Conducting the first large-scale, genome-wide analyses of ancient human remains from the Near East, an international team led by Harvard Medical School has illuminated the genetic identities and population dynamics of the world's first farmers.
Intestinal parasites as well as goods were carried by travelers on the iconic route, say researchers examining an ancient latrine.
A project led by archaeologists from the British Museum and the University of Leicester has discovered remarkable evidence which shows how the first generations of Europeans to arrive in the Americas engaged with indigenous peoples and their spiritual beliefs deep inside the caves of a remote Caribbean island.
Researchers have succeeded for the first time in sequencing the genome of Chalcolithic barley grains. This is the oldest plant genome to be reconstructed to date. The 6,000-year-old seeds were retrieved from Yoram Cave close to the Dead Sea in Israel. Genetically, the prehistoric barley is very similar to present-day barley grown in the Southern Levant, supporting the existing hypothesis of barley domestication having occurred in the Upper Jordan Valley.
It is common knowledge that the modern turtle shell is largely used for protection. No other living vertebrate has so drastically altered its body to form such an impenetrable protective structure as the turtle. However, a new study on the earliest partially shelled fossil turtles suggests the broad ribbed proto shell was initially an adaptation for burrowing underground.
Researchers at McMaster University have found a rich new record of vitamin D deficiency, one that resides in the teeth of every person and remains viable for hundreds of years or more. The team of anthropologists has determined that looking into the microscopic structure of teeth opens a window into the lives and challenges of people who lived hundreds of years ago, and whose only record is their skeletal remains.
This week, an international research team led by palaeogeneticists of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz published a study in the journal Science showing that the earliest farmers from the Zagros mountains in Iran, i.e., the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent, are neither the main ancestors of Europe's first farmers nor of modern-day Europeans.
The discovery of a theropod dinosaur with Tyrannosaurus rex-like arms suggests that these unusual forelimbs may have evolved multiple times, according to a study published July 13, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Sebastián Apesteguía from the Universidad Maimónides, Argentina, and colleagues.
Prehistoric proto-Jê Brazilian peoples may have continually renovated and extended their pit houses to allow occupation over centuries, according to a study published July 6, 2016 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Jonas Gregorio de Souza from the University of Exeter, UK, and colleagues.
The transition from hunter-gatherer to sedentary farming 10,000 years ago occurred in multiple neighboring but genetically distinct populations according to research by an international team including UCL.