New cosmogenic nuclide burial dating places the Yunxian fossil skulls (Hubei, China) at 1.77 million years, some 700,000 years older than previous …
Read the article →Discovered in 1924 at the Abri des Merveilles in the Dordogne, a translucent scraper knapped from rock crystal challenged as early as 1931 the rece…
Read the article →Emerging in Africa 300,000 years ago, <em>Homo sapiens</em> colonised the entire planet in under 60,000 years. This dossier traces the evolution, m…
Read the article →Between 800 BC and the dawn of the Common Era, iron replaces bronze, the Celts conquer Europe, the Scythians dominate the steppes and Rome begins i…
Read the article →A study in Current Biology analyses the DNA of 521 woolly mammoths and reveals that human butchery sites contain 70% females, versus 66% males in natural deposits. An unprecedented genetic signature of Palaeolithic hunting.
A University of Helsinki team has detected 396 geoglyphs buried beneath the Brazilian forest using lidar. These remains belong to the Aquiry civilization, which may have counted up to 3 million inhabitants between 100 and 300 AD.
Genomic analyses of the domestic silkworm and archaeological discoveries in China show that silk production dates back at least 7,500 years, long before the establishment of the Silk Road by the Han in the second century BCE.
The Egtved Girl, buried around 1370 BCE in Denmark, was identified by isotopic analysis as a long-distance traveler from southwestern Germany. Her identity as a female ritual specialist fits into a broader European pattern.
University of Tubingen archaeologists have presented two 2cm bird figurines carved in mammoth ivory, dated to the Aurignacian (40,000 years ago) and excavated in 2025 from Hohle Fels cave in Germany. The smallest yet found in the Swabian Jura.
Ancient DNA analyses of hundreds of skeletons confirm that the populations who built Stonehenge, Carnac, and the Irish dolmens were replaced by up to 90% by steppe peoples within just a few centuries.
The University of Leiden archaeological mission discovered in July 2026 on the west bank of Luxor an intact Ramesside tomb dating to around 1200 BC. Its owner, a certain Paser whose title remains unknown, left frescoes showing him in adoration before deities and alongside his wife. The inverted T-shaped tomb, typical of the New Kingdom, had been sealed for three millennia in the Sheikh Abd el-Qurna necropolis.
Two long stone embankments on the Dahshur plateau, attributed since 1897 to simple hauling ramps, have just been reinterpreted as water retention dams by three engineers in the journal npj Heritage Science (July 2026). Dated to the reign of Sneferu around 2550 BC, they would have supplied the Red Pyramid construction site with water for block transport and mortar preparation.
A systematic spatial analysis of decorated sites in the Basque Country and Cantabria shows that Palaeolithic artists deliberately organized their compositions according to a logic shared across distant sites, suggesting a genuine common iconographic program.
In July 2026, two climatologists from Stockholm University published in Science Advances a simulation of eight thousand years of Mediterranean climate. Their model identifies three extended aridity phases, produced by the overlap of orbital and oceanic cycles, which coincide with the collapse of Mycenaean palaces, Hittite cities and Levantine ports around 1200 BC.
In the Zagros Mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan, renewed excavations at Shanidar Cave by the University of Cambridge have uncovered the remains of a Neanderthal woman who died 75,000 years ago. Shanidar Z, the first Neanderthal recovered from the site in more than fifty years, enriches the debate on the funerary practices of our sister species: her body appears to have been laid in a manually hollowed channel, at a site revisited by several generations.
A Levantine skull dating to approximately 100,000 years ago displays a penetrating lesion on the facial bones interpreted as intentional interpersonal violence, pushing far back in time the earliest direct evidence of conflict in our species.
From 7 to 0.78 million years ago, Africa dried out, savannas spread, and the megafauna of large mammals reached its peak. A world in upheaval that forced hominins to innovate.
Read more →Between 780,000 and 130,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis emerged, the Schöningen spears attested sophisticated cooperative hunting, and the Sima de los Huesos at Atapuerca yielded what may be the oldest funerary gesture in human history. This dossier explores a crucial and often overlooked period during which the humanity that would give rise to both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens was forged.
Read more →In the Dampier Archipelago of Western Australia, close to one million petroglyphs engraved over 50,000 years form the world's largest ensemble of engraved rock art. This SLICE HISTOIRE documentary explores this unique Aboriginal heritage and the threat posed by adjacent industrial installations.
Watch the documentary →In Brazil, within 25,000-year-old layers at Serra da Capivara, archaeologist Eric Boeda examines strange quartzite pebbles. Dating, microscopic analysis and experimental archaeology reveal tools that challenge the chronology of the peopling of the Americas.
Watch the documentary →In July 2001, Michel Brunet announced the discovery of a 7-million-year-old skull in Chad's Djurab desert. This documentary retraces the scientific adventure that redefined the origins of humanity.
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