Humans

A projectile point, made from the bone of a grey whale, from the Duruthy rock shelter in Landes, FranceAlexandre Lefebvre
Hunter-gatherers living along the shores of the Bay of Biscay crafted hunting tools from the bones of at least five different whale species 20,000 years ago, marking the oldest evidence of manufacturing objects from whale remains.
Although there is evidence of Neanderthals gathering and eating molluscs in what is now southern Spain around 150,000 years ago, current findings suggest that ancient humans didn’t regularly use coastal resources for food and raw materials until around 19,000 years ago… More

One of a child’s most important jobs is to make sense of the worldCavan Images/Alamy
Hello, Cruel World!Melinda Wenner Moyer (Headline Home (UK); G.P. Putnam’s Sons (US))
The unfortunate thing about parenting books is that, in my experience, once you become a parent you are too time-poor and exhausted to read them. As a result, my bedside table is stacked with parenting manuals of which I’ve read the first five pages a dozen times before passing out.
If this sounds like you, the latest book by science journalist Melinda Wenner Moyer should be top of your pile. … More

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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