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Tag: ancient humans

  • What made us human? The fossils redefining our evolutionary origins

    What made us human? The fossils redefining our evolutionary origins

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    New Scientist. Science news and long reads from expert journalists, covering developments in science, technology, health and the environment on the website and the magazine.

    Is it in the way we live, laugh and love? Or maybe it is our dislike of cheesy clichés? Deep within each of us, there must be something that makes us distinctly human. The trouble is, after centuries of searching, we still haven’t found it. Perhaps that’s because we have been looking in the wrong place.

    Ever since researchers began unearthing ancient hominin bones and stone artefacts, their work has held the tantalising promise of identifying the moment long ago when our ancestors made the transition to become human. Two of the most important fossil discoveries in this quest celebrate significant milestones this year. It is 100 years since the very first “almost human” Australopithecus fossil came to light in South Africa, overturning established thinking about our place of origin. And it is 50 years since the most famous Australopithecus of them all – Lucy, also known as “the grandmother of humanity” – emerged from a dusty hillside in Ethiopia. Both fossils led researchers to believe we really could identify humanity’s big bang: the time when a dramatic pulse of evolution saw the emergence of our human genus, Homo.

    But today, the story of humanity’s birth has become far more complicated. A string of discoveries over the past two decades suggests the dawn of our genus is harder to pin down than we had thought. So why did it once seem like Lucy and her ilk allowed us to define humanity and pinpoint its emergence? Why do we now find ourselves as far as ever from establishing what, exactly, a human is?…

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  • Did rock art spread from one place or was it invented many times?

    Did rock art spread from one place or was it invented many times?

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    Inside the Umm Jirsan lava-tube cave, researchers have found evidence of human occupation dating back 10,000 years. Credit: Green Arabia Project. Supplied by Carley Rosengreen c.rosengreen@griffith.edu.au

    Ancient humans occupied the Umm Jirsan lava-tube cave in Saudi Arabia

    Green Arabia Project

    This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox for free every month.

    The study of rock art, especially cave paintings, used to be strongly focused on Europe. But in recent years, it has expanded after major discoveries in Indonesia and mainland Asia. One of the latest additions to the scientific record comes in the form of giant snakes found in South America.

    Along the Orinoco river in Colombia and Venezuela,…

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  • Modern soldiers test ancient Greek armour to show it worked for war

    Modern soldiers test ancient Greek armour to show it worked for war

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    A modern replica of 3500-year-old armour from the Mycenaean civilisation

    Andreas Flouris and Marija Marković

    Modern military volunteers donned replicas of ancient Greek armour and engaged in exercises inspired by Homer’s epic poem The Iliad. The demonstration shows how elite Bronze Age warriors could have fought in heavy protective gear during sustained combat.

    The experiment’s results strongly suggest that the 3500-year-old Dendra armour suit – one of the oldest complete suits of metal armour from Europe’s Bronze Age – was indeed suitable for battle. Some scholars have argued that it was merely a ceremonial outfit for the Mycenaean civilisation that once dominated mainland Greece and the Aegean Sea’s islands.

    Andreas Flouris at the University of Thessaly in Greece and his colleagues recruited modern Greece’s Hellenic Marines to wear 23-kilogram Dendra armour replicas as each participant walked, ran, rode on a replica chariot and performed combat moves involving a sword, spear, bow and arrow and even a stone.

    These activities followed Homer’s descriptions of heavily armoured elite warriors, surrounded by bands of followers, roaming the battlefield, periodically attacking the enemy and retreating to safety behind the main battle lines to rest and eat, says co-author Ken Wardle at the University of Birmingham in the UK.


    “Homeric fighting activity was characterised by hit-and-run tactics, a form of physical effort described in modern physiology as ‘high-intensity interval exercise’,” says Flouris.

