anthropology

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Attached to Ancient Tangled Cords: Doll Parts, Cigarettes

'Khipus' found in remote village in Peru's Andes could help crack code of Incan writing system

(Newser) - Anthropologist Sabine Hyland's journey to Jucul—a remote Andean village six hours north of Lima, Peru—centers on one of the world's oldest mysteries: khipus, the mysterious knotted or tasseled cords that Incas used to record information, and that Jucul's villagers, wary of outsiders, had kept...

Universal Human Behaviors Vanish With Cultural Trauma

The Northern Aché tribe appears to have lost the ability to dance, sing lullabies

(Newser) - Anthropologists have long believed the impulse to dance or sing a lullaby is universal. But a study focused on the Northern Aché, an Indigenous tribe of 800 in the forests of eastern Paraguay, is turning that assumption on its head. That's because the Northern Aché, who split from the...

What Scientists Learned From 3.6K-Year-Old Cheese
World's Oldest Cheese
Has Secrets to Tell
NEW STUDY
Sep 26, 2024 11:27 AM CDT

World's Oldest Cheese Has Secrets to Tell

Analysis of 3.6K-year-old cheese reveals spread of kefir bacteria from China's Xinjiang region

(Newser) - In the 1990s, archaeologists peered into the graves of 3,600-year-old mummies in a desert in northwest China's Xinjiang region and found a strange substance smeared on their heads and necks. It turned out to be the oldest cheese ever found, and it's taught researchers quite a bit...

Controversial Theory: Ancient 'Hobbits' Are Still Alive

Gregory Forth says indigenous accounts indicate Homo floresiensis still hides in Indonesia

(Newser) - A hobbit-like human species has survived for hundreds of thousands of years in the forests of a remote island—and is still surviving. That's the stunning theory of a retired anthropologist, who believes sightings of an "ape-man" on Indonesia's Flores island could signal that so-called hobbit human...

Noted Paleoanthropolgist Dies in Kenya at Age 77

Richard Leakey was the son of world-famous anthropology couple

(Newser) - Paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey, known for his fossil-finding and conservation work in his native Kenya, has died at 77, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta announced Sunday evening. The cause of death was not announced. Leakey, the son of globally known anthropologists Louis and Mary Leakey, also held a number of public service...

Meet Our Direct Ancestor: Homo Bodoensis
Meet Our
Direct Ancestor:
Homo Bodoensis
NEW STUDY
Oct 29, 2021 10:50 AM CDT

Meet Our Direct Ancestor: Homo Bodoensis

Researchers propose new human species, elimination of 2 others

(Newser) - The Middle Pleistocene brought about the emergence of modern humans in Africa some 300,000 years ago. But plenty else happened during the epoch, stretching from 774,000 to 129,000 years ago, and a new study aims to clarify things with the naming of a new species and direct...

Anthropologists Recount Grisly Tale of Conquistador Era

One mass atrocity was answered with another in Tecoaque

(Newser) - It's a particularly gruesome page of history. New research suggests Spanish conquistadores butchered at least a dozen women and their children in an Aztec-allied town in an act of revenge, per the AP . It seems the inhabitants had sacrificed and eaten a detachment of Spaniards they'd captured months...

New Cave Find Crushes Old Migration Theory
New Cave Find
Challenges
Long-Held
Migration
Theory
in case you missed it
Jul 26, 2020 6:44 AM CDT

New Cave Find Challenges Long-Held Migration Theory

Anthropologist Ciprian Ardelean leads cave dig in Mexico

(Newser) - Human habitation of the Americas, 30,000 years ago? That's what a new study is suggesting based on charcoal, stones, and bone samples recovered from a cave in the mountains of north-central Mexico, the Wall Street Journal reports. If true, the find doubles the known time humans inhabited this...

Study Confirms 'Missing Link'
Study Confirms 'Missing Link'
new study
Jan 19, 2019 4:20 PM CST

Study Confirms 'Missing Link'

A new species apparently bridged the gap with our ape-like ancestors

(Newser) - Two early humans found in Africa 10 years ago appear to represent a "missing link" with our ape-like ancestors, CNN reports. A new study broke ground this week by saying the two-million-year-old partial skeletons are from a new species called Australopithecus sediba that walked upright but spent time in...

