Humans

Ħaġar Qim, a megalithic temple complex in southern MaltaFelix Choo / Alamy Stock Photo
Several 5000-year-old temples in Malta seem to have been oriented towards specific stars, suggesting the temples could have been schools for celestial navigation.
Ancient people constructed seven temples across the Maltese archipelago from 3800 to 2300 BC. Fashioned from large, cut stones weighing several tonnes, the complexes are among the earliest megalithic structures ever built.

“Most researchers agree that the temples display features associated with ritual behaviour,” says Huw Groucutt at the… More

Children can display empathy before they are old enough to talkMStudioImages/Getty Images
Children between 9 and 18 months old already demonstrate empathy, suggesting this ability starts at an earlier age than previously thought, even for babies from different cultural backgrounds.

“If I don’t understand your emotions, I can’t communicate with you and I can’t respond to your emotions, so it’s an essential skill – but we only know how it develops in a small part of the world,” says Carlo Vreden at the Leibniz… More

What are we learning from the genomes of chimps and other apes?S.Tuengler/inafrica.de/Alamy
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.
One of the most vexing unsolved problems in human evolution is its starting point – about which we know almost nothing.
I’m referring to the last common ancestor that we share with chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest living relatives. This mystery ape lived millions of years ago; at some point, the population split into two. One group gave rise to modern-day chimps… More

Some, but not all, ancient humans reacted to a cooling event by migratingHENNING DALHOFF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Roughly 4000 years after the last glacial period, hunter-gatherers faced another bout of sudden climate change that forced them to rapidly adapt to a much colder world.
While not as frigid or long-lasting as the final stages of the last glacial period, which ended about 11,700 years ago, the 8.2 ka cooling event still caused temperatures to plummet by as much as 6°C (10.8°F) within decades. At the same time, a land mass the size of Scotland broke away from the Norwegian continental… More

Some, but not all, ancient humans reacted to a cooling event by migratingHENNING DALHOFF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY
Roughly 4000 years after the last glacial period, hunter-gatherers faced another bout of sudden climate change that forced them to rapidly adapt to a much colder world.
While not as frigid or long-lasting as the final stages of the last glacial period, which ended about 11,700 years ago, the 8.2 ka cooling event still caused temperatures to plummet by as much as 6°C (10.8°F) within decades. At the same time, a land mass the size of Scotland broke away from the Norwegian continental… More

From Raiders of the Lost Ark to Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, films about archaeologists have long captured the public imagination, offering thrilling quests to uncover the hidden histories of humanity’s ancient past. But how accurately do these cinematic adventures reflect the real work of scientists in the field?
Palaeoanthropologist Ella Al-Shamahi has mixed feelings about cinema’s most iconic portrayals. There are some good depictions, she says, and a fair few not-so-good.
Take Lara Croft, protagonist of the Tomb Raider series, for instance. While well intentioned, she’s in it for the shiny things more than items of scientific value, says Al-Shamahi. Archaeological sites rarely contain treasure; it’s the tiny, carefully collected details that tell the story of past lives. Modern archaeology is about analysis and context, not explosions and looting. With guns blazing and dynamite flying, Lara Croft might be entertaining, but she would destroy the very history she’s supposedly trying to uncover.
Then there’s Indiana Jones, the most iconic fictional archaeologist of all. He’s got the whip, the hat and the gun, but he’s missing the most essential tools of the trade: a trowel, some notebooks and a methodical approach. Surprisingly, argues Al Shamahi, the Nazis in the films are shown doing more textbook archaeology, carefully digging through each soil layer. Still, when it comes to the spirit of archaeology, Indy takes the prize for his curiosity, adventure and passion for the past.Advertisement

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The megalithic graveyard of Carrowkeel in Sligo, Irelandscenicireland.com/Christopher Hill Photographic/Alamy
Ireland’s megalithic tombs might not have been burial grounds for elite dynasties, as some thought, but rather places of community bonding.
In 2020, researchers found genetic links among dozens of people in ancient tombs scattered across Ireland and evidence of incest in a man buried in an elaborate sepulchre, leading them to conclude that the tombs held members of a hereditary ruling class, somewhat akin to Egyptian pharaohs.

Like many archaeologists, Jessica Smyth… More

Charging an electric vehicle at night can reduce the demand on the power gridifeelstock/Alamy
A small financial reward can persuade many electric vehicle owners to charge their electric cars during off-peak nighttime hours – even when behavioural nudges fail to have the same effect.
That is the finding of a real-world trial that demonstrated how modest monetary incentives can ease the demand on power grids during peak usage hours. Such flexibility could be crucial as the number of people driving electric vehicles continues to grow worldwide.
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“Offering an incentive to shift charging to the off-peak hours clearly reduced peak hours charging by 50 per cent, with a commensurate increase in off-peak hours charging,” says Blake Shaffer at the University of Calgary in Canada.
He and his colleagues enlisted 200 electric vehicle owners in Calgary and randomly split them into three groups. One received a financial incentive equivalent to 3.5 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity use – roughly equivalent to $10 per month – if they charged their cars at home between 10 pm and 6 am, a period when electricity demand on the grid is usually lower. A second group only received a behavioural nudge consisting of information on the societal benefits of charging their electric cars during off-peak hours. A third group acted as a control, merely monitored to track baseline charging habits.
Surprisingly, the behavioural nudge strategy proved “completely ineffective”, says Shaffer. “Just asking them to do it out of the goodness of their heart didn’t show a strong enough effect.” But he suggests that more frequent reminders beyond the initial notice might have been more successful.
By comparison, the financial reward significantly shifted charging times – but only as long as people kept receiving money. Any reward cutoff led them to immediately revert to their old charging habits.
“The analysis does a convincing job of showing how a small financial incentive can really affect electric vehicle charging behaviour,” says Kenneth Gillingham at Yale University. Such incentives may have seemed like “easy money” because charging vehicles at night wasn’t too inconvenient, he says.
This is important because “many grids would need substantial upgrades” if growing numbers of electric vehicles are charging earlier in the evening, during peak demand hours, says Andrea La Nauze at Deakin University in Australia. Her own research has shown how financial incentives can encourage Australian electric car owners to charge during the day, when solar power is delivering maximum electricity to the grid.
Meanwhile, some utility companies – such as Con Edison and Orange & Rockland in New York – have already begun offering similar incentive programmes for off-peak charging.

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