For hundreds of thousands of years, early humans in the East African Rift Valley could expect certain things of their environment. Freshwater lakes in the region ensured a reliable source of water, and large grazing herbivores ...
Archaeology
Oct 21, 2020
4
403
One of the reasons humans are so resilient is our ability to mold our behavior to ever changing situations. It wasn't so long ago that many of us hugged when we met. In the middle of a pandemic, in which close contact between ...
Evolution
Sep 18, 2020
0
32
Early cave paintings of hunting scenes may give the impression our Stone Age ancestors lived mainly on chunks of meat, but plants—and the ability to unlock the glucose inside—were just as key to their survival.
Archaeology
Mar 27, 2020
10
1333
What triggered the decline and eventual extinction of many megaherbivores, the giant plant-eating mammals that roamed the Earth millions of years ago, has long been a mystery. These animals, which weighed 1,000kg or more ...
Archaeology
Apr 08, 2019
1
15
Saber-toothed cats, the large felid predators that once roamed Southern California, may have eaten softer foods after suffering oral injuries, according to a new study. Microscopic damage patterns on teeth from fossilized ...
Archaeology
Nov 05, 2018
0
6
Ever since scientists realized that humans evolved from a succession of primate ancestors, the public imagination has been focused on the inflection point when those ancestors switched from ape-like shuffling to walking upright ...
Archaeology
Apr 23, 2018
1
98
An international team of researchers has used a machine learning algorithm to assess whether hominin bones found in caves were placed there as part of a burial service by early human ancestors. In their paper published in ...
An international team of researchers has found evidence that suggests evolutionary changes in anatomy would have made walking more economical without reducing utility of muscles for climbing in early hominins. In their paper ...
The human foot is distinctive. Our five toes lack claws, we normally present the sole of our foot flat to the ground, and our first and second toes are longer than the smaller ones. In comparison to our fellow primates, our ...
Archaeology
Sep 01, 2017
8
773
How smart were human-like species of the Stone Age? New research published in the Journal of Archaeological Science by a team led by paleoanthropologist April Nowell of the University of Victoria reveals surprisingly sophisticated ...
Archaeology
Aug 08, 2016
0
3581
