Center for the Recovery and Identification of the Missing helps recover servicemen missing in Laos.

New research from the University of Sydney has uncovered compelling evidence that brings us closer to solving the mystery behind one of the most unique archaeological sites in the Andes. Monte Sierpe (translated as ‘serpent mountain’ and known colloquially as the ‘Band of Holes’) is located in the Pisco Valley of southern Peru and consists of over 5000 precisely aligned holes. This striking, yet puzzling, site has baffled researchers and public audiences for decades.  

To shed new light on this ambiguous feature of Peru’s ancient landscape, an international research team led by Dr Bongers combined microbotanical analysis of sediment samples from the holes with high-resolution aerial imagery, presenting new insights into Monte Sierpe’s organisation and use at both micro and macro scales. Sediment analysis and drone photography of Monte Sierpe supports a new interpretation of this mysterious landscape feature as an Indigenous barter marketplace and accounting system.

A study by researchers at Queen Mary University of London and University College London has found that humans have a form of remote touch, or the ability to sense objects without direct contact, a sense that some animals have.  

Human touch is typically understood as a proximal sense, limited to what we physically touch. However, recent findings in animal sensory systems have challenged this view. Certain shorebirds, such as sandpipers and plovers, use a form of “remote touch” to detect prey hidden beneath the sand (du Toit et al. 2020; de Fouw et al. 2016). Remote touch allows the detection of objects buried under granular materials through subtle mechanical cues transmitted through the medium, when a moving pressure is applied nearby. 

  The study in IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning (ICDL) investigated whether humans share a similar capability. Participants moved their fingers gently through sand to locate a hidden cube before physically touching it. Remarkably, the results revealed a comparable ability to that seen in shorebirds, despite humans lacking the specialized beak structures that enable this sense in birds. 

Pterosaur is the first group of vertebrates with powered flight. It originated in the Late Triassic and became extinct with dinosaurs (excluding birds) at the end of the Cretaceous. Various diets of pterosaurs were proposed using different interpretations, such as content fossils and comparative anatomy. However, the understanding of the diets of many pterosaurs have still been on debate, which is mainly because of the rarity of stomach content found in pterosaurs. In this paper, the researchers found an elliptical content in the stomach position of a Sinopterus specimen. They extracted more than 300 phytoliths from the stomach content but none from the matrix of the same specimen. This demonstrates that these phytoliths, firstly appeared in pterosaurs, were eaten by this Sinopterus rather than any pollution after its death. Phytolith is a microstructure produced by all kinds of plants, and it varies among different plants and different positions of the same individual. Besides the phytoliths, many gastroliths (stones within the body cavity) were also discovered in the stomach content, which is the second pterosaur specimen with gastroliths. The combination of phytoliths and gastroliths, without any bones, scales or exoskeletons, strongly suggest that Sinopterus is herbivorous.

An international project led by Hungarian researchers has successfully identified the remains of Duke Béla, the Ban of Macsó, a member of the Árpád and Rurik dynasties. The investigations have answered a century-old archaeological question.

Prof Carla Jaimes Betancourt, an anthropologist focusing on the Amazon, is a researcher at the Department of Anthropology of the Americas at the University of Bonn and co-director of the BASA Museum housed at the university. Her research, promoting collaborative archaeology with local Indigenous People, focuses on the social complexity in the southwestern Amazon and processes of expansion and formation of ethnic groups in the South American lowland.

In a newly published Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology article, she and co-authors present the results of interdisciplinary and collaborative archaeological research conducted in the southwestern Amazon. In the following editorial, she highlights the rich cultural heritage found at the sites and the importance of protecting these landscapes where humans have thrived for thousands of years.