Our new study reveals a mosaic of habitable landscapes – now submerged by the ocean – once supported up to 500,000 people living in Australia’s northwest.
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Articles on Archaeology
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Rock art from a Malagasy cave hints at some remarkable cultural connections.
Historians know a fair bit about Herod the Great, the king of Judea at the time of Jesus’ birth.
A new study unlocks the mysteries of ancient burial marker trees made by Wiradjuri people in southeastern Australia.
Female bodies have an advantage in endurance ability that means Paleolithic women likely hunted game, not just gathered plants. The story is written in living and ancient human bodies.
It is unusual to find a tomb so intact and so well preserved.
For a decade, debate has raged over Dark Emu’s account of Aboriginal agriculture. But ancient food production in Australia is more complex than labels like farming or hunter-gathering suggest.
Mineralogical analysis of 5,000-year-old stone beads from Turkana, Kenya suggest a novel mortuary tradition by early pastoralists.
A changing climate, humans and fire were a deadly combination for the big animals that used to roam southern California. Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Archaeologists have discovered two 7,000-year-old tiger shark teeth that were once part of ritual or fighting blades on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi.
Archaeological data alone can’t always help to answer researchers’ questions: multiple lines of evidence are needed.
What could the extinction of Neanderthals tell us about our own species? An archaeologist explains in The Conversation Weekly podcast.
Experts speculated that very early humans worked wood, but previously didn’t have the evidence.
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.
Skeletons found with items that don’t align with their estimated sex are usually excluded from research – but that assumes a 19th century view of gender.
Experts insist there is no scientific reason for allowing these fossils to travel to space.
Maui officials have asked relatives to provide DNA samples to help identify victims of the Lahaina wildfires. Time and exposure to the elements, however, can make DNA retrieval from remains difficult.
A technique called portable X-ray fluorescence has helped Egyptologists identify changes and adjustments to details of tomb decoration that are invisible to the human eye.
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.
Machu Picchu is now an iconic tourist destination in Peru – but it was once a royal palace that pulled people from all corners of the Inca empire.
Top contributors
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Associate Professor of Archaeology, Griffith University
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Honorary Associate Professor, UNSW Sydney
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Australian Research Council Future Fellow, Archaeology, School of Social Science, The University of Queensland
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Assistant Curator of Human Evolution., University of Alberta
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Head, Public Engagement, Chau Chak Wing Museum, University of Sydney
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Professor of Environmental and Geographical Sciences, Bournemouth University
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Director, Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University
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Associate Professor and Director, Flinders Microarchaeology Laboratory, Flinders University
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Associate Professor of Anthropology, Rice University
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Professor, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology
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Director, ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage (CABAH), University of Wollongong
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Professor, Southern Cross University
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Claire Smith is a Friend of The Conversation.
Professor of Archaeology, College of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, Flinders University
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Associate Professor in Archaeology and Space Studies, Flinders University
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Postdoctoral researcher, Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH)
