New scholarship by University of Kansas anthropologist Justin Holcomb argues physical artifacts of human exploration on Mars deserve cataloging, preservation and care in order to chronicle humanity’s first attempts at interplanetary exploration.

Analysis of the remains of at least 37 individuals from Early Bronze Age England finds they were killed, butchered, and probably consumed before being thrown down a 15m-deep shaft.

It is the largest-scale example of interpersonal violence from British prehistory.

The treatment of the remains was likely a means to dehumanise or ‘other’ the victims.

This massacre was probably revenge for a perceived offense, implying a cycle of violence and questioning the idea that Early Bronze Age Britain was relatively peaceful.

A research group led by Johannes Müller at the Institute of Prehistoric and Protohistoric Archaeology, at Kiel University, Germany, have shed light on the lives of people who lived over 5,600 years ago near Kosenivka, Ukraine. Published on December 11, 2024, in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the researchers present the first detailed bioarchaeological analyses of human diets from this area and provide estimations on the causes of death of the individuals found at this site.

A cave in Galilee, Israel, has yielded evidence for ritualistic gathering 35,000 years ago, the earliest on the Asian continent. Case Western Reserve University and Israeli researchers published their findings today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A research team led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona has made exceptional discoveries on prehistoric archery from the early Neolithic period, 7,000 years ago. The well organic preservation of the remains of the Cave of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada, made it possible for scientists to identify the oldest bowstrings in Europe, which were made from the tendons of three animal species. The use of olive and reed wood and birch bark pitch in the making of arrows reveals an unprecedented degree of precision and technical mastery, as highlighted in the study, published in Scientific Reports. The discoveries redefine the limits of our knowledge about the earliest agricultural societies in Europe and provide a unique view on ancestral archery materials and practices.