When does a bone become a fossil?
15 February 2024
As organic material in a bone gets replaced by minerals over time, it becomes a fossil. But that can happen at different rates even within the same individual
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Premium
The archaeologists recreating the secrets of prehistoric technology
14 March 2023
It has long been unclear how ancient people built a city of wood in the New Mexico desert far from any forests. By trying prehistoric building techniques themselves, archaeologists are working it out
Ancient Egyptians used exotic oils from distant lands to make mummies
1 February 2023
A workshop used for mummification at Saqqara in Egypt contains remnants of the substances used to make mummies, revealing many came from southern Africa or South-East Asia
A small Irish community survived a millennium of plagues and famines
27 April 2022
Analysis of pollen preserved in peat at Slieveanorra in the Antrim hills reveals the resilience of a rural community through environmental changes
Fate of buried Java Man revealed in unseen notes from Homo erectus dig
30 March 2022
One of the first excavations to find extinct human remains took place on Java in the 1890s, and the original documentation reveals details about the mudflow that encased the fossils there
Geese may have been the first birds to be domesticated 7000 years ago
7 March 2022
Goose bones from Stone Age China suggest the birds were being domesticated there 7000 years ago, which could mean they were domesticated before chickens
Over 190 African heritage sites threatened by rising seas this century
10 February 2022
As sea levels rise due to climate change, heritage sites all around the African coast will come under increasing risk of flood damage – including Carthage and sites linked to the Ancient Egyptian civilisation
Modern humans moved into cave one year after Neanderthals abandoned it
9 February 2022
About 10,000 years before modern humans colonised Europe, a small group of them moved into a cave in southern France that had just been abandoned by Neanderthals – but they only stayed there for about 40 years
Ancient Andean leaders may have mixed hallucinogen with their beer
12 January 2022
A concoction of vilca seeds and fermented alcohol may have provided a mild hallucinogenic experience, enabling Wari leaders in South America to bond with their people
Fossil footprints hint at mystery hominin with unusual walking style
1 December 2021
A set of 3.7-million-year-old footprints were initially thought to have been left by a bear walking upright, but have now been reinterpreted as the prints of an unidentified hominin that walked a little bit like a modern catwalk fashion model
