Natural History Museum and University of Cambridge researchers have discovered a new species of ancient symbiotic fungus in a 407-million-year-old Scottish plant fossil, offering rare 3D insight into early mycorrhizal partnerships.

Archaeologist Catherine Teitz explores how Roman architecture and everyday life along Hadrian’s Wall evolved over the centuries – and how old excavation records can still yield new insights. She values the strong Roman heritage research network in the Rhine-Main region and lends support to early-career researchers in her field.

The production of El Argar pottery was organized in specialised workshops located next to specific clay deposits, far from the main centres of power, according to a new study lead by UAB researchers and published in in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This production model reinforces the existence of a complex, hierarchical, supra-local organisation in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula during the Bronze Age.

Center for the Recovery and Identification of the Missing helps recover servicemen missing in Laos.

New research from the University of Sydney has uncovered compelling evidence that brings us closer to solving the mystery behind one of the most unique archaeological sites in the Andes. Monte Sierpe (translated as ‘serpent mountain’ and known colloquially as the ‘Band of Holes’) is located in the Pisco Valley of southern Peru and consists of over 5000 precisely aligned holes. This striking, yet puzzling, site has baffled researchers and public audiences for decades.  

To shed new light on this ambiguous feature of Peru’s ancient landscape, an international research team led by Dr Bongers combined microbotanical analysis of sediment samples from the holes with high-resolution aerial imagery, presenting new insights into Monte Sierpe’s organisation and use at both micro and macro scales. Sediment analysis and drone photography of Monte Sierpe supports a new interpretation of this mysterious landscape feature as an Indigenous barter marketplace and accounting system.

A study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London has found that humans have a form of remote touch, or the ability to sense objects without direct contact, a sense that some animals have.  

Human touch is typically understood as a proximal sense, limited to what we physically touch. However, recent findings in animal sensory systems have challenged this view. Certain shorebirds, such as sandpipers and plovers, use a form of “remote touch” to detect prey hidden beneath the sand (du Toit et al. 2020; de Fouw et al. 2016). Remote touch allows the detection of objects buried under granular materials through subtle mechanical cues transmitted through the medium, when a moving pressure is applied nearby. 

  The study in IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) investigated whether humans share a similar capability. Participants moved their fingers gently through sand to locate a hidden cube before physically touching it. Remarkably, the results revealed a comparable ability to that seen in shorebirds, despite humans lacking the specialized beak structures that enable this sense in birds.