Ancient History

Abstract

Radiocarbon dating of the earliest occupational phases at the Cooper’s Ferry site in western Idaho indicates that people repeatedly occupied the Columbia River basin, starting between 16,560 and 15,280 calibrated years before the present (cal yr B.P.). Artifacts from these early occupations indicate the use of unfluted stemmed projectile point technologies before the appearance of the Clovis Paleoindian tradition and support early cultural connections with northeastern Asian Upper Paleolithic archaeological traditions. The Cooper’s Ferry site was initially occupied during a time that predates the opening of an ice-free corridor (≤14,800 cal yr B.P.), which supports the hypothesis that initial human migration into the Americas occurred via a Pacific coastal route.

The study concludes that technological choices in ancient Iberia were driven by local conditions, not a universal march toward improvement. The rejection or delay in adopting certain methods, such as co-fusion, points to deeper cultural and economic dynamics.

The footprints of a reptile-like creature appear to have been laid down around 356 million years ago, pushing back the earliest known instance of animals emerging from the water to live on land

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I know some of ya’ll don’t like Ancient Origins but they were the only secondary source I could find and the original press release is in Vietnamese

Especially noteworthy was a solid wooden beam connecting the two hulls at the bow, an architectural feature that is utterly unique, to Vietnam and to all of world history.

Tombs that are scattered across Ireland may have helped bring ancient societies together for feasting and remembering their ancestors

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The Egyptian archaeological mission, a collaboration between the Supreme Council of  Antiquities and the Zahi Hawass Foundation for Archaeology and Heritage, headed by renowned Egyptologist Zahi Hawass, uncovered the tomb of Prince Waser-If-Re.

Waser-If-Re is the son of King Userkaf, the founding monarch of Egypt's Fifth Dynasty. His tomb was found alongside several significant artefacts spanning the Old Kingdom and the Late Period.

Snippet: The oldest cemetery in Africa is yielding yet more insights into the lives of ancient humans.

Around 15,000 years ago, people were living and burying their dead in a cave in northern Morocco. On the cusp of the transition between a semi-nomadic and settled life, the remains of these people and their grave goods offer a fascinating insight into the lives and cultures of this community.

Part of this seems to have involved a bird known as the great bustard. These large, impressive animals were once found across much of Eurasia and part of north Africa until hunting, habitat disturbance and destruction significantly fragmented their population.

Africa’s only population clings on in Morocco, where the species is considered critically endangered. Closely related but genetically distinct to the Spanish population, there has been some debate about how long great bustards had lived in north Africa. This new finding confirms that the birds have a long history on the African continent, and were much more abundant and widespread than they are today.

LATNIJA, MALTA—According to a statement released by the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, researchers have found evidence that hunter-gatherers from mainland Europe traveled to Malta around 1,000 years earlier than previously believed. Archaeologists recovered stone tools, hearths, and food waste at a cave site in Latnija that indicated humans have been living on the island for 8,500 years. This means that they arrived there even before the widespread adoption of agriculture, which contradicts long-held assumptions. Experts theorize that they made the journey in simple dugout canoes, making this new discovery the oldest evidence of long-distance seafaring in the Mediterranean prior to the invention of boats with sails. The voyagers would have relied on surface currents to cross about 60 miles of open sea. At a top speed of 2.5 miles an hour, this would have forced the intrepid seafarers to endure several hours of darkness on their journey. “The results add a thousand years to Maltese prehistory and force a re-evaluation of the seafaring abilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherers, as well as their connections and ecosystem impacts,” said Max Planck archaeological scientist Eleanor Scerri. Read the original scholarly article about this research in Nature.

Glacial archaeologists have recently discovered the second prehistoric ski of a pair of skis at Digervarden, a mountain in central Norway. Found just five meters from where the first one was uncovered seven years earlier, the ski was radiocarbon-dated to 1,300 years ago. As global warming leads to more glacial retreat, many artifacts have surfaced and sparked the need for further archaeological research in the area.

Before hominins intentionally chipped stone to make tools, they likely used sharp rocks already shaped by natural forces.

