A 4.4-million-year-old ankle bone from Ardipithecus ramidus suggests early hominins still climbed like African apes — reshaping what we know about bipedal origins. #HumanEvolution #Paleoanthropology #FossilFinds #Science https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-ape-in-ardis-ankle-how-a-44-million

Massive stone “funnels” found in Slovenia and Italy may be Europe’s oldest hunting megastructures—proof that early societies shaped landscapes through cooperation and ingenuity. #Archaeology #Prehistory #HumanEvolution @pnas.org https://www.anthropology.net/p/walls-for-the-hunt-europes-forgotten

New research overturns the idea that Europe’s first modern humans copied their tools from the Near East—showing innovation sparked independently on both sides of the Mediterranean. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #StoneTools #Paleolithic https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-myth-of-a-single-origin-how-two

The newly discovered hand of Paranthropus boisei reshapes our understanding of manual evolution, showing a gorilla-like strength paired with surprising dexterity—evidence that tool-use potential may have predated Homo. #Paleoanthropology #Evolution #Paranthropus #FossilFinds https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-hand-that-rewrites-a-lineage

Ancient DNA from Neolithic chewing gum reveals how Europe’s first farmers lived, worked, and ate. Birch tar preserves the intimacy of their daily lives in astonishing molecular detail. #Archaeology #Neolithic #AncientDNA #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-resin-that-remembered-how-ancient

Ancient concretions on human remains hold microbial DNA and proteins, revealing how decay itself can preserve life’s molecular traces. A new frontier for archaeology’s molecular record. #Bioarchaeology #AncientDNA #Taphonomy https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-bodys-afterlife-how-mineral-concretions

New research in northern Chile reveals 76 ancient stone traps used to hunt vicuña across the high Andean valleys. These “tethered landscapes” show how mobility, cooperation, and ecology shaped Andean lifeways. #Archaeology #Andes #BehavioralEcology #Pleistocene https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-tethered-highlands-ancient-hunting

New research along Turkey’s Ayvalık coast reveals a lost Ice Age land bridge linking Anatolia and Europe—possibly used by both Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #Pleistocene #Aegean https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-the-sea-was-a-road-early-humans

New evidence from Ormagi Ekhi, Georgia, shows how Neanderthals mastered the South Caucasus’s harsh ecology through mobility, cooperation, and tool innovation—reshaping our view of Ice Age survival. #Paleolithic #Archaeology #Neanderthals #Caucasus https://www.anthropology.net/p/mountains-of-memory-how-neanderthals

9,000 years of skeletons show that bone aging is more than biology—it’s culture in motion. Holocene humans aged with the same skeletal rhythm despite changing lifestyles. #Anthropology #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #BoneHealth https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-bones-remember-movement-9000

A Byzantine child buried 900 years ago in Aphrodisias shows signs of a rare bone disease, Caffey disease, offering new insight into childhood health, care, and resilience in medieval Anatolia. #Bioarchaeology #Byzantine #Osteology #Paleopathology https://www.anthropology.net/p/a-swollen-legacy-the-byzantine-child

Ancient DNA from China’s Baligang site reveals 5,000-year-old kinship ties, climate-driven migrations, and the earliest patrilineal clan in East Asia. #Archaeogenetics #NeolithicChina #AncientDNA #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-river-between-worlds-how-ancient

A 400,000-year-old elephant site near Rome reveals how early humans adapted to a warmer world, turning bones into tools and environment into teacher. #Archaeology #HumanEvolution #Pleistocene #Italy https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-giants-walked-the-tiber-how

A 1,000-year-old microbiome from pre-Hispanic Mexico reveals how ancient diets, ecology, and bacteria co-shaped human life long before industrialization. #Archaeology #Microbiome #AncientDNA #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-forgotten-gut-of-zimapan

New research suggests the Wari Empire in Peru used psychedelic beer to turn strangers into allies. Chemistry met politics, and intoxication became infrastructure for empire. #Archaeology #Wari #Andes #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-empire-in-the-afterglow-how-psychedelic

Physics meets Polynesian ingenuity: new research confirms that Easter Island’s moai “walked” upright across the landscape using balance, rhythm, and rope—turning myth into mechanics. #Archaeology #RapaNui #AncientEngineering #Science https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-giants-walked-how-rapa-nuis

New @science.org Advances model finds all small-scale societies—from Inuit to Amazonian farmers—obey the same law of innovation: each new tool costs more than it gives. The politics of invention began long before the state.
#Anthropology #Archaeology #CulturalEvolution https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-politics-of-tools-how-small-scale

New excavations in Shandong reveal that early Zhou ritual platforms shaped China’s first shared identities long before the First Emperor. Political unity began not with conquest, but with communion. #Archaeology #Anthropology #China #StateFormation @antiquity.ac.uk https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-politics-of-sacred-earth-how

New evidence from Patagonian hunter-gatherers shows that even in the harshest environments, care for the injured and disabled was a shared human commitment—not a luxury. #Archaeology #Paleopathology #HumanEvolution #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/the-wounded-and-the-cared-for-how

Ancient teeth from Neolithic Syria reveal how the first farmers balanced rooted village life with mobility and inclusion—showing that even 10,000 years ago, belonging was chemical as much as cultural. #Archaeology #Neolithic #HumanOrigins #Anthropology https://www.anthropology.net/p/when-villages-became-home-how-ancient