A new study from Tel Aviv University identified the earliest appearance worldwide of special stone tools, used 400,000 years ago to process fallow deer. The tools, called Quina scrapers (after the site in France where they were first discovered), were unearthed at the prehistoric sites of Jaljulia and Qesem Cave. They are characterized by a … Read more
Thousands of years ago, early hunter-gatherers returned regularly to Tagua Tagua Lake in Chile to hunt ancient elephants and take advantage of other local resources, according to a study published May 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rafael Labarca of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and colleagues. Multiple archaeological sites are known … Read more
The history of life on Earth spans billions of years, from the formation of our planet to the evolution of diverse life forms. This epic tale of biological evolution is intertwined with geological events, environmental changes, extinction events, and the emergence of complex organisms. The story of life on Earth is a testament to the … Read more
When did populations of Homo sapiens first arrive in China and what happened when they encountered the Denisovans or Neanderthals who lived there? A new study in Nature by an international team of researchers opens a window into hunter-gatherer lifestyles 40,000 years ago. Archaeological excavations at the site of Xiamabei in the Nihewan Basin of … Read more
Blood relations and kinship were not all-important for the way hunter-gatherer communities lived during the Stone Age in Western Europe. A new genetic study, conducted at several well-known French Stone Age burial sites, shows that several distinct families lived together. This was probably a deliberate system for avoiding inbreeding. These findings are revealed in a … Read more