https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. About 9,500 years ago, a community of hunter-gatherers in central Africa cremated a small woman on an open pyre at the base of Mount Hora, a prominent natural landmark in northern Malawi, according to a new study coauthored by an international team based in the United States, Africa, and Europe. It is the first time this behavior has been documented in the African hunter-gatherer record. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-discovery-reveals-africa-oldest-cremation.html Archaeology Thu, 01 Jan 2026 14:00:02 EST news686323443 In a recent study, Dr. Claudine Abegg and her colleagues analyzed the remains of a mummified cranium housed in the collections of the Museum of Cantonal Archaeology and History of Lausanne. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-provenance-19th-century-looted-incan.html Archaeology Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:56:12 EDT news677145359 For years, a man's giant intestine was anonymously on display at a US medical museum in Philadelphia, identified only by his initials JW. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-unnamed-skeletons-museum-center-ethical.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 27 Aug 2025 05:20:01 EDT news675488988 The Melsonby hoard is a remarkable collection of more than 800 Iron-Age metal artifacts, which was found in a field near Melsonby, North Yorkshire, in December 2021. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-melsonby-hoard-iron-age-yorkshire.html Archaeology Fri, 28 Mar 2025 20:20:01 EDT news662390191 CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, has developed an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) tool for assisting in the estimation of biological sex from human skulls. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-ai-tool-rapid-identification-forensic.html Other Tue, 11 Feb 2025 17:06:03 EST news658515961 Archaeologists Dr. Jess Thompson and her colleagues have published a study dealing with the possible identification of human skulls used in ancestral veneration in the European Journal of Archaeology. The discovery at Masseria Candelaro (Puglia, Italy), an ancient village in Puglia, provides rare insight into how Neolithic people maintained connections with their ancestors. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-neolithic-italian-skull-cache-centuries.html Archaeology Thu, 09 Jan 2025 09:20:01 EST news655636690 About 400,000 years ago, early humans in Europe, Asia and Africa lived alongside giant straight-tusked elephants, far bigger than their modern-day cousins. Their evolution has long been a mystery to paleontologists, but an extraordinary, enormous and near-complete skull is helping us uncover an obscure episode in the evolutionary history of these prehistoric megaherbivores. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-giant-prehistoric-elephant-skull-untangle.html Evolution Wed, 18 Dec 2024 12:10:01 EST news653745750 When I started my research on the Samuel George Morton Cranial Collection, a librarian leaned over my laptop one day to share some lore. "Legend has it," she said, "John James Audubon really collected the skulls Morton claimed as his own." Her voice was lowered so as not to disturb the other scholars in the hushed archive. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-hundreds-19th-century-skulls-medical.html Other Thu, 14 Nov 2024 13:20:02 EST news650810295 From ancient texts we know that—for their times—the ancient Egyptians were exceptionally skilled at medicine. For example, they could identify, describe, and treat diseases and traumatic injuries, build protheses, and put in dental fillings. Other conditions, like cancer, they couldn't treat—but they might have tried. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-extraordinary-year-egyptian-skull-cancer.html Archaeology Wed, 29 May 2024 00:00:01 EDT news636103741 Humans, Homo sapiens, have unique features compared with other closely related hominin species and primates, including the shape of the base of the skull. The evolutionary changes underlying these features were significant in allowing the evolution of our increased brain size. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-genetic-variant-human-skull-base.html Evolution Wed, 17 Apr 2024 17:14:04 EDT news632592842 A team of paleontologists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, working with colleagues from Xi'an Jiaotong University, the University of York, the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and the National Research Center on Human Evolution, has found evidence of a previously unknown human lineage. In their study, reported in Journal of Human Evolution, the group analyzed the fossilized jawbone, partial skull and some leg bones of a hominin dated to 300,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-china-human-lineage.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 04 Aug 2023 09:30:01 EDT news610359578 A pair of archaeologists, one with the Israel Antiquities Authority, the other from Bar-Ilan University, has found evidence of Roman-era necromancy practices in a cave in Israel. In their study, reported in the journal Harvard Theological Review, Eitan Klein and Boaz Zissu analyzed artifacts excavated from the Te'omim Cave over the past 14 years. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-placement-ancient-hidden-lamps-skulls.html Archaeology Fri, 14 Jul 2023 12:00:01 EDT news608546907 Hundreds of human skulls and mandibles recovered from the Crenshaw site in southwest Arkansas are the remains of ancestors of the Caddo Nation and not foreign enemies, according to a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological Science. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-crenshaw-site-local-ancestors-caddo.html Archaeology Wed, 14 Jun 2023 16:53:19 EDT news605980397 A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions across Spain, working with one colleague from Portugal and another from Austria, has discovered a large number of animal skulls placed by Neanderthals in Spanish cave more than 40,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-large-animal-skulls-neanderthal-cave.html Archaeology Fri, 27 Jan 2023 12:30:01 EST news594037399 The first genetic data from Paleolithic human individuals in the U.K.—the oldest human DNA obtained from the British Isles so far—indicates the presence of two distinct groups that migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age, according to new research. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-uk-oldest-human-dna-revealing.html Archaeology Mon, 24 Oct 2022 11:00:08 EDT news585824453 Many people living today have a small component of Neanderthal DNA in their genes, suggesting an important role for admixture with archaic human lineages in the evolution of our species. Paleogenetic evidence indicates that hybridization with Neanderthals and other ancient groups occurred multiple times, with our species' history resembling more a network or braided stream than a tree. Clearly the origin of humankind was more complex than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-fossils-reveal-hybridization-early-humans.html Evolution Mon, 05 Sep 2022 12:20:11 EDT news581599207 Why did people think cannibalism was good for their health? The answer offers a glimpse into the zaniest crannies of European history, at a time when Europeans were obsessed with Egyptian mummies. