Humans

A close-up shot of the cuneiform script on an ancient column (below)The Trustees of the British Museum
The Mesopotamian RiddleJoshua Hammer (Simon & Schuster)
What does it take to decipher an extinct writing system? If Joshua Hammer’s new book The Mesopotamian Riddle: An archaeologist, a soldier, a clergyman, and the race to decipher the world’s oldest writing is anything to go by, the main requirements are some ethically dubious archaeological digs and a lot of rampaging testosterone.
The book is Hammer’s account of the deciphering of cuneiform, the oldest known writing system. Cuneiform was invented in around 3400 BC in Mesopotamia. It was used for… More

Afyonkarahisar, the capital of the central Anatolia region of TurkeyDaphnusia images/Shutterstock
This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month.
Every so often, I’m reminded of a truly startling fact. It is possible to travel from the UK, where I live, east through Europe into Ukraine and western Russia (maybe don’t do this bit), cross the Caspian Sea, then carry on east all the way to India – and always speak to people whose language belongs to the same family.
That’s… More

Mudlarking, once a trade of the Victorian poor, has evolved into a modern-day hobby that captivates everyday Londoners and history enthusiasts. What began as a desperate means of survival, scouring the Thames foreshore for anything of value, has become a way to connect with the city’s deep and layered past.
In London Museum’s new exhibition, Secrets of the Thames, over 350 artefacts recovered from the river’s muddy banks, many on public display for the first time, are brought together to tell a remarkable story. Visitors are invited to step into the world of the mudlarks: amateur archaeologists, urban explorers and passionate storytellers who uncover fragments of daily life spanning centuries.
“What mudlarks do is really important to preserve history as soon as it’s found,” says Alessio Chicconi, a palaeontologist who has unearthed thousands of artefacts since taking up mudlarking during lockdown.
The Thames is uniquely suited to mudlarking. The river’s tidal nature, rising and falling twice daily, constantly stirs and reshapes the foreshore, periodically revealing and concealing layers of history. Its anaerobic mud slows the decay of organic materials like leather and wood, creating rare opportunities for preservation. The result is a time capsule stretching from prehistoric flint tools to 17th-century shoes.Advertisement
Beyond the tangible finds, what draws many mudlarks back to the river is a deep sense of connection to Britons of the past. “It’s quite incredible when we find these objects, to think that I am the first person to touch it in 4000 years,” says Chicconi. Each item, no matter how ordinary it might seem, holds the story of a life once lived and offers a glimpse into everyday moments. It invites an appreciation for the supposedly mundane: a clay pipe, a pin, a shard of pottery. And in the quiet ritual of searching the foreshore, Secrets of the Thames reveals not just the artefacts left behind, but the timeless human desire to be remembered. As Chicconi puts it, “History will find a way to bring up your name.”  
London Museum’s Secrets of the Thames exhibition is open until 1 Mar 2026.

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A mammoth skeleton at the State Museum for Natural History in Stuttgart, GermanyDANIEL NAUPOLD/dpa/Alamy
Archaeologists excavating 400,000-year-old rock in western Ukraine have uncovered fragments of what could be the oldest human-made ivory objects ever found. These artefacts would have been too soft to use as cutting tools, but they could have been used as teaching aids, the researchers suggest.
“If the interpretations are correct, they add to an apparently increasing appreciation of the intelligence of pre-modern humans,” says Gary Haynes at the University of Nevada. More

A mammoth skeleton at the State Museum for Natural History in Stuttgart, GermanyDANIEL NAUPOLD/dpa/Alamy
Archaeologists excavating 400,000-year-old rock in western Ukraine have uncovered fragments of what could be the oldest human-made ivory objects ever found. These artefacts would have been too soft to use as cutting tools, but they could have been used as teaching aids, the researchers suggest.
“If the interpretations are correct, they add to an apparently increasing appreciation of the intelligence of pre-modern humans,” says Gary Haynes at the University of Nevada. More

A mammoth skeleton at the State Museum for Natural History in Stuttgart, GermanyDANIEL NAUPOLD/dpa/Alamy
Archaeologists excavating 400,000-year-old rock in western Ukraine have uncovered fragments of what could be the oldest human-made ivory objects ever found. These artefacts would have been too soft to use as cutting tools, but they could have been used as teaching aids, the researchers suggest.
“If the interpretations are correct, they add to an apparently increasing appreciation of the intelligence of pre-modern humans,” says Gary Haynes at the University of Nevada. More

The drive to explore has taken humans to most of the habitable planetMarco Bottigelli/Getty Images
The Explorer’s GeneAlex Hutchinson (Mariner Books (UK, 10 April; US, on sale now))
Approximately 50,000 years ago, our ancestors – the first modern humans – set out from their African homeland in droves. We don’t know for sure what prompted this mass uprooting (sometimes known as “the Great Human Expansion”), but our species’ staggering geographic spread is proof of its success.
In relatively short order, humans made it to more or less “every habitable corner of the planet”, writes Alex Hutchinson, a journalist,… More

The thigh and shin bones of Paranthropus robustusJason L. Heaton
A fossilised left leg unearthed in South Africa belongs to one of the smallest adult hominins ever discovered – smaller even than the so-called “hobbit”, Homo floresiensis.
The diminutive hominin was a member of the species Paranthropus robustus. This was one of several species of Paranthropus, a group of ape-like hominins that shared the African landscape with the earliest representatives of our human genus, Homo, between about 2.7 and 1.2 million years ago. Paranthropus had heavily built skulls that housed small brains and large teeth – which some species… More