In remote Northern Territory, most Aboriginal people have been buried in unmarked graves. Archaelogists are carrying out painstaking detective work to help communities find their loved ones’ remains.
How did civilization emerge from small groups of hunter-gatherers? Some archaeologists focus on cooperation as the vital ingredient – and find evidence for it in the form of feast-related artifacts.
Why was one gene mutation that affects hair, teeth, sweat glands and breasts ubiquitous among ice age Arctic people? New research points to the advantage it provided for ancestors of Native Americans.
Looting of Iraq’s national museum began on April 10, 2003. At least half of the artefacts taken remain missing and disturbingly, the illegal trade in stolen antiquities has grown in the years since.
Are DNA samples today’s version of the human skeletons that hung in 20th-century natural history museums? They can provide genetic revelations about our species’ history – but at an ethical price.
A mythical Amazonia of lost tribes or lost cities is easy to challenge on a factual basis, but such objections appear rather feeble in the face of the power of cliché.
The Franklin River campaign is commonly seen as a green victory; a fight for the right of ‘wilderness’ to exist. But archaeological research revealing the region’s deep Aboriginal history was crucial to it.