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-people-egyptian-mummies-weird-wild.html Archaeology Tue, 07 Jun 2022 08:44:55 EDT news573810278 Mouse deer are among the smallest ruminants in the world. Today, they live in the tropics of Africa and Asia and are barely larger than hares. Males and females differ little in appearance. But that was not the case about eleven million years ago. Josephina Hartung and Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen came across a previously unknown difference between the sexes while examining two fossil mouse deer skulls from the Hammerschmiede clay pit in the Allgäu region of Germany. They discovered conspicuous bone ridges above the eyes on the skull of a male mouse deer; these ridges were not present in the females. The study was recently published in the journal PLOS ONE. https://phys.org/news/2022-05-unexpected-differences-males-females-fossil.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 19 May 2022 10:55:21 EDT news572176515 The incidence of lion and leopard injuries caused by humans in Zambia is much higher than previously thought. Using a simple forensic examination technique, researchers found that injuries from entanglement in wire snares are present in 37% of lions and 22% of leopards in Zambia, while 27% of lions had shotgun pellets embedded in their skulls. Their method provides an opportunity to better monitor and quantify the number of large carnivores sustaining non-lethal injuries due to human activities including poaching and land protection. https://phys.org/news/2022-02-injuries-zambian-lions-leopards-shotguns.html Ecology Thu, 10 Feb 2022 03:10:28 EST news563685022 The Paleoneurology Group at the CENIEH has published a paper in the Journal of Anatomy on the relationship between the parietal bone in the skull and the orientation of the head https://phys.org/news/2021-09-size-parietal-bones-facial-modern.html Evolution Wed, 22 Sep 2021 08:14:45 EDT news551517283 Contrary to the popular song, the neck bone is actually connected to one of 22 separate head bones that make up the human skull. These plate-like bones intersect at specialized joints called sutures, which normally allow the skull to expand as the brain grows, but are absent in children with a birth defect called craniosynostosis. A new study in Nature Communications presents a detailed cellular atlas of the developing coronal suture, the one most commonly fused as a consequence of single gene mutations. The study brought together scientists from the laboratories of Gage Crump, Robert Maxson, and Amy Merrill at USC, and the laboratories of Andrew Wilkie and Stephen Twigg at the University of Oxford. https://phys.org/news/2021-08-skull-birth-defect-cell-by-cell-description.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 11 Aug 2021 08:48:49 EDT news547890526 The human brain as we know it today is relatively young. It evolved about 1.7 million years ago when the culture of stone tools in Africa became increasingly complex. A short time later, the new Homo populations spread to Southeast Asia, researchers from the University of Zurich have now shown using computed tomography analyses of fossilized skulls. https://phys.org/news/2021-04-modern-human-brain-africa-million.html Evolution Thu, 08 Apr 2021 14:00:05 EDT news537104028 A lone cranium in an Italian cave wound up there after being washed away from its original burial site, according to a study published March 3, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Maria Giovanna Belcastro of the University of Bologna, Italy and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-journey-skull-human-cranium-wound.html Archaeology Wed, 03 Mar 2021 14:00:06 EST news533979506 New research into how catfish capture prey provides an unparalleled view of the internal mechanics of fish skulls and could inspire the design of new underwater robots. Although lead researcher Aaron M. Olsen of Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island started the research simply to better understand how fish work, he ended up discovering parallels between how fish capture and manipulate prey and how humans or even robotic systems pick up and manipulate objects.  https://phys.org/news/2020-11-linkage-catfish-underwater-robots.html Plants & Animals Tue, 17 Nov 2020 07:19:03 EST news524819940 Experts from the Department of Prehistory and Archaeology of the University of Seville have just published a study in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE on an important archaeological find in the Cueva de la Dehesilla (Cádiz). Specifically, two human skulls and a juvenile goat were discovered along with various archaeological structures and materials from a funerary ritual from the Middle Neolithic period (4800-4000 BC) hitherto unknown in the Iberian Peninsula. https://phys.org/news/2020-09-funerary-ritual-behaviors-neolithic-iberian.html Archaeology Fri, 25 Sep 2020 11:51:54 EDT news520253510 Medieval arrows caused injuries similar to today's gunshot wounds, according to archaeologists analyzing newly discovered human remains. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-grizzly-discovery-arrow-eye-horrific.html Archaeology Thu, 07 May 2020 09:50:02 EDT news508063355 The origin of turtles is among the most debated topics in evolutionary biology. In a recently published study in the journal Nature Scientific Reports, Senckenberg scientist Ingmar Werneburg, in cooperation with an international research team, refutes existing hypotheses and sheds a new light on the evolution of the skull architecture. The results indicate a close link between skull evolution and the highly flexible neck of these armored reptiles. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-shell-puzzle-additional-piece-added.html Archaeology Tue, 07 Apr 2020 09:55:54 EDT news505472150 Griffith University scientists have led an international team to date the skull of an early human found in Africa, potentially upending human evolution knowledge with their discovery. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-fossil-skull-modern-human-ancestry.html Archaeology Thu, 02 Apr 2020 09:10:55 EDT news505037449 A new skeleton discovered in the submerged caves at Tulum sheds new light on the earliest settlers of Mexico, according to a study published February 5, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Wolfgang Stinnesbeck from Universität Heidelberg, Germany. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-year-old-mexican-female-skeleton-distinct.html Archaeology Wed, 05 Feb 2020 14:00:11 EST news500108913 The Golden Ratio, described by Leonardo da Vinci and Luca Pacioli as the "Divine Proportion," is an infinite number often found in nature, art and mathematics. It's a pattern in pinecones, seashells, galaxies and hurricanes. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-golden-ratio-human-skulls.html Other Thu, 03 Oct 2019 09:49:35 EDT news489314965