A 'ghost' human lineage redraws the story of our origins
The DNA of West African populations carries up to 19% ancestry from an archaic population unknown from fossils. This 'ghost' lineage and the model of a structured A…
Read →Prehistory news
From 3 million years ago to the dawn of our era: archaeological discoveries, palaeogenetics, cave art and the great transformations of human societies.
The DNA of West African populations carries up to 19% ancestry from an archaic population unknown from fossils. This 'ghost' lineage and the model of a structured A…
Read →In a Libyan shelter, the DNA of two women mummified 7,000 years ago reveals a North African human lineage that stayed isolated for millennia, close to the Taforalt …
Read →In northern Kazakhstan, the Botai culture maintained a close relationship with horses as early as 3,500 BC. But ancient DNA has upended the story: these horses are not the ancestors of modern horses. Was domestication achieved twice?
In Arne Qvam Cave in northern Norway, bone and ancient DNA reveal 46 species (polar bears, walruses, seabirds) preserved for 75,000 years. Europe's oldest known Arctic ecosystem, its lineages now extinct.
On the Cape south coast, a team has dated seven fossil footprint sites to between 71,000 and 153,000 years. The oldest, in the Garden Route National Park, pushes back the record of our species' tracks by 30,000 years.
At Heliopolis, in Cairo's Matariya district, an Egyptian mission has unearthed the most complete funerary cache ever found on the site: a copper mirror, alabaster and obsidian kohl pots, gold-mounted scarabs, amulets and five pai…
Read →45,000 years ago, in the Third Cave of Goyet in Wallonia, six Neanderthals , four adult women and two boys , wer…
Read →During construction of a power line in Saxony-Anhalt, archaeologists unearthed the body of a man around 25 years o…
Read →In the Alentejo, a 16-hectare ditched complex built between 3400 and 2000 BCE reveals an inter-regional ceremonial…
Read →In Egypt's Minya governorate, Predynastic tombs with tapered walls illuminate the path from simple pits to the monuments of Giza.
A study published in Nature reveals that Yersinia pestis was killing Siberian hunter-gatherer communities 5,500 years ago, long before cities, rats, and fleas. The oldest genetically documented epidemic on record.
A 2026 study in the Journal of Archaeological Science shows that Border Cave occupants in South Africa built and maintained plant-based bedding for over 150,000 years , fresh grass on ash to repel insects, old bedding burned before renewal.
At 6 months old, Neanderthal infant Amud 7 was already the size of a 13-month-old modern human. A 2026 study in Current Biology reveals a growth strategy radically different from our own.
Read →Far from being a remote backwater, the Orkney archipelago now looks like a hub of innovation that radiated south a…
Read →A study published in <em>Nature</em> in June 2026 has overturned one of the most widely held hypotheses about Nean…
Read →Near Târgu Neamț, LiDAR-equipped drones pierced the canopy and unveiled Copper Age fortifications invisible from t…
Read →In a cairn in northern Scotland, a woman's bones were shaped into points and edges, used, then carefully returned to their anatomical position. A rare and baffling handling of the dead.
Read →At Vitry-sur-Seine, an Inrap excavation uncovers a rare Mesolithic camp preserved by the Seine's floods. A first w…
Read →One hundred and twenty-four radiocarbon dates prove it: far from empty, the high Pyrenees have been visited withou…
Read →In Burgundy, the Grande Grotte of Arcy holds France's oldest still-visible paintings, 28,000 years old. Neandertha…
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