Humans news stories

Newly analyzed 5,000-year-old clay bowls unearthed in Iraq may be evidence of early government-like rule, a new study finds.

Excavations by the Kuwaiti-Polish Archaeological Mission at a site in Northern Kuwait’s Al-Subiyah desert have uncovered a bizarre-looking clay head representative of the culture of a prehistoric people who flourished in the region between 5500 and 4900 BCE.

New research published in Nature Mental Health indicates that psilocybin-assisted psychotherapy may offer comprehensive mental health benefits for individuals experiencing cancer-related distress.

A “provocative” new piece in Nature has proposed a whole new group of ancient humans – cousins of the Denisovans and Neanderthals – that once lived alongside Homo sapiens in eastern Asia more than 100,000 years ago. The commentary was published in Nature Communications.

Hunter-gatherers constructed these complex networks about 4,000 years ago, during the Archaic period, a time before people in the region were practicing agriculture on a large scale, scientists wrote in the study, published Nov. 22 in the journal Science Advances.

Ancient footprints reveal that a thriving landscape 1.5 million years ago in what is now Kenya was able to accommodate two different species of hominin, living side by side…The research has been published in Science.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki performed acoustic impulse response measurements in front of 37 rock painting sites and found that the same vertical rock surfaces that have the painted elks, humans and boats, are also effective sound reflectors. Their study is published in the journal Sound Studies.

DMT might be the vehicle behind dreams, spiritual awakenings, and even wild visions during near-death experiences.

Fossils found in a cave in northern Spain might be an example of humans – in this case, Neanderthals – collecting things for fun.

Two newly discovered stone circles, built about 5,000 years ago in what is now the southwest of England, are the latest to show that Stonehenge was not the only Stone Age circle built in the region.

“The structure that has revealed a hitherto unknown way by which Neanderthals managed and used fire,” the researchers wrote in the new study, published Nov. 12 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

What appears to be evidence of the oldest alphabetic writing in human history is etched onto finger-length, clay cylinders excavated from a tomb in Syria by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers.

A new quantum theory explaining how light and matter interact has also provided the first-ever depiction of the shape of a single light particle, a photon. The research is published in the Physical Review Letters.

Research led by the Universidad de Burgos has uncovered evidence suggesting Neanderthals engaged in collecting activities based on discoveries at the Prado Vargas Cave in Burgos, Spain…The research is published in the journal Quaternary.

Lucy lived in a wide range of habitats from northern Ethiopia to northern Kenya. Researchers now believe she wasn’t the only australopithecine species there.

A team of researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the University of California, Los Angeles, has revealed new insights into how ancient Europeans adapted to their environments over 7,000 years of European history. The study was published last week in the journal Nature Communications.