Humans news stories

Stone Age people in Macedonia created goddess figurines whose bottom half was a house.

The fossilized backbones of what appeared to be woolly mammoths have turned out to come from an entirely different and unexpected animal. The research was published in the Journal of Quaternary Science.

A collection of bones from Casablanca holds important new clues to the origins of modern humans and Neanderthals. The research, published Wednesday (Jan. 7) in the journal Nature.

Five quartz arrowheads found in a South African cave were laced with a slow-acting tumbleweed poison that would have tired prey during long hunts. The study was published Wednesday (Jan. 7) in the journal Science Advances.

Could Homo sapiens and an archaic and now-extinct species of early human have lived alongside each other on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi more than 65,000 years ago? The results of a new study, led by Griffith University and published in PLOS ONE, reveal, for the first time, a deep sequence of archaeological deposits extending to at least eight meters below the current ground surface—layers that preserve traces of human activity far older than the arrival of our own species on Sulawesi.

In the murky first chapters of the human story is an unknown ancestor that made the profound transition from walking on all fours to standing up tall, an act that came to define us. Details are published in Science Advances.

New analysis of the first humans outside Africa could finally settle a decades-long debate…The latest study, published in the journal PLOS One, seeks to decide the issue.

A new analysis of clinical trial data indicates that psilocybin, when administered alongside psychotherapy, may provide rapid relief for patients suffering from cancer-related anxiety and depression. This study, which synthesized data from prior randomized controlled trials, was published in The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine.

Scientists have reconstructed the head of an ancient human relative from 1.5 million year-old fossilized bones and teeth. But the face staring back is complicating scientists’ understanding of early human evolution and dispersal, according to a new study.

Archaeologists have discovered the 3,300-year-old cremated remains of at least eight people who were buried in five urns in Scotland. While it’s unknown how they died, it was likely during some sort of catastrophic event. The new study was recently published in Archaeology Reports Online.

The newly excavated 4,500-year-old valley temple from ancient Egypt holds a “public calendar” and a roof for astronomical observation.

A new study takes a deep dive into the findings of the two test pits in the Pahon Cave, which recovered 1,131 lithic artifacts and 1,045 faunal remains. The new study is published in the journal PLOS One.

One of the most famous hominin fossils may not be as familiar as we thought. The specimen, affectionately dubbed “Little Foot”, could represent an entirely new species. The research was published in The American Journal of Biological Anthropology.

The unique dog burial was identified during construction work for a high-speed railway in the hamlet of Gerstaberg, about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southwest of Stockholm. Experts with the Swedish group Arkeologerna (The Archaeologists) announced the find in a statement and blog post Monday (Dec. 15).

Recent analysis of federal health data suggests that the recreational use of LSD is associated with a lower likelihood of alcohol use disorder. This finding stands in contrast to the use of other psychedelic substances, which did not show a similar protective link in the past year. The results were published recently in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs.