anthropology

15,000-year-old campsite in Texas challenges conventional story of American settlement

15,000 years ago, humans camped in a lush Texas valley, leaving thousands of artifacts behind, from tools to face paint. This could be definitive proof that ancient people arrived in America by boat, not by walking the Bering Strait. Anthropologist Michael Waters and colleagues announced their findings today, detailing the almost 16,000 artifacts they found…

io9 Annalee Newitz Mar 24

One of the hardest things for early humans to master was fire

Humans first gained control of fire somewhere between 200,000 and 1.7 million years ago. But whenever they harnessed fire, they didn’t take it with them to frigid northern Europe, where they shivered without fire for over 600,000 years. The current scientific consensus is that humans did indeed know how to make fire when they first…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Mar 15

The difference between apes and humans that led to cities, nations, and the internet

Like chimps and bonobos, humans live in social groups full individuals who help each other. Also like our ape relatives, we make war with outsiders. But our social groups can be millions strong. What makes humans so good at forming mass societies? Anthropologist Kim Hill and his colleagues decided to find out by looking at…

io9 Annalee Newitz Mar 10

Iraqis Flocked to Western Digital Habits During the War

Aside from infrastructural devastation and enormous loss of civilian life, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq has had some pretty fascinating effects on the way they live—particularly their absorption of American habits. Including the way we’re glued to our phones, says NYT reporter Mahmood Al-Bachary: The cellphone, this weird creature that entered our lives with…

Tech News Sam Biddle Mar 8

Stone tools shaped the evolution of our hands

Charles Darwin once speculated that the use of stone tools by our ancient ancestors had profoundly influenced the evolution of our hands. Now, 140 years later, we’ve discovered that, once again, Darwin knew exactly what he was talking about. Our hands are fundamentally different from those of our primate relatives. The bones and muscles in…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Mar 7

How did humans really evolve?

Almost two million years ago, a band of brave explorers left their families behind in their warm, tropical home and sought refuge in northern lands. Armed with sharp stone tools and their wits, they followed the coast as far north as they could, then began to veer east, settling on the sunny, fertile shores of…

io9 Annalee Newitz Mar 4

A rare glimpse of an American tragedy that took place 11,500 years ago

Over eleven millennia ago, a group of early Americans built a roomy summer home along the shores of the Upward Sun River in central Alaska. They fished, hunted small game, and ate dinners of meat and vegetables cooked over a large fire at the center of their house. Anthropologists who discovered the remains of the…

io9 Annalee Newitz Feb 24

How humanity survived for 8000 years on the most extreme islands on Earth

Imagine a life of almost complete isolation, spent on a barren island constantly hit by a mix of volcanoes, tsunamis, and long, brutal winters. For thousands of years, that’s what people have endured on the Kuril Islands, an archipelago stretching from Russia to Japan that just might be the most extreme place humans have ever…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Feb 22

At last, proof that the British once drank from human skulls

Click to view If you saw stirring Roman-Briton bromance The Eagle over the past week, you know that in fiction, at least, the Picts were pretty hardcore. But now there’s proof that the early tribes of Britain were bloodthirsty warriors. As you can see in this BBC clip, there is now evidence that they drank…

io9 Annalee Newitz Feb 17

An underground city in France where people have lived for thousands of years

The Barry Troglodyte Village is a small complex of homes build undeground in the south of France. Though underground homes are unusual, that’s not the weirdest part about this place. These subterranean houses have been occupied continuously by people for thousands of years – from the neolithic era of roving tribes, to the early twentieth…

io9 Annalee Newitz Feb 17

Just Discovered: A strange Mexican monument from over 3,000 years ago

What is this bizarre statue that anthropology researcher John Hodgson has discovered in the wilds of Mexico? It could change the way we understand early American settlers. A release from University of Wisconsin explains what you’re seeing in the sculpture: The main figure on the tablet is depicted wearing an elaborate headdress, loincloth and ornate…

io9 Annalee Newitz Feb 15

Gigantic Neanderthal noses are an evolutionary mystery

Neanderthals may have been our closest evolutionary ancestors, but they had at least one feature that alway set them apart from early humans: their incredibly large noses. But just why Neanderthals had such huge noses is an enduring evolutionary mystery. Neanderthals lived during some of the most extreme climatic conditions in recent history, as they…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Jan 17

