Ancient stone tools trace Paleolithic Pacific migration
Peer-Reviewed Publication
Updates every hour. Last Updated: 15-Dec-2025 13:11 ET (15-Dec-2025 18:11 GMT/UTC)
A new analysis of stone tools offers strong evidence for the theory that ancient people from the Pacific Rim traveled a coastal route from East Asia during the last ice age to become North America’s First Peoples, according to a paper published this week.
In the heart of the ancient Roman city of Gabii, located just 11 miles east of Rome, a team of archaeologists led by University of Missouri professor Marcello Mogetta has made a remarkable discovery: the remains of a massive stone-lined basin, partly carved directly into the bedrock.
Built around 250 B.C., with evidence that some parts may be even older, this man-made structure may be one of the earliest examples of Roman monumental architecture other than temples and city walls.
Why move to a city? And why leave? Urban centers today see populations ebb and flow for a multitude of reasons — the economy, crowds, lifestyle considerations, air quality, the odd pandemic perhaps.
Turns out it’s sort of always been that way.
Griffith researchers built and tested a digital archaeology framework to learn more about the ancient humans who created one of the oldest forms of rock art, finger fluting.
Finger flutings are marks drawn by fingers through a soft mineral film called moonmilk on cave walls.
Experiments were conducted - both with adult participants in a tactile setup and using VR headsets in a custom-built program - to explore whether image-recognition methods could learn enough from finger-fluting images made by modern people to identify the sex of the person who created them.