era, especially in the Iberian Peninsula, was marked by religious competition, power struggles, and significant human mobility—factors that shaped the foundation of modern Europe.In the study, published in the journal Science Advances, the researchers focused on Las Gobas, a rural site in northern Spain's Burgos province, near the village of Laño. The community existed from the mid-6th to the 11th century and is notable...

Their findings show that interpersonal violence—violence not meted out as punishment by authorities—was much more common in Norway. This is evident in the much greater rates of trauma on skeletons and the extent of weaponry in Norway. The study, published in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, sheds new light on how Viking Age societies in Norway and Denmark differed in their experiences with violence and the role social structures played in shaping those patterns...Researchers analyzed skeletal remains from Viking Age Norway and Denmark and found that 33% of the Norwegian skeletons showed healed injuries, indicating that violent encounters weren't uncommon....

According to a statement released by Stony Brook University, a team of researchers led by Krishna R. Veeramah of Stony Brook University analyzed the genomes of 28 individuals who were buried in a cemetery in Collegno, Italy, between the sixth and eighth centuries A.D. The scientists also examined the published genomes of 24 other individuals who were buried in the cemetery. Examination of the bones of these individuals offered additional information concerning their diet, health, and social status. Veeramah said that the earlier medieval elites, identified through their richer diets and elaborate burial items, were made up of families with...

Fig. 1. Signs of caries sicca on cranium C2, both photograph and X-rays image / IMAGE AVAILABLE VIA SCIENCEDIRECT ====================================================================== An upcoming study in the October issue of the Journal of Archaeological Science reveals the first documented evidence of cocaine use in Europeans. Italy may have always been an underrated party capital for Europe, or at least as far back as the 17th century (1600s). Remains of well-preserved mummified brains found inside the Ca’Granada crypt were analyzed by researchers from the University of Milan, and tested positive for the plant from which cocaine is derived (Erythroxylum coca). Party jokes aside,...

According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, an international team of researchers has studied the effects of climate change on hunter-gatherers living in Europe between 47,000 and 7,000 years ago by analyzing their teeth with a machine learning algorithm called Pheno-ABC. "This has allowed us to collect an unprecedented dataset [including some 450 prehistoric humans from all over Europe] that is significantly larger than previous skeletal and genetic datasets," said Hannes Rathmann of the University of Tübingen. The researchers focused on inheritable features of teeth, such as their shape, the ridge and groove patterns on the chewing...

Archaeologists recently identified the remains of four human funerary burials from approximately 3,800 years ago in a space in northern Peru associated with a water cult. The bundled funeral remains belong to two children, a teenager, and an adult. They were buried facing the Andean mountains and interred with symbolic offerings, such as stone pendants and snail shells. The remains were found nestled between mud and stone walls near a valley in Peru’s dry, coastal Viru province by the Virú Valley Archaeological Research Project (PAVI) of the National University of Trujillo (UNT). Related Articles The ancient neolithic monument of Stonehenge...

DNA analysis of human remains unearthed in the twentieth century in northwestern Mexico at the Mogollon culture site of Paquimé, or Casas Grandes, suggests that the individual's parents had been closely related, according to a Newsweek report. The study of the bones, led by Jakob Sedig of Harvard University, determined that the boy had lived locally, and was between the ages of two and five at the time of death, which occurred between A.D. 1301 and 1397. Discovered beneath a roof support beam, the child was thought to have been a member of an elite family who was sacrificed to...

The remains of victims from the deadly volcanic eruption in Pompeii have been discovered almost 2,000 years after the disaster.A woman's remains were unearthed with a collection gold, silver and bronze coins with a man laying nearby.Archaeologists uncovered the skeletons inside a small, makeshift bedroom in a villa that was undergoing reconstruction when Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79AD.It is believed the victims chose the small room as a refuge while they waited for the rain of ash and debris to subside.However, they then found themselves trapped in the room after volcanic rocks blocked the door - preventing them from escaping...

It looks like the original explanation for where Homo floresiensis came from was right all along. The Hobbit humerus fragment (left) from Mata Menge next to one from Liang Bua to scale, and the full collection of bones from the most complete Liang Bua Hobbit. Image Credit: Yousuke Kaifu ================================================================================ Three new fossils, including part of a humerus, have been found at Mata Menge on the Indonesian island of Flores. They indicate that Homo floresiensis, popularly known as Hobbits, were descended from Homo erectus, and became small relatively soon after arriving on Flores. Indeed, it seems at least some Hobbits...