Budgerigars, small and colorful parrots, are known for their ability to mimic human speech. Scientists have now discovered that these parrots may have the same brain mechanism for speech as humans.

A study published Wednesday in Nature reveals that budgerigars use brain structures similar to those humans rely on for speech.

The Department of Culture, Education, and Historical Heritage reports the discovery of graphic designs on a stone block that could be more than 200,000 years old, as part of an archaeological excavation at the Coto Correa site in Las Chapas. This area, known in specialized studies for housing the oldest remains in the city, is protected archaeologically, as some stone tools were accidentally discovered in the 1950s, dating back to the early Paleolithic.

The work and its subsequent analysis have provided insight into the geological evolution of the site, as well as the archaeological discovery of a set of stone tools carved into one of its strata. Of this set, discovered in 2022, a block of gabbro stands out, marked with lines, giving it an exceptional character. The significance of this discovery is twofold: on the one hand, it confirms the presence of settlers in Marbella during the Early Middle Paleolithic, a period little known in Spain and unprecedented in the province of Malaga. Furthermore, it provides this unique stone, which contains a set of graphic representations of human origin that could be 100,000 years older than the oldest cave art depictions.

A new study by Dr. Margherita Mussi, publishedin Quaternary International, highlights how naturally occurring basalt spheres may have been used by hominin species as a type of tool for more than 1 million years.

For years, Egyptologists have assumed pyramid tombs were just for the rich – but the burials at a site called Tombos don’t fit this pattern

Archived link of the article

Abstract

Recent evidence indicates that the emergence of stone tool technology occurred before the appearance of the genus Homo1 and may potentially be traced back deep into the primate evolutionary line2. Conversely, osseous technologies are apparently exclusive of later hominins from approximately 2 million years ago (Ma)3,4, whereas the earliest systematic production of bone tools is currently restricted to European Acheulean sites 400–250 thousand years ago5,6. Here we document an assemblage of bone tools shaped by knapping found within a single stratigraphic horizon at Olduvai Gorge dated to 1.5 Ma. Large mammal limb bone fragments, mostly from hippopotamus and elephant, were shaped to produce various tools, including massive elongated implements. Before our discovery, bone artefact production in pre-Middle Stone Age African contexts was widely considered as episodic, expedient and unrepresentative of early Homo toolkits. However, our results demonstrate that at the transition between the Oldowan and the early Acheulean, East African hominins developed an original cultural innovation that entailed a transfer and adaptation of knapping skills from stone to bone. By producing technologically and morphologically standardized bone tools, early Acheulean toolmakers unravelled technological repertoires that were previously thought to have appeared routinely more than 1 million years later.

Abstract

During the fourth millennium BC, public institutions developed at several large settlements across greater Mesopotamia. These are widely acknowledged as the first cities and states, yet surprisingly little is known about their emergence, functioning and demise. Here, the authors present new evidence of public institutions at the site of Shakhi Kora in the lower Sirwan/upper Diyala river valley of north-east Iraq. A sequence of four Late Chalcolithic institutional households precedes population dispersal and the apparent regional rejection of centralised social forms of organisation that were not then revisited for almost 1500 years.

Vesthimmerlands Museum is thrilled to announce the discovery of a significant timber circle in Vesthimmerland, Northern Denmark. The excavation, led by Curator Sidsel Wåhlin and Excavation Manager Andreas Bo Nielsen, has revealed a remarkable structure dating back to the late Neolithic/early Bronze Age (2600-1600 B.C.)

The timber circle, with a diameter of approximately 30 meters, consists of at least 45 wooden posts spaced roughly 2 meters apart. This discovery is particularly exciting due to its connection to the Bell Beaker phenomenon, a cultural complex that spread across Europe during the late Neolithic and early Bronze Age.

"This is an extraordinary find," remarks Sidsel Wåhlin, curator at Vesthimmerlands Museum. "The timber circle provides valuable insights into the ritual practices and social structures of this internationally connected prehistoric society. It is a testament to the rich archaeological heritage of Denmark."

