How do archaeologists know where to dig?

Archaeologists used to dig primarily at sites that were easy to find thanks to obvious visual clues. But technology – and listening to local people – plays a much bigger role now.

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architecture archaeology citizen-science maya lidar remote-sensing indigenous-knowledge curiosity belize archaeologists excavation archaeological-dig land-surveying traditional-indigenous-knowledge

When did humans first go to war?

A war with Neanderthals makes a compelling narrative but the evidence is limited is best.

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archaeology neanderthals fossils war homo-sapiens

Did prehistoric women hunt? New research suggests so

New research is challenging the hypothesis that men did the hunting in prehistoric societies.

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archaeology women hunting hunter-gatherer pleistocene-era

Cahokian culture spread across eastern North America 1,000 years ago in an early example of diaspora

Five centuries before Columbus arrived, migrants were spreading across North America, carrying their culture with them and mixing with those they encountered in new places.

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anthropology archaeology native-americans human-migration diaspora pre-columbian

Turbulent environment set the stage for leaps in human evolution and technology 320,000 years ago

A new environmental record for a prehistoric site in Kenya helped researchers figure out how external conditions influenced which of our ancient ancestors lived there, with what way of life.

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anthropology human-evolution archaeology fossils homo-sapiens paleoanthropology stone-tools human-origins middle-stone-age ancient-sediments human-fossils sediment sediment-cores

Archaeologists determined the step-by-step path taken by the first people to settle the Caribbean islands

Did people settle these islands by traveling north from South America, or in the other direction? Reanalyzing data from artifacts discovered decades ago provides a definitive answer.

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archaeology caribbean cuba radiocarbon-dating jamaica islands human-migration trinidad human-settlements artifacts human-settlement

Ancient DNA is revealing the genetic landscape of people who first settled East Asia

By studying the DNA of people who lived in East Asia thousands of years ago, scientists are starting to untangle how the region was populated.

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ancient-dna hunter-gatherers china agriculture archaeology genes genomics southeast-asia rice adna siberia paleoanthropology human-migration east-asia hunter-gatherer start-of-agriculture paleogenomics

When did we become fully human? What fossils and DNA tell us about the evolution of modern intelligence

Artefacts suggest a ‘great leap’, a recent evolution of modern intelligence. Fossils and DNA argue that’s an illusion.

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evolution anthropology human-evolution archaeology fossils intelligence