Livestock, like these goats in the Rift Valley of Tanzania, are critical to household economies in East Africa.
Katherine Grillo
Pastoralism is a central part of many Africans’ identity. But how and when did this way of life get started on the continent? Ancient DNA can reveal how herding populations spread.
The National Museum of Iraq photographed in February 2018. Many of the pieces discovered at the ruins of Ur, arranged and labelled by Ennigaldi-Nanna, can be found here.
Wikimedia Commons
Ennigaldi-Nanna is largely unknown in the modern day. But in 530BC, this Mesopotamian priestess worked to arrange and label various artefacts in the world’s first museum.
Stucco frieze from Placeres, Campeche, Mexico, Early Classic period, c. 250-600 AD.
Wolfgang Sauber/Wikimedia
Many people think climate change caused Classic Maya civilization to collapse abruptly around 900 A.D. An archaeologist says that view is too simplistic and misses the bigger point.
A Syrian archeologist holds an artifact that was transported to Damascus for safe-keeping during the Syrian Civil War.
AP Photo/Hassan Ammar
According to a new study, a small portion of a site can yield thousands of objects, adding up to millions of dollars.
A 3D recreation of a recently discovered Neanderthal tooth.
Joshua Lindal
A Neanderthal tooth was discovered in Serbia. This finding helps to fill gaps in the human fossil record of this important geographical region.
Experimentally heated quartzite at different stages of heating.
Bentsen and Wurz, 2019, Journal of Field Archaeology
Researchers can more easily compare heated rocks from different studies and areas.
A Motu trading ship with its characteristic crab claw shaped sails. Taken in the period 1903-1904.
Trustees of The British Museum
It has often been assumed that Australia was essentially isolated until 1788. But research into the seagoing trade on the south coast of Papua New Guinea suggests otherwise.
Callao Cave on Luzon Island in The Philippines, where the fossils of Homo luzonensis were discovered.
Callao Cave Archaeology Project (Florent Détroit)
Reports say that a new species of ancient human has been identified in a cave in The Philippines. But only a few bone and teeth fossil fragments have been found, so far.
Paranthropus robustus.
Guérin Nicolas/wikipedia.
Teeth covered in pits were common in the 2m-year-old species Paranthropus robustus.
Doonagore Castle, which Cadbury incorrectly identified as Mooghaun Fort in its ad campaign.
Shutterstock.
A swift response from the heritage community prevented damage to sites of national heritage.
The hall of the reconstructed Iron Age house at Ullandhaug, Stavanger.
© Marianne Hem Eriksen
The Viking Age but not as you know it.
New technology means accessing new information from ancient human remains, some which have been in collections for decades.
Duckworth Laboratory
Ancient DNA allows scientists to learn directly from the remains of people from the past. As this new field takes off, researchers are figuring out how to ethically work with ancient samples and each other.
The tattoo tools from Tonga (left to right) made from bird, human, bird and human bone respectively.
Author provided
Tattooing tools made and used 2,700 years ago include two blades made on human bone.
Our brains evolved in a world without reading.
Semnic/Shutterstock
Reading and writing may have evolved thanks to a natural ability of the brain’s visual cortex to process geometrical shapes.
Out in the field.
Charlotte Roberts
Learning is not just for young people – it can help older people lead fulfilling lives in their twilight years.
Kevin Standage/Shutterstock
Let’s worry about the future of Brexit, not its prehistory.
Kelly Wiltshire and Ngarrindjeri elder Major Sumner examine middens damaged by off-road vehicle use.
The Coorong’s Indigenous heritage is threatened by off-road vehicles and climate change.
Mamsizz via Shutterstock
Archaeologists have found cloves and black pepper corns they believe to be more than 1,000 years old at a site in Sri Lanka.
Alexander Maksimov/Shutterstock.com
Male monks were not the sole producers of books throughout the Middle Ages.
King Naram-Sin of Akkad, grandson of Sargon, leading his army to victory.
Rama / Louvre
Scientists have discovered new evidence of a drought that finished off the Akkadian Empire 4,000 years ago.