Andreas Bo Nielsen, Excavation Manager, adds, "The excavation is a a meticulous process, and we are delighted with the discovery and look forward to dig in. The timber circle is not only a significant archaeological discovery but also a window into the past, offering us a glimpse of the ceremonial and ritual activities of our ancestors."

The timber circle is situated in a ritual landscape at Stenild that includes one of Denmarks few registered small wood henges located some two kilometers away, a significant necropolis from the late Neolithic period, and several settlements from the same era. This context enhances the importance of the discovery, suggesting a complex and interconnected ritual and social environment.

Excavation of the circle's postholes and other features will commence on the 24th of February this year. Vesthimmerlands Museum will continue to study this important discovery, ensuring that it contributes to our understanding of prehistoric societies. The museum plans to share more details about the excavation and its findings in the coming months.

Research article [Open Access]

Abstract: The European shores of the Mediterranean are characterised by well-known sociocultural and economic dynamics during the Bronze and Early Iron Ages (2200–550 BC), but our understanding of the African shores is comparatively vague. Here, the authors present results from excavations at Kach Kouch, Morocco, revealing an occupation phase from 2200–2000 cal BC, followed by a stable settlement from c. 1300–600 BC characterised by wattle and daub architecture, a farming economy, distinctive cultural practices and extensive connections. Kach Kouch underscores the agency of local communities, challenging the notion of north-western Africa as terra nullius prior to Phoenician arrival.

Link to open access research article

Abstract

The Huns appeared in Europe in the 370s, establishing an Empire that reshaped West Eurasian history. Yet until today their origins remain a matter of extensive debate. Traditional theories link them to the Xiongnu, the founders of the first nomadic empire of the Mongolian steppe. The Xiongnu empire dissolved, however, ~300 y before the Huns appeared in Europe, and there is little archaeological and historical evidence of Huns in the steppe during this time gap. Furthermore, despite the rich 5th to 6th centuries current era (CE) archaeological record of the Carpathian Basin, the cultural elements of connections with the steppe are limited to few findings and even fewer solitary eastern-type burials. In this study, we coanalyze archaeological evidence with 35 newly sequenced and published genomic data for a total of 370 individuals—from 5th to 6th century CE contexts in the Carpathian Basin including 10 Hun-period eastern-type burials, 2nd to 5th century sites across Central Asia and 2nd c. before current era (BCE) to 1st c. CE Xiongnu period sites across the Mongolian steppe. We find no evidence for the presence of a large eastern/steppe descent community among the Hun- and post-Hun-period Carpathian Basin population. We also observe a high genetic diversity among the eastern-type burials that recapitulates the variability observed across the Eurasian Steppe. This suggests a mixed origin of the incoming steppe conquerors. Nevertheless, long-shared genomic tracts provide compelling evidence of genetic lineages directly connecting some individuals of the highest Xiongnu-period elite with 5th to 6th century CE Carpathian Basin individuals, showing that some European Huns descended from them.

Siver's team identified fossilized phytoliths—microscopic silica structures formed in plant tissues—from palm trees in ancient lakebed sediments extracted from the Giraffe kimberlite pipe locality in Canada's Northwest Territories. These fossils, alongside preserved remains of warm-water aquatic organisms, indicate a climate far warmer than previously thought, challenging assumptions about when and where ice first formed in the Northern Hemisphere.

A rare discovery of a nearly complete skull in the Egyptian desert has led scientists to the “dream” revelation of a new 30-million-year-old species of the ancient apex predatory carnivore, Hyaenodonta.

Bearing sharp teeth and powerful jaw muscles, suggesting a strong bite, the newly-identified‘Bastetodon’ was a leopard-sized “fearsome” mammal. It would have been at the top of all carnivores and the food chain when our own monkey-like ancestors were evolving.

Findings, published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, detail how this ferocious creature would have likely preyed on primates, early hippos, early elephants, and hyraxes in the lush forest of Fayum, Egypt, which is now home to a desert.