Humans news stories

Dozens of broken pieces of pottery dating between 2,000 and 3,000 years old have been unearthed on a windswept island on the Great Barrier Reef – the oldest pottery ever discovered in Australia. The research has been published in Quaternary Science Reviews.

A new study by a University of Portsmouth astrophysicist sheds light on the relationship between the Milky Way and the Egyptian sky-goddess Nut.

Social media buzz and advertising claims have painted the cannabis derivative THC-O-acetate (THC-Oac) as a substance capable of delivering psychedelic experiences akin to LSD or psilocybin mushrooms. However, a recent study led by researchers at the University at Buffalo and published in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs presents a different narrative, debunking these claims through scientific inquiry.

The moment the sun went behind the moon, the snapping turtles all simultaneously slipped into the waters of Lake Tawakoni. Twilight painted the world. Clouds raced across the sky. Just beside the moon-covered sun sat bright Jupiter, shining in the middle of the day. Most birds and insects had grown hushed or gone completely silent.

Military personnel recently unearthed the remains of a prehistoric campsite on an air base in New Mexico, which early Americans may have occupied 8,200 years ago.

In a study published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory, archaeologists from Université de Montréal and the University of Genoa reveal that far from being more primitive, Neanderthals did much the same as their Homo sapiens successors: made themselves at home.

Archaeologists from Newcastle University have unearthed evidence for an evolving sacred landscape spanning centuries in Crowland, Lincolnshire. The study is published in the Journal of Field Archaeology.

Fossils of two strange creatures found in northeastern China show the earliest dental diversification among ancestors of mammals. One of the species, Feredocodon chowi, was found in the Daohugou Formation in Inner Mongolia. The rocks in which they were found date to the Middle Jurassic (174–163 million years ago). Two specimens assigned F. chowi were examined in a paper published in Nature.

Early humans used sophisticated crafting techniques such as “wood splitting” to hunt and to clean animal hides, a new study has revealed.

A recent study has shown that even very low doses of LSD can enhance the complexity of brain activity, a finding that might have significant implications for our understanding of consciousness and possibly for therapeutic applications.

New research into the dying brain suggests the line between life and death may be less distinct than previously thought.

South Africa’s Cape south coast offers many hints about how our human ancestors lived some 35,000 to 400,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch. These clues are captured in the dunes they once traversed, today cemented and preserved in a rock type known as aeolianite. See the study here.

A burial monument with human remains thought to be about 4,500 years old has been discovered in East Yorkshire.

Ötzi the Iceman’s many tattoos were made by “hand-poking” — a manual version of the tattooing technique usually used today — and not by cutting his skin as some researchers have suggested, according to a new study.

Archaeologists from Tel Aviv University have uncovered the mystery surrounding extensive Paleolithic stone quarrying and tool-making sites: Why did Homo erectus repeatedly revisit the very same locations for hundreds of thousands of years? The answer lies in the migration routes of elephants, which they hunted and dismembered using flint tools crafted at these quarrying sites. See the study here.

Neanderthals had big brains, language and sophisticated tools. They made art and jewellery. They were smart, suggesting a curious possibility. Maybe the crucial differences weren’t at the individual level, but in our societies.