A group of scientists in Germany have studied a type of black pitch named birch tar (sometimes called birch bark pitch), claimed to be the “oldest synthetic substance made by early humans”. This substance has been found in Neanderthal sites and was used as an adhesive in tools and artefacts. It also has waterproofing and […]
An international team of scientists have compiled data from studies of human remains in 180 archaeological sites in Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden, dated between around 8000 – 4000 years ago – believed to be the time when farming replaced hunter-gathering in Europe. They found evidence of many head injuries from blunt […]
When archaeologists find buried human skeletons in an excavation they are usually able to identify them as male or female according to their bone structure and DNA. The Black Trowel Collective of American, a group identifying themselves as “anarchist archaeologists,” are now claiming that “archaeologists must centre the fluidity of gender in their archaeological practice”. […]
Stone tools show lush green Arabia, according to Science (AAAS) News 1 September 2021 and Science Alert 2 September 2021 and Nature 1 September 2021, 10.1038/s41586-021-03863-y. An international team of researchers have studied two sites in the Nefud Desert in northern Saudi Arabia and found thousands of stone tools, along with many animal fossils. The […]
Undersea Aussie aboriginal artefacts found, according to reports in ABC News, The Conversation and James Cook University News 2 July 2020, and PLOS ONE 1 July 2020, doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0233912. Archaeologists have found hundreds of stone tools and grinding stones at two sites on the seabed near the Dampier Archipelago, off the northwest coast of Western […]
Caveman astronomy found, according to ScienceDaily 27 November 2018, and Athens Journal of History 2018, arXiv:1806.00046. Scientists at Universities of Edinburgh and Kent have studied cave art in multiple sites in Europe and Turkey and concluded “they all display the same method for recording dates based on precession of the equinoxes, with animal symbols representing […]
Daily bread before farming, according to reports in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 16 July 2018 and BBC News 17 July 2018, and PNAS 16 July 2018 doi: 10.1073/pnas.1801071115. A team of researchers from UK and Denmark have found charred remains in the fireplaces of an archaeological site known as Shubayqa 1, located in the […]
Neanderthals were artists, according to reports in BBC News, Nature News, Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 22 February 2018, and Science doi: 10.1126/science.aap7778, 23 February 2018, and Science Advances DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar5255, 22 February 2018. Over the past few years scientists studying rock art and artefacts in several caves in Spain. Some of it is just […]
Stone tools increase Hobbit age, according to reports in ScienceNOW 17 March 2010 and ABC (Australia) News in Science 18 March 2010. In 2004 the bones of a creature nicknamed the Hobbit were found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. Even though it had a chimp sized brain and ape-like body size […]
Stone age pyrotechnology described in ScienceNOW 13 August 2009, and Science Daily and ABC News in Science, 14 August 2009. Archaeologists collecting stone tools at a site called Pinnacle Point in South Africa have long been puzzled by stone tools made of a fine grained rock named silcrete. The tools showed evidence of much working […]