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Articles on Anthropology

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Footprints, preserved in solidified ash, hint at human behavior from as long as 19,000 years ago. Cynthia Liutkus-Pierce

Prehistoric human footprints reveal a rare snapshot of ancient human group behavior

The footprints of over 20 different prehistoric people, pressed into volcanic ash thousands of years ago in Tanzania, show possible evidence for sexual division of labor in this ancient community.
Considered one of the healthiest ways to eat, the Mediterranean diet has evolved over hundreds of years, but ignoring other diets is a form of cultural superiority. Shutterstock

How the Mediterranean diet became No. 1 — and why that’s a problem

Olive oil, grapes and fish. There’s a lot to love about the Mediterranean diet but focusing on it might be a way to exclude other healthy and global diets.
Researchers May Nango, Djaykuk Djandjomerr and S. Anna Florin collecting plants in Kakadu National Park. Reproduced with permission of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation. Elspeth Hayes

65,000-year-old plant remains show the earliest Australians spent plenty of time cooking

Charred plant remains from one of the oldest archaeological sites reveal that the first Australians ate a varied - and sometimes labour-intensive - diet.
Imitation is the sincerest form of being human? Rawpixel.com/Shutterstock.com

Being copycats might be key to being human

A quirk of psychology that affects the way people learn from others may have helped unlock the complicated technologies and rituals that human culture hinges on.
20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space. Manuel Domínguez-Rodrigo

Archaeological discoveries are happening faster than ever before, helping refine the human story

20 years ago, who could predict how much more researchers would know today about the human past – let alone what they could learn from a thimble of dirt, a scrape of dental plaque, or satellites in space.
The emotion of lassitude might help your body fight off infection by making certain adjustments. Kalinka Georgieva/Shutterstock.com

Feeling sick is an emotion meant to help you get better faster

Fighting off infection comes with predictable psychological and behavioral features. Now researchers suggest an emotion coordinates this response to help you get better. They call it ‘lassitude.’
A schoolteacher in the midst of receiving a full pe'a, the traditional Samoan tattoo generally worn by males. Christopher Lynn

Untangling tattoos’ influence on immune response

An anthropologist works in American Samoa, taking advantage of the island’s longstanding tattoo culture to tease out the effects tattoos have on the body’s immune function.
People have been modifying Earth – as in these rice terraces near Pokhara, Nepal – for millennia. Erle C. Ellis

Surveying archaeologists across the globe reveals deeper and more widespread roots of the human age, the Anthropocene

Hundreds of archaeologists provided on-the-ground data from across the globe, providing a new view of the long and varied history of people transforming Earth’s environment.
Is privacy what you can’t see, or where you don’t look? Kamil Macniak/Shutterstock.com

What’s private depends on who you are and where you live

Privacy starts with the body and extends to digital data. There are few rules governing what companies can do – yet people can’t effectively protect their own privacy.

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