When researchers first started to look at animal bones from Contrebandiers Cave, Morocco, they wanted to learn about the diet and environment of early human ancestors who lived there between 120,000 and 90,000 years ago. But they soon realized that the bones they had found weren’t just meal scraps. As reported in the journal iScience on September 16, they’d been shaped into tools, apparently for use in working leather and fur.

The long-distance migrations of early Bronze Age pastoralists in the Eurasian steppe have captured widespread interest. But the factors behind their remarkable spread have been heavily debated by archaeologists. Now a new study in Nature provides clues regarding a critical component of the herders’ lifestyle that was likely instrumental to their success: dairying.

The most comprehensive and exact dating to date of the Cova del Gegant (Sitges, Barcelona) has been published. This is the site with most Neanderthal remains in Catalonia and a unique place to study the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition, when the first populations of anatomically modern humans appeared and the Neanderthals disappeared. The new study states that the Neanderthals occupied the Cova del Gegant, and the Catalan littoral, during a period of time which goes beyond what was though so far: researchers believed Neanderthals had lived there 50,000 years ago, but now the period goes up from 94,000 to 59,000 years ago. The study, published in Quaternary Science Reviews, explains the role of the cave within the route of the Mediterranean littoral, which during the coldest periods of the Palaeolithic became a natural corridor for animals and human beings to avoid the mountains of the Pyrenees.

A new study lead by an international team of scientists uses a wide range of methods to date the heavily eroded reliefs, and connecting them to a period in which a green Arabia was home to monument-building pastoralists

Where skeletons are rare, isolated teeth can flesh out our understanding of ancient reptile-dominated ecosystems, according to a study published September 8, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Ariana Paulina-Carabajal of INIBIOMA (Instituto de Investigaciones en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente) and CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), Argentina, and colleagues.

Rice University scientists uncover how natural archives recorded Atlantic hurricane frequency over the past 1,000 years. More data is needed to help model how climate change will affect storms in the future.

International and Saudi researchers have discovered archaeological sites in the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia associated with the remains of ancient lakes formed when periods of increased rainfall transformed the region into grassland. The researchers found that early humans spread into the region during each ‘Green Arabia’ phase, each bringing a different kind of material culture. The new research establishes northern Arabia as a crucial migration route and a crossroads for early humans.