PaleoAnthropology+

World's oldest mummies were smoke-dried 10,000 years ago in China and Southeast Asia, researchers find The world's oldest evidence for purposeful human mummification comes from Southeast Asia, where people smoke-dried their ancestors' corpses 10,000 years ago.

World's oldest mummies were smoke-dried 10,000 years ago in China and Southeast Asia, researchers find - @killgrove.bsky.social www.livescience.com/archaeology/...

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting A plantation worker photographed this new genus of mammal in New Guinea, thought to have been dead for 6,000 years.

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting
theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...

Recent pandemic viruses jumped to humans without prior adaptation, study finds A new University of California San Diego study published in Cell challenges a long-standing assumption about how animal viruses become capable of sparking human epidemics and pandemics. Using a phylog...

Recent pandemic viruses jumped to humans without prior adaptation, study finds
phys.org/news/2026-03...

For a long time, Prehistory was told from a partial perspective: hunters, explorers, male protagonists.

Women appeared in the background, almost invisible.

@erc.europa.eu @cenieh.bsky.social #FECYT

En los orígenes de Homo: nuevos fósiles y su interpretación Se ha publicado un nuevo conjunto de dientes aislados encontrados en el yacimiento de Ledi-Geraru, Etiopía (Villmoare, Delezene, Rector et al., 2025). En este lugar también se encontró una mandíbul…

En los orígenes de Homo: nuevos fósiles y su interpretación wp.me/p4Bi9E-4Lw

Paranthropus capensis y la diversidad de homininos en el sur de África Actualizado marzo 2026 La mandíbula SK 15 fue descubierta en 1949 en Swartkrans Member 2 y está datada en unos 1,4 Ma (millones de años). Aunque presenta cierta distorsión en su lado derecho, es un…

(actualizado) Paranthropus capensis y la diversidad de homininos en el sur de África

Boomerang made from mammoth tusk with 5 cm scale

A boomerang made from mammoth ivory, from Obłazowa Cave, Poland. Dating to around 40,000 years ago, the object was shaped and well-used, with signs of polish in the areas where a right-handed person would have handled and thrown it.

Photo: Sahra Talamo and coworkers (2025, scale=5cm)

Shanidar 3 ‘rings the bell’: Virtual ribcage reconstruction and its implications for understanding the Neanderthal bauplan
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#FossilFriday Qafzeh 11 Homo sapiens child, Israel ~100ka 🏺

It is unclear why male Neanderthals (artist’s impression) paired off with female Homo sapiens more than the opposite. Credit: S. Entressangle/E. Daynes/SPL

Neanderthal dad, human mum:
Study reveals ancient procreation pattern 🏺🧪
www.nature.com/articles/d41...

The analysis suggests that female Homo sapiens and male Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) mated more often than did male H. sapiens and female Neanderthals. It is unclear why.

An illustration depicts early Europeans who lived in what’s now Ranis, Germany, around 45,000 years ago. Image credit: Tom Björklund

An ancient human lineage roamed Europe's frozen tundra for nearly 80 generations. Then they died out.

The Oldest Human Genomes in Europe Show How an Entire Branch of Humanity Disappeared 🏺🧪
www.zmescience.com/science/news...

Marsupials previously thought extinct for millennia discovered in New Guinea 🧪 www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Why do humans mature so slowly? An ancient youth offers clues Small-brained member of Homo that lived 1.8 million years ago may signal a step toward long, drawn-out childhoods

Why do humans mature so slowly? An ancient youth offers clues @evoscribe.bsky.social
www.science.org/content/arti...

I helped edit this super cool story of a dude from India who wrote his name on Egyptian tombs 2,000 years ago! 🏺🧪

A possible archaic human from Borneo The find of a single tooth from Gua Danang may be the first evidence of the archaic inhabitants of the island.

A possible archaic human from Borneo @johnhawks.net open.substack.com/pub/johnhawk...

My father always said, "Never trust anyone whose tv is bigger than their bookshelf." - Emilia Clarke

#WorldBookDay

"It is a great thing to start life with a small number of really good books which are your very own."

