Free Republic

The Bayuda Desert in central Sudan is one of the least explored regions of the country. Over the past six years, however, a team of Polish archaeologists has conducted a comprehensive investigation of the area and identified over 1,200 archaeological sites dating from the Paleolithic period through the Middle Ages. According to Science in Poland, the researchers then excavated 33 cemeteries and 55 settlements. The oldest sites examined were associated with the Oldowan culture, the earliest known producers of stone tools, but perhaps the most significant discovery was the presence of a dried-up salt lake bed near Jebel El-Muwelha. The...

New research reveals that our extinct Neanderthal relatives were surprisingly savvy navigators who used river valleys to zip across continents in record time. Computer simulations show they could cross from western Russia to Siberia in as little as 1,600 years, a prehistoric speed record that shows the efficiency of their migration skills.A new study published in PLOS One reveals that Neanderthals could have traveled from the Caucasus Mountains to the Altai Mountains of Siberia in the blink of an eye in prehistoric terms. Using sophisticated computer simulations that model ancient migration patterns, researchers from New York University discovered that these...

Whales, as the largest mammals on Earth, have long been an important resource for human societies, whether it be for food, oil, or other materials. According to a report by Popular Science, hunter-gatherers in present-day Spain and France have been crafting essential tools from whale bones for much longer than previously thought. A new study analyzed 83 bone tools found at sites along the Bay of Biscay and 90 additional bones from the Santa Catalina cave in Spain. The investigation relied on mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to determine that humans living in the region have been making whale-bone tools,...

Homo erectus, modern humans' archaic hominin relative, was the first human species to migrate out of Africa. One of the places they eventually settled was in Southeast Asia, as H. erectus fossils found on the island of Java date back 1.6 million years. Archaeologists working there recently gained new insight into the way these early humans lived, according to a statement released by Leiden University.Dredging operations in the Madura Strait recovered two fragments of 140,000-year-old H. erectus skull among the fossilized remains of 36 vertebrate species. This now-submerged region was once part of a landmass called Sundaland, which connected the...

Evidence of human violence towards other humans during the Paleolithic period is rarely seen in the archaeological record. According to a Live Science report, however, one such case occurred around 17,000 years ago in what is today northern Italy. In 1973, archaeologists uncovered in the Riparo Tagliente rock shelter the partial skeletal remains of a man, known as Tagliente 1, who they determined had died in his 20s.Although the reasons were not readily apparent at the time, recent reanalysis of his bones suggests he may have been the victim of a bloody ambush. Electron microscope scanning and 3D imaging revealed...

Neanderthals seem to have produced a remarkably consistent set of stone tools for hundreds of thousands of years. Two new studies suggest that this presumed lack of diversity and innovation might not be the whole story.Karen Ruebens, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, analyzed more than 1,300 stone tools from European Neanderthal sites dated to between 115,000 and 35,000 years ago. She found that they belong to at least two distinct tool-making traditions. West of the Rhine River, Neanderthal hand axes are oval or roughly triangular, while to the east, they are rounded on one edge and flat on...

According to the Greek Reporter, archaeologists have discovered the earliest known evidence of human occupation on the island of Sicily in San Teodoro cave near the town of Acquedolci -- finally proving a theory that was first posited over 75 years ago but unable to be confirmed then. Modern dating methods of sediment layers where stone tools, animal bones, and charred wood were found estimated that they were 16,500 years old, revealing that humans inhabited Sicily much earlier than previously thought. Groups of hunter-gatherers likely crossed the sea in small boats from mainland Europe as the last Ice Age was...

In the windswept reaches of northern Scotland, where jagged cliffs meet the crashing waves of the Atlantic, a discovery has emerged that challenges long-held assumptions about human history at the icy edge of Europe.Archaeologists have unearthed stone tools on the far northern coast of the Isle of Skye, suggesting that humans thrived at what was once considered the bleak and uninhabitable margin of the world during the final throes of the last Ice Age.The study, published in The Journal of Quaternary Science, details the finding of Late Upper Paleolithic (LUP) tools at South Cuidrach on the Isle of Skye. These...

Cutting-edge technology has been used to redate the world-famous Schöningen spears that were discovered in the mid-1990s, according to a statement released by the University of York. At the time, experts estimated that 10 wooden weapons were around 400,000 or 300,000 years old, making them among the oldest hunting weapons ever found. However, scientists recently used a dating method known as amino acid geochronology, which analyzes amino acids locked in snail shells buried in sediment layers, to determine that the spears were around 100,000 years younger. This likely means that the weapons were created and wielded by Neanderthals and not...

One of the most interesting things about humanity is how it manages to take something dangerous to it, and make it useful to itself. We took wolves and domesticated them, turning them into dogs, which have done everything from help us hunt, find dangerous items, warn us of impending danger, or even just sit on our laps and lower our blood pressure. Mankind does a lot of things with its miraculous intelligence, but one of the things it's actually best at is taming that which threatens us. And it looks like mankind has now gotten around to taming one of...

