Free Republic

Taiwan famously features an indigenous population of Austronesian people whose history on the island stretches back 5,000 years. But among these people, oral traditions have referred to another civilisation that seemed to be far older. They were often referred to as “pygmies” or tiny people and were described as having dark skin, curly hair and a diminutive stature. For centuries, they only existed in fables , although they popped up with remarkable consistency over an extremely long period of time. In early October, scientists proved they existed in Taiwan. According to a paper published in World Archaeology, a peer-reviewed journal,...

While most of us are celebrating a day intended to remind us to be thankful for the various blessings in our lives, there will always be some people so consumed with politics that they will play a role equivalent to the Grinch at Christmas. That seems to be the point being made this week by Matt Lewis in his latest column at the Daily Beast. The holiday is a target for some on the left who equate it to the genocide of indigenous Americans, colonialism and slavery. Matt further argues that there are some on the conservative side of the...

The mysterious Denisovans were only formally identified about a decade ago, when a single finger bone unearthed from a cave in Siberia clued scientists in to the ancient existence of a kind of archaic hominin we'd never before seen.But that's only one side of the story. The truth is, modern humans had in fact already encountered Denisovans a long time before this. We crossed paths with them an eternity ago.So far back, in fact, that we forgot about them entirely. Especially as they – and other archaic humans, such as the Neanderthals – faded into the unliving past, and Homo...

Humans may have exited out of Africa and arrived in Southeast Asia 20,000 years earlier than previously thought, a new study involving University of Queensland researchers suggests. Findings from the Macquarie University-led study also suggest humans could have potentially made the crossing to Australia even earlier than the accepted 60,000 to 65,000 years ago. Dr Gilbert Price of UQ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences said the dating of a cave site in West Sumatra, called Lida Ajer, provided first evidence for rainforest use of modern humans. "Rainforests aren't the easiest place to make a living, especially for a savannah-adapted...