A new study documents a set of fossil footprints preserving a snapshot of “fossil behavior” from an ancient hominin group along a lakeshore in northern Kenya around 1.4 million years ago. An international team of researchers from the US and Kenya found tracks showing eight Paranthropus boisei individuals — an extinct “cousin” of modern humans — in one place at one time. All of the individuals are thought to be adults, and some appear to have been much larger in body size than previous estimates based on rare fossil bones.

A new Dartmouth study finds that many of Syria's archaeological sites were damaged during Syria's civil war not just by looting but that, in areas occupied by the Turkish military, sites were systematically bulldozed. The findings are published in the journal Heritage.

An international study led by researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) reveals that Indigenous, African and Afro-descendant communities relied more heavily on marine resources, while communities of immigrants from Germany consumed mainly plant species and terrestrial products.

A team of scientists led by researchers with the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Texas A&M University recently uncovered genetic traces of ancient migration in DNA from avocados growing in Nicaragua. They found evidence that, around 5,000 years ago, people migrating north from South America carried the oversized seeds of one of their favorite fruits—avocados. As these seeds were dispersed throughout the humid lowlands of Central America, they hybridized with native varieties, producing a diversity of avocado varieties that produce the large, smooth-skinned berries that are now enjoyed around Central America. Despite resembling the avocados found in humid regions like Florida and the Caribbean, these local varieties are genetically distinct from the commercially grown fruits found in guacamole.

A major new digital mapping project could help safeguard some of the world's most important and well-known heritage sites from rising seas, flooding and coastal erosion.

Researchers have created the Global Coastal Heritage (Glo-CoH) dataset, the first comprehensive digital map of UNESCO World Heritage sites located along coastlines that are less than 20 metres above sea level.