    Throughout the 11-hour exercise period, the researchers recorded the armour wearers’ heart rate, core body temperature and average skin temperature, tested their blood and measured the energy cost of each activity. They also assigned an Iliad-inspired Mediterranean meal plan, featuring heavier breakfasts and dinners along with snacks such as dry bread, honey, goat cheese and onions.

    The armour-wearing volunteers successfully endured the regimen, despite reporting signs of fatigue and soreness. But they could have probably exerted even more effort in a real combat situation “had their life depended on it”, says team member Yiannis Koutedakis, also at the University of Thessaly.

    The team also used a computer-based mathematical model to show how a warrior wearing the Dendra armour could have lasted the entire 11-hour combat period in all but the most extreme outdoor conditions and high temperatures.

    “Though few archaeologists would view Homer as a reliable source for Bronze Age warfare, and indeed the study only engages lightly with archaeological studies of warfare and bronze armour, their rigorous protocols for testing the armour are important for measuring its practicality for sustained use in battle,” says Barry Molloy at the University College Dublin in Ireland.

    The study’s Dendra armour demonstration may help interpret similar artefacts, such as armour discovered in the so-called Griffin Warrior Tomb in Greece, say Sharon Stocker and Jack Davis at the University of Cincinnati in Ohio. “Though we doubt that the Hellenic Marines will adopt it as their official gear any time soon,” says Stocker.

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  • Early humans took northern route to Australia, cave find suggests

    Early humans took northern route to Australia, cave find suggests

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    An excavation at Laili cave in East Timor in 2019 Copyright:

    Mike Morley

    A cave on the island of Timor has given archaeologists a vital clue to the route taken by ancient humans when they first made their way to the Australian continent.

    It is known from archaeological evidence in Australia’s Northern Territory that people were there at least 65,000 years ago. At this time, when sea levels were lower, Australia and New Guinea were part of a larger landmass known as Sahul.

    Researchers believe there are two likely routes people could have taken from South-East Asia to Sahul. One is a southern route via Timor. Alternatively, Homo sapiens could have travelled via Sulawesi, an island to the north of Timor.

    Now, Sue O’Connor at the Australian National University in Canberra and her colleagues believe they have found evidence ruling out the possibility that the first arrivals came through Timor.

    In other locations on Timor, the oldest evidence of human occupation was less than 50,000 years old. Archaeologists were unable to look for older artefacts as, at all the other sites they studied, they hit bedrock rather than sediment layers that could potentially contain evidence of an earlier presence, says O’Connor.

    In 2019, her team dug a new pit at a cave called Laili, on the north coast of East Timor, and discovered a rich deposit of archaeological evidence including tens of thousands of stone tools, proving that humans had occupied the island for 44,000 years.

    Crucially, however, this layer of occupation was underlain by sediments with no evidence of humans. This means it is likely that before 44,000 years ago, people were absent, says O’Connor.

    “This is the first time in Timor that we have sterile, non-occupation layers below evidence of people’s presence,” she says.

    O’Connor says such a clear boundary between no evidence of humans followed by tens of thousands of years of artefacts is called an “arrival signature”.

    The cave’s prominent location and access to resources gives the researchers confidence that it is unlikely to have been missed by any early humans travelling through the area.

    “It’s a really, really big cave with a big flowing river in a braided floodplain and very close to the coast,” says O’Connor. “It’s a perfect place for people to establish an occupation base camp. You couldn’t find a more ideal setting.”

    Because of the evidence that people were in Australia 65,000 years ago but not in Timor until 44,000 years ago, it means humans most likely migrated via the islands to the north, says O’Connor.

    “Looking at the layers in Laili cave, it’s like ‘bang’ – you can really see clearly when the people arrive,” she says. “It was like a line had been drawn between the two layers – before people and after people. It was so clear.”

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  • Who were the enigmatic Sea Peoples blamed for the Bronze Age collapse?

    Who were the enigmatic Sea Peoples blamed for the Bronze Age collapse?