Humans of the Era as Prone to Violence as Neanderthals
200 Skulls Suggest Neanderthal
Stereotype Is Wrong
NEW STUDY
Nov 15, 2018 10:20 AM CST

200 Skulls Suggest Neanderthal Stereotype Is Wrong

Early modern humans just as prone to violence: study

(Newser) - The perception of Neanderthals as big, stupid oafs has been mostly debunked . Now, a new study is helping buck another stereotype depicting the human relatives as especially prone to violence. The idea stems from trauma, particularly to the head and neck, visible among Neanderthal remains. When researchers compiled reports on...

Ancient Rhino Radically Changes Philippines History

Human tools found near 700,000-year-old butchered animal, rewriting first arrival

(Newser) - An international team of researchers has discovered a 700,000-year-old butchered rhinoceros on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, forcing scientists to radically adjust current estimates about when humans first occupied the archipelago. Previously, a 67,000-year-old foot bone found in a cave in northern Luzon was the oldest...

Humans Mated With Mysterious Species Twice
Humans Mated Outside
Our Species 3 Times
NEW STUDY
Mar 16, 2018 9:31 AM CDT

Humans Mated Outside Our Species 3 Times

Second instance of human-Denisovan interbreeding discovered

(Newser) - Ancient humans weren't against knocking boots with other species: We know they had sex with Neanderthals . We also know they mated with the mysterious Denisovans, as some Australasians (those from Papua New Guinea in particular) have 5% Denisovan DNA. But a "breakthrough" study shows the interbreeding wasn't...

First Americans Didn't Arrive on a Land Bridge

They 'must have taken a different route'

(Newser) - You probably remember the Bering Land Bridge theory from history class: North America's first inhabitants traveled along a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska and discovered an immense new world less than 15,000 years ago. Just like the land bridge did 10,000 years ago, that belief now...

Florida Divers Bring Up Signs of People 14K Years Ago

'Bering Strait theory' takes another knock

(Newser) - What divers found in a Florida sinkhole may help overturn a long-held theory—that people first colonized the Americas thousands of years ago by crossing the Bering Strait, the Guardian reports. Scientists say that fossilized dung, mastodon bones, and a stone knife discovered at the site near Tallahassee suggest people...

Study Determines How Many Best Friends We Have

4 ... or maybe 5

(Newser) - British anthropologist Robin Dunbar made a name for himself in the '90s when he hypothesized that there is a strong correlation among primates between brain size and social circles—and he most notably suggested that we humans can only really maintain close relationships with five people, reports MIT Technology...

Pol: Army Tricked Taxpayers With 'Dead' $725M Program

Controversial program is actually still up and running and may even get more funding

(Newser) - Its name was the Human Terrain System, what USA Today labels a "controversial battlefield anthropology program" supposedly shut down by the US Army in 2014 after allegations of racism, sexual harassment, and funny business with time sheets, among other issues. Or so its demise was believed: The initiative—which...

Irish Bones May Settle 'Archaeological Controversy'

What researchers learned from 4 sets of remains

(Newser) - It's a "long-standing archaeological controversy": whether the Irish shifted from hunter-gatherers to farmers because of adaptation or migration. A new DNA analysis of remains from several people, dating back thousands of years, may settle the question—as well as provide a better sense of where the Irish came...

Scientists: We've Found a New Human Relative

Experts say Homo naledi may have buried its dead, but others aren't convinced

(Newser) - Scientists say it's a find "unlike anything that we have seen." Deep within a South African cave, experts claim to have uncovered the remains of a previously unknown human ancestor that stood about 5 feet tall, weighed 100 pounds, used tools, and may have buried its dead—...

Neanderthals Got Tumors, Too
 Neanderthals Got Tumors, Too 
Jun 6, 2013 9:05 AM CDT

Neanderthals Got Tumors, Too

Researchers find the oldest one ever

(Newser) - Looks like cavemen had to deal with tumors, too. Scientists have found evidence of the oldest tumor on record in the rib of a Neanderthal who lived roughly 130,000 years ago, they revealed in PLOS One yesterday. The inch-long bone was dug up more than 100 years ago, but...

New Fossils Reveal More Human Species

Early human evolution was more crowded than we thought: Leakeys

(Newser) - The discovery of three new fossils, unveiled today, illuminate and confirm a line of human evolution that is more complicated than scientists once thought. The groundbreaking bones, about 2 million years old and unearthed in Kenya, prove that there were at least two Homo species—in addition to Homo erectus—...

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