Ancient Australians found the secret to truly immortal art

What is the secret to art that lasts forever and stays fresh always? Some say passion, some say rigorous discipline, some say ingenuity, and some say fungus. The last one is right. Anyone who has been to a museum knows the drill. Do not touch the art. Do not get too close to the art.…

io9 Esther Inglis-Arkell Dec 28

Another humanoid species co-existed with early humans and Neanderthals

A single finger bone found in this Siberian cave led to an amazing discovery. Early humans and Neanderthals co-existed with another humanoid species called Denisovans. And many present-day humans carry genes that prove our ancestors had children with Denisovans, too. The new species is named after the cave where the 30,000 year-old finger bone was…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 22

Murder scene might reveal why Neanderthals went extinct

49,000 years ago in a cave in northern Spain, twelve Neanderthals were murdered and eaten by another group of Neanderthals. This grisly scene may tell a larger story about the reasons why our humanoid cousins ultimately died out. There are a bunch of competing theories as to why Neanderthals went extinct. One idea is that…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Dec 20

A map of Earth’s nations, divided into social networks

Vincenzo Cosenza has partitioned the planet according to nations’ preferred social networks, and you can read more about these global trends at his site. Facebook’s making inroads in Mongolia! [Spotted on Next Nature]

io9 Cyriaque Lamar Dec 12

A 75,000-year-old human settlement may lurk beneath the Persian Gulf

Evidence is mounting that the first human civilization outside of Africa probably evolved in what is now the Persian Gulf. Recent discoveries suggest that we’re about to find a fairly advanced civilization sunk beneath the waters of the Gulf. Archaeologist Jeffrey Rose has published a paper in Current Anthropology where he argues that we’ll find…

io9 Annalee Newitz Dec 10

The loneliness of the long-distance exoplanetary anthropologist

There are two kinds of offworld anthropology: Near Distance and Long Distance. With typical Earth-centrism, the “distance” is measured in light years from the Blue Marble. Try explaining to a Gorgolian that he’s “Long Distance” when you’re on his doorstep. At least Gorgolians won’t spit in your face when you try to interview them about…

io9 Annalee Newitz Nov 24

Native Americans visited Europe 1000 years ago

Five centuries before Columbus reached the Americas, Vikings briefly settled on the northern tip of Newfoundland. Now the DNA of four Icelandic families reveals it wasn’t just Europeans traveling to the Americas…at least one Native American went back with them. Eleven modern Icelanders carry an unusual variant of mitochondrial DNA known as C1e. This particular…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 19

In the ancient Amazon, children had many fathers – and women many lovers

Few cultures are as sexually liberated as those of the ancient Amazon rainforest. Nearly 70 percent of the tribes practiced multiple paternity, in which all of a woman’s sexual partners were fathers to her children. It was commonplace for people to be open about having multiple sexual partners in the ancient Amazon. Open sexual arrangements…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins Nov 11

15,000-year-old campsite in Texas challenges conventional story of American settlement

One of the hardest things for early humans to master was fire

The difference between apes and humans that led to cities, nations, and the internet

Iraqis Flocked to Western Digital Habits During the War

Stone tools shaped the evolution of our hands

How did humans really evolve?

A rare glimpse of an American tragedy that took place 11,500 years ago

How humanity survived for 8000 years on the most extreme islands on Earth

At last, proof that the British once drank from human skulls

An underground city in France where people have lived for thousands of years

Just Discovered: A strange Mexican monument from over 3,000 years ago

Gigantic Neanderthal noses are an evolutionary mystery

Ancient Australians found the secret to truly immortal art

Another humanoid species co-existed with early humans and Neanderthals

Murder scene might reveal why Neanderthals went extinct

A map of Earth’s nations, divided into social networks

A 75,000-year-old human settlement may lurk beneath the Persian Gulf

The loneliness of the long-distance exoplanetary anthropologist

Native Americans visited Europe 1000 years ago

In the ancient Amazon, children had many fathers – and women many lovers

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