“Dog is man’s best friend” may be an ancient cliché, but when that friendship began is a longstanding question among scientists. A new study led by a University of Arizona researcher is one step closer to an answer on how Indigenous people in the Americas interacted with early dogs and wolves. The study, published today in the...
World
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Study Reveals Mammoth as Key Food Source for Ancient Americans
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals. The study, featured on the Dec. 4 cover of the journal Science Advances,...
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France Returns Prehistoric Artifacts to Ethiopia in Diplomatic ‘Handover’
A French government official recently said the return of three artifacts to Ethiopia was a diplomatic handover rather than a restitution. On November 30, France‘s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone axes, bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia’s tourism minister Selamawit Kassa during a symbolic ceremony at the National Museum of Ethiopia in the...
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After a Major Restoration, Notre Dame Cathedral is Reopening. Here’s What to Expect.
Five years after Paris watched Notre Dame Cathedral burn, the 861-year-old structure has been restored. It is slated to reopen its doors to the public on Sunday, December 8, with two Catholic masses will commemorating the event. Following the April 2019 blaze, €846 million ($891 million) was raised in donations from 340,000 donors across 150 countries, with...
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Earliest Fish-Trapping Facility in Central America Discovered in Maya Lowlands
An archaeologist from the University of New Hampshire and her team have collected data which indicates the presence of a large-scale pre-Columbian fish-trapping facility. Discovered in the Crooked Tree Wildlife Sanctuary (CTWS), the largest inland wetland in Belize, the team dated the construction of these fisheries to the Late Archaic period (cal. 2000-1900 BCE), pre-dating...
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These Peruvian Women Left the Amazon, but Their Homeland Still Inspires Their Songs and Crafts
Sadith Silvano’s crafts are born from ancient songs. Brush in hand, eyes on the cloth, the Peruvian woman paints as she sings. And through her voice, her ancestors speak. “When we paint, we listen to the inspiration that comes from the music and connect to nature, to our elders,” said Silvano, 36, from her home...
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Oldest Known Alphabet Unearthed in Ancient Syrian City
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. The writing, which is dated to around 2400 BCE, precedes other known alphabetic scripts by roughly 500 years, upending what archaeologists know...
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Northerners, Scots and Irish Excel at Detecting Fake Accents to Guard Against Outsiders, Cambridge Study Suggests
People from Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin and the north-east of England are better at detecting someone imitating their accent than people from London and Essex, new research from the University of Cambridge has found. People from Belfast proved most able to detect someone faking their accent, while people from London, Essex and Bristol were least accurate....
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DNA Evidence Rewrites Histories for People Buried in Volcanic Eruption in Ancient Pompeii
In 79 CE, the active volcanic system in southern Italy known as Somma-Vesuvius erupted, burying the small Roman town of Pompeii and everyone in it. The “Pompeii eruption” covered everything in a layer of ash that preserved many of the bodies. Now, ancient DNA collected from the famed body casts alters the history that’s been...
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Have We Found All the Major Maya Cities? Not Even Close, New Research Suggests
Using laser-guided imaging to peer through dense jungle forests, Tulane University researchers have uncovered vast unexplored Maya settlements in Mexico and a better understanding of the ancient civilization’s extent and complexity. The new research, published in the journal Antiquity, was led by Tulane University anthropology doctoral student Luke Auld-Thomas and his advisor, Professor Marcello A. Canuto. The team used...
