A close look at 7,000-year-old grinding stones left in ancient firepits shows wandering herders in northern Saudi Arabia carried heavy tools for working on bones, plants and rocks.
The reburied remains of the ‘founding father’.
Photograph by S. Rottier.
In the largest study of its kind, researchers have used DNA from a 6,700-year-old cemetery in France to reconstruct the lives of everyday Neolithic people.
Around 400 local children have been involved in this archaeological project in Cardiff, Wales.
Vivian Paul Thomas
Since 2011, professional and amateur archaeologists in Cardiff have been unearthing prehistoric artefacts. But last summer, they began to discover something even more extraordinary.
Combining evidence from archaeology, geochronology and paleoenvironmental science, researchers identified how ancient humans by Lake Malawi were the first to substantially modify their environment.
Virtual ideal reconstruction of Mtoto’s position in the burial pit.
Jorge González/Elena Santos
Stone working is one of the most successful technologies used by humans, from 3.3 million years ago to the present day. So don’t think its “primitive”.
By about 320,000 years ago, humans in Kenya began using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools.
Human Origins Program, Smithsonian
Scandinavia was populated by two main migrations, making its first inhabitants more genetically diverse and adapted to harsh climates than those in the rest of Europe.
Tapping into ancient DNA can help us understand ancient humans’ movements and lives.
Illustration: Marlize Lombard, Maryna Steyn and Anders Högberg
Archaeology is not only about stones and bones: it is mainly about the people of the past. DNA is one way to get from the stones and the bones to the people and their stories.
The owner of this skull had a nasty run in with an axe.
Christian Meyer