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    New Scientist Default Image

    Ramesses III was one of Egypt’s great warrior pharaohs. A temple he built at Medinet Habu, near the Valley of the Kings, highlights why. On its walls, carvings tell the story of a coalition of fighters that swept across the eastern Mediterranean 3200 years ago, destroying cities, states and even whole empires. “No land could stand before their arms,” this account tells us. Eventually, the invaders – known today as the Sea Peoples – attacked Egypt. But Ramesses III succeeded where others had failed and crushed them.

    In the 200 years since hieroglyphics were first deciphered, allowing us to read Ramesses III’s extraordinary story, evidence has come to light to corroborate it. We now know of numerous cities and palaces across the eastern Mediterranean that were destroyed around that time, with the Sea Peoples often implicated. So widespread was the devastation that, for one of the only times in history, several complex societies went into a steep decline from which they never recovered. Little wonder, then, that this so-called Late Bronze Age collapse has fascinated scholars for decades. So, too, has the identity of the mysterious sea-faring marauders.

    Today, new genetic and archaeological evidence is giving us the firmest picture yet about what really went on at this dramatic time – and who, or what, was responsible. This shows that many of our ideas about the Sea Peoples and the collapse need completely rethinking. It also hints at a surprising idea: the end of civilisation might not always be as disastrous as we think.

    Before the Sea Peoples arrived, life…

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  • Astonishing images show how female Neanderthal may have looked

    Astonishing images show how female Neanderthal may have looked

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    A reconstruction of what Shanidar Z might have looked like, by Dutch twins Adrie and Alfons Kennis

    BBC Studios/Jamie Simonds

    MEET Shanidar Z, one of the most important Neanderthal discoveries in a generation. Her remains, thought to date back 75,000 years, were fully unearthed five years ago in a re-excavation of a legendary archaeological site, Shanidar cave, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.


    She appears to have been deliberately interred along with a cluster of nine other Neanderthal men, women and children, whose skeletons were uncovered from the 1950s onwards and transformed our…

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  • Early humans spread as far north as Siberia 400,000 years ago

    Early humans spread as far north as Siberia 400,000 years ago

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    The archaeological site at Diring Yuriakh, Russia

    Vasilij Lytkin

    A site in Siberia where early humans lived has been dated to 417,000 years ago, making it by far the most ancient early human site found this far north.

    “This site dramatically revises our understanding of when humans reached high latitudes,” John Jansen at the Czech Academy of Sciences told a press conference on 16 April. Other early human sites in the Arctic region are no more than 45,000 years old, he says.

    …

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  • Ancient humans lived inside a lava tube in the Arabian desert

    Ancient humans lived inside a lava tube in the Arabian desert

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    Researchers exploring the Umm Jirsan lava tube system in Saudi Arabia

    PALAEODESERTS Project, CC-BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons​.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

    Archaeologists have found evidence of human habitation within lava tubes for the first time, in the deserts of northern Saudi Arabia.

    Lava tubes are caves that form during a volcanic eruption. The surface of a river of lava cools and solidifies, while hot molten rock continues to flow beneath it. Eventually, lava drains out of the tube, leaving behind a tunnel.

    Mathew Stewart at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, and his colleagues excavated a trench inside Umm Jirsan. At 1.5 kilometres in length, it is the biggest lava tube in Saudi Arabia. The researchers discovered animal bones, stone tools and pottery stretching back at least 7000 years and possibly as much as 10,000 years.

    Stewart and his team have worked in the region for more than 15 years and have previously found numerous stone structures on the surface, confirming human habitation. However, the desert’s hot, arid climate has caused organic material to break down, making it difficult to date.

    On the surface, the landscape is a “hot, dry and flat basalt desert”, says Stewart. “But when you are down in the lava tube, it’s much cooler. It’s very sheltered and it would have been a great place of refuge.”

    “It’s transforming our understanding of the prehistory of the Arabian peninsula,” he says.

