News and interest items related to archaeology
Human Footprints Across the Sands of Time
Two different papers describe two different human footprints of the past from two very different locations in space and time across the Americas.
News
300,000 Year Old Archaic Humans in China
Recently found 300,000 year old human remains said to “”foreshadow changes evident with modern human emergence.”
First: Complex Societies. Then: Moralizing Gods.
New research published in Nature Letters in March shows that complex societies nearly always precede the worship of moralizing gods.
Social Identity and Boundaries Probable Reasons for Cranial Modification in Eastern Europe
Recent work by archaeologists in Eastern Europe, including Georgia and Germany, suggests that the practice of cranial modification, introduced to the region by the Huns before the Migration Period was a means to convey social identity in borderland regions.
Recent Advances in Archaeological Sciences-March 2019
Strontium ratios may need to be reassessed in some reference maps and DNA from historic artifacts show ancestry
Birka Warrior Confirmed Viking Female
A current paper in Antiquity reinforces and confirms that the Birka warrior grave identified in 2017 as a female Viking is, in fact, female.
European and Mediterranean megaliths may have a common origin
Bayesian statistical analysis of 2,410 radiocarbon dates shows some interesting patterns concerning the spread of megalithic architecture.
Technology once thought adopted by Egyptians may have been innovated by them instead
Russian archaeologist, Alexander Belov, has concluded that Ancient Egyptians may have actually invented certain sailing technologies on their own rather than adopting them from other Mediterranean countries as previously thought.
Climate change may have played a significant role in the collapse of the Akkadian Empire
New research reveals a striking correlation between climate change and large-scale settlement abandonment in North Mesopotamia.
The National Museum of Brazil Fire – a tragedy for all
On their website today, the banner with the words, “1818-2018 momento de união e de reconstuir” (1818-2018 a time of union and rebuilding) takes on […]