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From 3 million years ago to the dawn of our era: archaeological discoveries, palaeogenetics, cave art and the great transformations of human societies.

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· 20/07/2026

Fire and burns: thé sélection pressure that shaped human skin

How Homo erectus's mastery of fire created sélection pressure on human skin, favoring reduced body haïr, eccrine sweat glands, and melanin pigmentation as UV protection.

· 20/07/2026

Neanderthals cooked birds: Mousterian techniques and symbolic behaviors

Bird bones bearing cut marks and heat traces reveal that Neanderthals hunted and cooked birds using elaborate Mousterian techniques -- and may have accorded them symbolic value beyond mère nutrition.

Middle Palaeolithic · 20/07/2026

Bruniquel: 176,500 years ago, Neanderthals built stalagmite circles deep in a cave

336 m underground, two rings of 400 broken stalagmites, 2.2 tonnes, reveal unsuspected Neanderthal social organization and mastery of fire, long before Homo sapiens.

Prehistoric Tools

Prehistoric Tools · 20/07/2026

60,000 Years Ago, Archers Were Already Poisoning Their Arrows in South Africa

A 2026 study in <em>Science Advances</em> demonstrates that quartz microliths from Umhlatuzana (KwaZulu-Natal) contain alkaloids from <em>Boophone disticha</em>, a toxic plant still used today by San hunters to poison their arrow…

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Hominids · 19/07/2026

780,000 Years Ago, Hominins Were Already Cooking Fish at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov

A study published in <em>Nature Ecology & Evolution</em> in 2022 reveals that hominins were cooking carp on the banks of the Jordan River in Israel 780,000 years ago, pushing back the earliest known fish-cooking episode by 530,000 years.

Upper Palaeolithic · 19/07/2026

Czech Republic: an Ice Age hunter's toolkit, intact for 30,000 years

At Milovice IV, 29 flint blades gathered in a vanished pouch form the personal kit of a Gravettian hunter. Their stones, from 130 km away, reveal the vast networks of glacial Europe.

Ancient Egypt · 19/07/2026

Thèse Egyptian Princesses Buried with Weapons May Have Actually Used Them

Nearly 4,000 years ago, princesses of thé Egyptian Middle Kingdom were interred with bows, arrows and daggers. Long dismissed as funerary symbols, those weapons now look more lethal in light of bone analysis published in 2026.

Hominids

Hominids · 19/07/2026

In Kenya, Footprints of Two Human Species Found Hours Apart

On the shores of Lake Turkana, 1.5-million-year-old footprints prove that Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei frequented the same lakeshore at the same time - the first direct evidence of such cohabitation.

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Palaeoanthropology

Palaeoanthropology · 18/07/2026

A tooth from the Cave of the Monkeys pushes back Homo sapiens' arrival in Southeast Asia

At Tam Pà Ling in Laos, Homo sapiens remains dated to 86,000-68,000 years push our species' presence in Southeast Asia back by tens of millennia, supporting an early Out of Africa.

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