The crystals growing inside a bone from an ancient deer-like animal helped scientists figure out the age of a prehistoric butchering site in China. And the new, older age for the site means that people there developed complex, creative tool-making techniques earlier than previously thought, during a harsh ice age-- challenging long-held ideas about early humanity at this site becoming creative thanks to warmer times of plenty.

Researchers have identified four more members of Sir John Franklin's 1845 expedition, one of whom was the subject of great debate lasting for more than a century.

Anthropologists from the Faculty of Arts at the University of Waterloo led the work that analyzed DNA samples extracted from skeletal remains and found matches with DNA donated by living descendants. These new discoveries bring the total number of identified sailors of the Franklin expedition to six.

Dasosaurus tocantinensis was about 20 meters long and lived approximately 120 million years ago. Its closest relative lived in present-day Spain.

An international research team led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and the Institut Català de Paleoecologia Humana i Evolució Social (IPHES-CERCA) has documented the highest-altitude prehistoric cave with evidence of intense human occupation known to date in the Pyrenees. The site, known as Cova 338, is located at 2,235 meters above sea level in the Núria Valley (Queralbs, Ripollès - Girona). The study documents recurrent human occupations spanning more than 5,000 years and provides some of the earliest evidence of copper-rich mineral exploitation in Western Europe. The results forces to rethink the role of high mountain environments in Pyrenean prehistoric societies.

In the past, scientists thought that prehistoric peoples only travelled briefly through high-altitude mountain areas, rather than staying to take advantage of their resources. But new evidence suggests that, starting about 5,500 years ago, a prehistoric community repeatedly climbed up to Cave 338, 2,235 meters above sea level in the Pyrenees, to collect and process malachite for copper — returning many times over thousands of years. Additional finds, including jewelry and remains from at least one child, suggest that much more remains to be found when excavations reopen this summer.  

An international research team led by anthropologist and population geneticist Professor Dr. Joachim Burger from the Institute of Organismic and Molecular Evolution at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz has now analysed genomes of individuals from the former Roman frontier zone between 400 and 700 AD in southern Germany. Their results provide unexpectedly detailed insights into a period of major transformation. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

Researchers at University of Tsukuba have developed a method to differentiate the topography of medieval mountain castles from that of natural ridges using airborne light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data. This method is expected to be useful for detecting historically modified terrain, such as archaeological sites in mountainous regions, as well as for assessing the extent of topographic modifications and estimating the potential risk of landslides on modified slopes.

Archaeologists have identified the earliest sustained human occupation in Highland Southern Africa, a site where humans first arrived 240,000 years ago.

U-M archaeologists study the changes in climate and river pattern that led to the success of an ancient city in Sudan.