Some 100,000 years ago, a group of hominins shared hunting strategies, tool manufacturing tips and how to honor the dead, performing complex and highly symbolic rituals, according to a recent analysis of rare findings from Israel’s Tinshemet Cave. Located in central Israel, near Shoham, the Tinshemet Cave was active for millennia during the period known as Middle Paleolithic, 130,000 to 80,000 years ago. The findings include the first complete prehistoric human skeletons uncovered in Israel since the 1960s, which researchers say are among the best preserved in the world. “This is one of the most interesting sites for Paleolithic research...

A prehistoric “factory” discovered in Tanzania could push bone tool-making back by more than a million years, indicating unexpected abstract reasoning capabilities human ancestors displayed in the remote past. According to researchers at University College London (UCL) and the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), about 1.5 million years ago, hominin hands fashioned the 27 ancient bone tools now preserved as fossils. The find represents the earliest significant bone tool collection ever found, particularly notable for the systematic, factory-style production methods they display. Previous evidence indicates that hominins produced stone tools for over a million years, although archaeologists had previously never...

"We don't need bones," Straus said. "The results show that several animals not represented by bones from the dig were present—either once living in the cave or as carcass pieces—in the past and, importantly, the humans who made the Solutrean artifacts during the height of the Last Glacial Maximum (about 25,000 to 21,000 years ago) had 'Fournol' genetic ancestry, as has been found in bones or teeth from sites in France and Spain (including La Riera in Asturias, a site dug by Straus in the 1970s). These were the people whose range had contracted southward during the climatic crisis and...

The entrance to the Maszycka Cave in southern Poland (Credit: Darek Bobak) In a nutshell * Scientists found evidence of cannibalism in an 18,000-year-old Polish cave, where at least ten people — including children — were systematically butchered and eaten, likely due to territorial conflicts rather than survival needs * The Magdalenian people who created famous cave art like Lascaux were capable of both sophisticated cultural achievements and extreme violence, challenging our understanding of prehistoric societies * As populations grew after the last Ice Age, competition for resources likely led to violent conflicts between groups, with evidence of similar cannibalism...

Circular mammoth bone structures have been recovered across western Russia and the Ukraine. Most have been dated to around ~26,000–14,000 cal BP (calibrated years before present) and are usually found along the Desna/Dnpr river systems."The circular mammoth bone structures are from the height of the last Ice Age, a period of intense cold, and are widely considered to have been dwellings for shelter during long, full glacial winter seasons or possibly year-round," explains Dr. Lorenzen, one of the study's researchers...However, precisely what they looked like is yet unknown...Previous radiocarbon dates indicate the site was likely built around 24,000–25,000 ya. Making...

Strange wear marks on the teeth of Paleolithic people in Central Europe have long puzzled scientists, but new research may finally reveal the cause. Close up of Pavlovian teeth remains, and potential position of cheek piercings. © John C. Willman Numerous human remains discovered in central Europe dating to the last Ice Age have unusual abrasions on their teeth that have stumped experts for decades. Now, a researcher in Portugal has put forth an interesting explanation: cheek piercings. John C. Willman of the Laboratory of Prehistory (CIAS) at the University of Coimbra has suggested that Pavlovian people—a hunter-gatherer culture that...

The Caveman Diet, also known as the Paleo Diet, is a weight-loss craze where calorie-counters pick foods they think early humans may have eaten. For most followers, this means a meat-heavy diet. But a new study suggests that if you truly want to eat like a caveman, you should be steering clear of red meat. Contrary to popular belief, researchers from Bar-Ilan University say that early humans were not solely focused on animal protein. Instead, cavemen were mostly vegetarians whose diets featured plant-based foods including acorns, cereals, legumes, and aquatic plants. 'This discovery underscores the importance of plant foods in...

Some people in Oceania carry up to 5 percent Denisovan DNA. Prehistoric artifacts from Denisova Cave, home of the Denisovans. Image credit: OlgaMed/Shutterstock.com Our ancient ancestors were not picky about who they got into bed with, and the echoes of this prehistoric promiscuity can still be detected in human genomes from around the world today. Listed among our early romantic conquests are the Denisovans, and researchers now believe we mated with at least three distinct populations of this long-extinct species. “It’s a common misconception that humans evolved suddenly and neatly from one common ancestor, but the more we learn the...

A collection of 15 marine fossils has been found in northern Spain’s Prado Vargas Cave, which was occupied by Neanderthals, according to an IFL Science report. The deposit has been dated to between 39,800 and 54,600 years ago, before modern humans lived in the region, by a team of researchers led by Marta Navazo Ruiz of the University of Burgos. Collecting is understood to reflect abstract thought, indicating the fossils may be evidence of an artistic interest or curiosity about nature among Neanderthals, she explained. The scientists suggest that the fossils may have been gathered by Neanderthal children, just as...

We don't yet know if the hump disappeared after childhood. None of the previously discovered mummies had a hump. Image credit: Tiberio via Wikimedia Commons (public domain) For the first time ever, researchers have uncovered the mummified remains of a woolly rhinoceros with a big old hump on the back of its neck. Curiously absent in all other known specimens of the Ice Age megafauna, this fatty bulge attests to the remarkable accuracy of ancient cave paintings depicting rhinos with hunched backs. More than 35,000 years ago, prehistoric artists decorated the walls of the Chauvet Cave in France with stunningly...