    In parts of the underground network at Umm Jirsan, the researchers also found human bones, but these are thought to have been dragged in by hyenas.

    In other lava tubes nearby, Stewart and his colleagues found rock art, including representations of domestic sheep and goats that would have been made by “cultural contemporaries” of the groups using the lava tubes as a refuge, he says.

    Mike Morley at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, describes the lava tubes as being like “prefabricated activity spaces”.

    “As a scientist who works primarily in caves, I am excited that we have another type of cave system being used by past human populations,” says Morley. “These finds represent a treasure trove of archaeological information for Arabia, a massive region that has only recently been investigated systematically for prehistoric archaeology.”

    Lava tubes have also been suggested as possible places for humans to shelter on the moon and Mars.

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    • archaeology/
    • ancient humans

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  • Untangling the enigmatic origins of the human family’s newest species

    Untangling the enigmatic origins of the human family’s newest species

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    Callao cave in the Philippines, where fossils from Homo luzonensis were found

    Florent Detroit/Callao Cave Archaeology Project

    This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox for free every month.

    On 10 April 2019, our extended family got a bit bigger. A study in Nature reported the discovery of a new species of hominin called Homo luzonensis, from the Philippines. My colleague and fellow fossil enthusiast Colin Barras wrote about it for New Scientist.

    It’s been five years since the announcement,…

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  • Stone Age blades could have been used for butchery, not just hunting

    Stone Age blades could have been used for butchery, not just hunting

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    Prehistoric stone blades called Clovis points could have been used as weapons – or butchery tools

    Metin I. Eren

    Stone “Clovis points” used by prehistoric hunters to kill animals are also remarkably efficient at cutting meat off a large animal carcass – at least according to a modern bison butchering experiment. The finding complicates our knowledge of prehistoric hunting practices.

    Archaeologists teamed up with modern hunters to compare how well replicas of two types of prehistoric stone tools could harvest meat from an animal carcass. They used a humanely killed bison bull weighing more than 450 kilograms.

    “This study actually showed that Clovis points were more effective than what was presumed to be the butchery tool: large stone flakes,” says Metin Eren at Kent State University in Ohio.

    The five hunters, associated with the MeatEater outdoor lifestyle company, took just 3 hours and 10 minutes to completely butcher the bison carcass using both stone tools. But the Clovis points achieved a butchering efficiency of 0.38 kilograms of meat per minute, whereas the handheld stone flake tools processed 0.34 kilograms of meat per minute.

    The Clovis points, which were mounted on wooden handles, had the added benefit of not injuring any users, whereas four out of five experts suffered minor cuts while using the handheld stone flakes.

    But the Clovis points also required frequent resharpening during the butchering – and three of the 10 stone tools broke. “They demonstrate that the Clovis points work well, but they also demonstrate that the Clovis points break a lot,” says John Shea at Stony Brook University in New York, who was not part of the study. “And this is important because those things are not easy to make.”

    Still, prehistoric peoples in the Americas may have adopted “such a labour-intensive and breakage-prone artefact” as part of social displays of group cooperation and stone working skills, says Shea.

    Field processors butcher the bison with stone tools, while recorders take notes on how they use them

    Seth Morris

    Another surprise came from how a Clovis point snapped and broke in a way that was nearly identical to how another Clovis point on an atlatl weapon broke when hurled at an elephant carcass in a previous study. “The possibility of snap breaks being mistaken for impact breaks is an eye-opener from the standpoint of interpreting how Clovis points might have been used,” says Vance Holliday at the University of Arizona, who did not participate in the study.

    That means broken Clovis points discovered at prehistoric archaeological sites may not represent a “smoking gun for hunting”, as researchers previously believed. They could instead show how people “came across an already dead animal and scavenged it”, says Eren. In other words, deducing prehistoric hunting and scavenging behaviours just got a lot more complicated.

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    • archaeology/
    • ancient humans

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