In 1935, the Metropolitan Museum of New York led an archaeological expedition to Egypt. In Deir Elbahari near Luxor, the site of ancient Thebes, they excavated the tomb of Senmut, the architect and overseer of royal works—and reputedly, lover—of the famed queen Hatschepsut (1479–1458 BCE). Beneath Senmut's tomb, they found a separate burial chamber for his mother, Hat-Nufer, and other unidentified relatives.Here, they made an uncanny discovery: a wooden coffin holding the mummy of an elderly woman, wearing a black wig and two scarab rings in silver and gold. But what struck the archaeologists was the mummy's expression: with the...

Prehistoric humans hunt a woolly mammoth. More and more research shows that this species – and at least 46 other species of megaherbivores – were driven to extinction by humans. Credit: Engraving by Ernest Grise, photographed by William Henry Jackson. Courtesy Getty’s Open Content Program ================================================================== Researchers at Aarhus University have concluded that human hunting, rather than climate change, was the primary factor in the extinction of large mammals over the past 50,000 years. This finding is based on a review of over 300 scientific articles. Over the last 50,000 years, many large species, or megafauna, weighing at least 45...

Ancient Egyptians, 2000-3000 thousand years ago, not only worshipped crocodiles, offering them bread, meat and wine, but also sacrificed and mummified them, a new study confirms. Published in the journal Digital Applications in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage, the research purports to have gained a deeper understanding of a religious practice behind the mummification of crocodiles in ancient Egypt. The specific crocodile mummy examined for the study that led to the conclusions was 2.2 meters-long and is housed at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery. The team of experts conducted various scans on the mummified crocodile, which revealed a fish hook...

More than 146,000 years ago, Neanderthals hunted birds and other game during short stays at a Spanish cave called Cova Negra. Anthropologists studying the bones they left behind came across one that stood out: a part of the skull that contains the inner ear bones just a few centimeters long, from a child who lived to about age 6.The bone displays a handful of tiny anomalies most commonly found in people with Down syndrome today. The child likely had this condition and had hearing loss, scientists report today in Science Advances—the oldest known example of the condition. If confirmed, the...

A study shows that repetitive tasks carried out by ancient Egyptian scribes – high status men with the ability to write who performed administrative tasks – and the positions they sat in while working may have led to degenerative skeletal changes.Researchers in Prague, Czech Republic, examined the skeletal remains of 69 adults males, 30 of whom were scribes, who were buried in the necropolis at Abusir, Egypt...They identified degenerative joint changes that were more common among scribes compared to men with other occupations.These changes were in the joints connecting the lower jaw to the skull, the right collarbone and the...

Horses were domesticated at least twice, researchers report June 6 in Nature. Genetic data suggest Botai hunter-gatherers in Central Asia may have been the first to domesticate the animals for milk and meat around 5,000 years ago. That attempt didn't stick. But other people living north of the Caucasian Mountains domesticated horses for transportation about 4,200 years ago, the researchers found.Those latter horses took the equine world by storm. In just a few centuries, they replaced their wild cousins and became the modern domestic horse...ancient people from southwest Asia known as the Yamnaya have been credited with being the first...

While excavating a cemetery for medieval knights in Spain, archaeologists came across something unexpected: the remains of a woman. Pierced by sharp objects, her bones suggest she fought and died in battle, likely over 800 years ago. The discovery prompted a flurry of questions about her role in the male-dominated society. Who was she? Why was she buried there? Did she fight alongside the knights? By analyzing her skeleton, archaeologists shed light on her diet, lifestyle and status, allowing them to venture several hypotheses about her identity, according to a study published May 14 in the journal Scientific Reports.

A GP has shared his expertise on two common sexually transmitted infections - gonorrhoea and syphilis - as cases of the infections in the UK are at an all-time highUK Health Security Agency's latest figures have shown that cases of gonorrhoea and syphilis are at a record high across the UK. As summer approaches, a lack of education about these common STIs could lead to an even greater increase in cases, warns a doctor. Dr Donald Grant, a GP and senior clinical advisor at The Independent Pharmacy, has offered his expert advice on these two sexually transmitted infections, highlighting the...