- Arthur Conan Doyle

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting A plantation worker photographed this new genus of mammal in New Guinea, thought to have been dead for 6,000 years.

Meet ‘Tous’ — an entirely new genus of mammal we identified. Here’s why it’s so exciting. 🐾🇮🇩 theconversation.com/meet-tous-an...

Chimps' love for crystals could help us understand our own ancestors' fascination with these stones Crystals have repeatedly been found at archaeological sites alongside Homo remains. Evidence shows that hominins have been collecting these stones for as long as 780,000 years. Yet, we know that our a...

Chimps' love for crystals could help us understand our own ancestors' fascination with these stones phys.org/news/2026-02...

Chimpanzee pee reveals how our primate cousins are getting drunk on fermented fruit A urinalysis shows that these apes ingest significant amounts of alcohol, providing new clues to how alcohol influences the animals’ behavior

www.scientificamerican.com/article/chim...

Dog Skull Analysis Rewrites Evolution of Humanity’s Best Friend A surprising diversity of dog shapes and sizes evolved long before the Victorians began making modern breeds

Dog Skull Analysis Rewrites Evolution of Humanity’s Best Friend @katewong.bsky.social
www.scientificamerican.com/article/dog-...

Side-view of Petra, with the text 'Middle East & North Africa, Antiquity' overlaid.

Check out our collection on the #archaeology of the Middle East and North Africa, with FREE and #OpenAccess research on:

✍️ The origins of the world's first writing
🥂 Roman glass trade in the Levant
⛓️‍💥 The legacy of Early Islamic slavery

& more:

🏺 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

The lost languages of ancient humans: Listen to stone-age chat The fossilised bones of our ancestors remain silent. So, how can we possibly imagine what our earliest languages sounded like?

The lost languages of ancient humans: Listen to stone-age chat @BBC_Future www.bbc.com/future/artic...

Detection and characterization of NUMTs in 2519 individuals.

Introgressed mitochondrial fragments from archaic hominins alter nuclear genome function in modern humans 🏺🧪
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Findings highlight an underappreciated mechanism by which archaic mitochondrial fragments shape nuclear genome function and evolution.

Saw another article today headlined, "The Real Paleo Diet". Is there any more hackneyed concept at this point? Do people still click on this?

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. - Groucho Marx

#WorldBookDay

"I find television very educating.
Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book".

- Groucho Marx

Scientists Re-Examined the Skulls of Our Ancestors—And Changed the Timeline of Human Migration Homo erectus skulls from China’s Yunxian archaeological site revealed ages close to two million years—a million years older than previously believed.

Scientists Re-Examined the Skulls of Our Ancestors—And Changed the Timeline of Human Migration www.popularmechanics.com/science/arch...

What explains the long stasis of Oldowan sites? A new study reveals a 300,000 year record of toolmaking near the eastern shore of Lake Turkana

What explains the long stasis of Oldowan sites? @johnhawks.net open.substack.com/pub/johnhawk...

Dentition of the Mugharet El'Aliya Fossil Human Maxilla, Morocco Objective This study follows up on our recent morphological analysis of the juvenile maxilla from Mugharet el'Aliya, Morocco. Although this specimen shows a reportedly archaic morphology, likely…

Dentición de un Homo sapiens juvenil del Ateriense, datado en 35-60 ka:
Dentition of the Mugharet El'Aliya Fossil Human Maxilla, Morocco

Sulfur isotopes evidence spatial ecology of Late Pleistocene ungulates in southwestern France Understanding prey species spatial behaviour is key to unravelling contemporary hunter-gatherer subsistence and movement patterns. Here, we use sulfur…

"Understanding prey species spatial behaviour is key to unravelling contemporary hunter-gatherer subsistence and movement patterns....These results reveal that Neanderthals hunted three different groups of game who occupied different areas of the landscape."
🧪🦣🏺

🏺🧪 A reminder, to avoid narrative slippage, that #Naledi burial claims in revised eLife paper were only accepted by one reviewer. 2nd reviewer didn't say that, & had signif remaining reservations re: cave access. Original 3rd revewer missing.
Would this be an 'accepted paper' in a typical journal?