Archaeology

Analysis and Comment (12)

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Cut from the sea bed this 20m long core contains 100,000 years of climate history. Ian Hall

Humans have a long history of coming together to solve a climate crisis

By Ian Hall, Cardiff University

Responding to a crisis often brings out the best in people. Certainly it has in the past, when sudden changes in climate during the Middle Stone Age sparked off surges of cultural evolution and innovation…
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Figures regarding the original population of Australia may be way off. WanderingtheWorld (www.LostManProject.com)

Australia’s colonisation was no accident, say the numbers

By Alan Williams

Like many people, I grew up believing Australia was colonised by a small band of people, who had most likely landed on its shores by accident; but research I published this week suggests a far larger founding…
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Fossils found in Queensland have added another gigantic creature to Australia’s prehistoric mammals. Peter Schouten/PloSONE

Fossils reveal Australia’s tree-top heavyweight herbivore

By Karen Black

In Australia today, the biggest tree-dwelling mammals are our iconic and much loved koala and the enigmatic Bennett’s tree-kangaroo. The largest males of both species weigh a mere 14 kg. But a study of…
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There’s not much left to show megafauna were hunted, but that doesn’t prove they weren’t. Peter Murray

Hunting or climate change? Megafauna extinction debate narrows

By Christopher Johnson, University of Tasmania

What is the oldest debate in Australian science? Probably, the argument over what caused extinction of our Pleistocene megafauna – the diprotodons, giant kangaroos, marsupial tapirs, über-echidnas and…
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The amateur radio satellite, Australis Oscar V, is an important part of our spacefaring history. Alice Gorman

Saving space junk, our cultural heritage in orbit

By Alice Gorman, Flinders University

A few weeks ago astronauts on the International Space Station hid in escape capsules following concerns a piece of space junk was going to collide with the station. The collision didn’t eventuate but…
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Bones recovered from northern Ethiopia have forced a major rethink about how bipedalism evolved. Lars Plougmann

Ancient toe gets a foothold in bipedal evolution

By Darren Curnoe

A report published today in Nature by Yohannes Hailie-Selassie and co-workers outlines the importance to our evolutionary story of some very ancient foot bones discovered recently in the Rift Valley of…
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Looking at the earth from above can reveal incredible secrets. delayed gratification

Googling the past: how I uncovered prehistoric remains from my office

By David Kennedy, University of Western Australia

Archaeology is the study of the remains of the past but has long been predatory on the sciences and their ever-growing technologies. I was brought up as a student in 1970s Britain, when we learned of the…
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Genetic estimates of the age of the common ancestor of non-African humans may be wrong. bruncosta

Out of Africa, only to die … new clues on early human migration

By Peter Hiscock

How and when did humans colonise the globe? This question has become one of the key concerns of archaeologists, geneticists and human biologists. And now the latest archaeological discovery in Oman in…
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We are still learning about the Mongolian invasions, 750 years after they happened. Hanoi History Museum, James Delgado

The original kamikaze: Kublai Khan’s invasion shipwreck found?

By Mark Staniforth, Monash University

Archaeologists from the University of the Ryukyus in Japan have discovered part of a 13th century ship that apparently belonged to Mongolian warlord Kublai Khan. The ship is believed to be a remnant of…
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Infamous street artist Banksy’s precursors have been found in South Africa. Lord Jim

Birth of bling: world’s first art studio found in South Africa

By Peter Hiscock

Could we have found the first artist’s studio in human history? We may well have. We all recognise the material signs of wealth. Fast cars, large yachts and sparkling bling all tell us who has more. Crowns…

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Ancient fortress uncovered

University of Cincinnati

The remnants of a Late Bronze Age (1500-750 B.C.) fortress that may have protected an important urban economic centre has…

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