Ancient chewing gum provides DNA clues
Masticated birch bark points to hunter-gatherer migrations.
Human DNA extracted from lumps of 10,000-year-old chewing gum is helping to unravel early settlement patterns in Scan...
Anthropology
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Indian island settlers came from far and wide
The people of Lakshadweep have evidence of a seafaring past.
People living on Lakshadweep, an archipelago off the south-western coast of India in the Arabian Sea, are genetically...
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A bag of godly goodies
Fox-snout pouch reveals shamanic meds.
This pouch, made from three fox snouts expertly sewn together, is about 1000 years old, and when it was placed inside...
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The origins of Sino-Tibetan languages
Analysis pinpoints start of the second largest language groups.
One of the most diverse language families in the world originated among millet farmers in North China around 7200 yea...
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Cherokee texts still have much to teach
Writing system encodes the sorrow of Native Americans.
Working deep underground in a vast cavern system in modern-day Alabama, in the south-eastern United States, scientist...
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That must have hurt coming out
Fang in fossil faeces prompts question about human diet.
As every researcher knows, a sample size of one is a dangerous thing. A single example might represent something very...
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English is a weird language
Linguists have found English to be among the strangest.
Is English “weird”? Many of us might feel this is true when we’re trying to explain the complex spelling rules of the...
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The sands of time are soaked in urine
Soil salts provides estimates for the beginnings of farming.
Scientists sifting through dirt from a 10,000-year-old archaeological site in central Turkey are seeking a rare treas...
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Origin of drinking horns a hit and myth affair
Genetics reveal that auroch bulls weren’t always pure-bred.
Aurochs, the huge, horned ancestors of modern cows, roamed Europe, Asia and North Africa for millennia before being d...
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Deformities found in ancient human remains
Analysis of Pleistocene people finds a wide range of problems.
Analysis of remains from 66 ancient humans reveals that they suffered from an astonishing number of physical deformit...
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Ancient American lineages reunited
Genetic evidence overturns single origin theory.
A new study suggests a commonly held belief – that the majority of Native North, Central and South Americans derived ...
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The revelation of the mother
Researchers use descendant DNA to close in on the lost origins.
In a world first, a portion of an individual’s genome has been reconstructed from those of their living descendants, ...