Scientists at the University of Waterloo have identified one of the doomed crew members of Captain Sir John S. Franklin's 1846 Arctic expedition to cross the Northwest Passage. According to a recent paper published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, DNA analysis revealed that a tooth recovered from a mandible at one of the relevant archaeological sites was that of Captain James Fitzjames of the HMS Erebus. His remains show clear signs of cannibalism, confirming early Inuit reports of desperate crew members resorting to eating their dead.

"Concrete evidence of James Fitzjames as the first identified victim of cannibalism lifts the veil of anonymity that for 170 years spared the families of individual members of the 1845 Franklin expedition from the horrific reality of what might have befallen the body of their ancestor," the authors wrote in their paper. "But it also shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves."

The use of AI combined with low-flying drones revolutionised the speed and rate at which the geoglyphs were discovered, according to a research paper published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The paper said while it “took nearly a century to discover a total of 430 figurative Nazca geoglyphs”, using an AI system covering the entire Nazca region it “took just six months to discover 303 new figurative geoglyphs”.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3519681

"It was different because there wasn't a lot of education [about] our people," she said. "So I only learned my history through my family members."

Years later, Tenasco is learning much more about her culture and her ancestors at a different kind of school — a federally-funded Indigenous archeological field school called Anishinabe Odjibikan.

The school brings together young members of the Algonquin communities of Kitigan Zibi in Quebec and Pikwakanagan in Ontario to dig up, clean and sort items used by their ancestors thousands of years ago.

Tenasco and her fellow Anishinabe Odjibikan participants learn how to document layers of earth and rocks, identify materials and determine if they're local to the area, use surveyor's tools and clean and reassemble pottery pieces found at a dig site.

Anishinabe Odjibikan is part of a growing trend in archaeology of involving the Indigenous peoples whose lands are being excavated — with the work either being led by Indigenous people, done collaboratively or carried out with their consent.

According to Cree/Métis archaeologist Paulette Steeves, the last century of archaeology has invalidated the pre-contact history of the Americas — and the people who lived there for thousands of years.

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As Russian missile strikes and heavy assaults by ground troops pace deadly attacks on Ukraine, a new report by University of Virginia researchers reveals another destructive facet of Russia's invasion.

Using commercial satellite imagery and other open-source information, associate professor of sociology Fiona Greenland and other researchers with UVA's Cultural Resilience Informatics and Analysis, or CURIA, Lab determined that multiple ancient Ukrainian burial mounds have been damaged in two locations currently occupied by Russian troops—a potential violation of international law.

These historically significant burial sites, called "kurgans," were constructed by the ancient peoples of the Ukrainian steppe. The mounds, up to 65 feet tall, contain human remains and artifacts dating back as far as 3000 B.C.E.

A team of student volunteers on an archaeological dig in northern France has had a surprise communication from the past.

Every day, my distaste for Jared Diamond ages like a fine wine.

The earliest humans to settle the Great Lakes region likely returned to a campsite in southwest Michigan for several years in a row, according to a University of Michigan study.

Until recently, there was no evidence that people from the Clovis period had settled the Great Lakes region. The Clovis people appeared in North America about 13,000 years ago, during the geologic epoch called the Pleistocene. During the Pleistocene, sheets of glaciers covered much of the world, including Michigan, making the land inhospitable for human settlers. But a 2021 U-M study confirmed that Clovis people built a camp, now called the Belson site, in southwest Michigan.

This prehistoric carving, discovered inside a cave in France, depicts a steppe wisent (Bison priscus), a now-extinct species of bison. It was crafted from a piece of reindeer antler that was previously used as a spear thrower for hunting, according to the Bradshaw Foundation.

Despite its small size — roughly 4 inches (10.5 centimeters) wide — the figurine contains a wealth of meticulous details, including finely carved individual hairs across the animal's body and a pair of horns jutting from its head, giving the piece a lifelike quality.

The Neolithic farmers and herders who built a massive stone chamber in southern Spain nearly 6,000 years ago possessed a good rudimentary grasp of physics, geometry, geology and architectural principles, finds a detailed study of the site.

Using data from a high-resolution laser scan, as well as unpublished photos and diagrams from earlier excavations, archaeologists pieced together a probable construction process for the monument known as the Dolmen of Menga. Their findings, published on 23 August in Science Advances1, reveal new insights into the structure and its Neolithic builders’ technical abilities.

How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies?

UC Berkeley archaeologists say the answer might be none of the above.

Instead, researchers say humans may have braced the butt of their pointed spears against the ground and angled the weapon upward in a way that would impale a charging animal. The force would have driven the spear deeper into the predator's body, unleashing a more damaging blow than even the strongest prehistoric hunters would have been capable of on their own.

A large-scale study of fossil human teeth from Ice Age Europe shows that climate change significantly influenced the demography of prehistoric humans.

Using the largest dataset of human fossils from Ice Age Europe to date, an international research team shows how prehistoric hunter–gatherers coped with climate change in the period between 47,000 and 7,000 years ago.

Population sizes declined sharply during the coldest period, and in the West, Ice Age Europeans even faced extinction, according to the study published August 16 in the journal Science Advances.

Cooking is important — in fact, some researchers believe it's what allowed our human ancestors to unlock the extra calories needed to grow larger brains. So when was cooking invented?

The timing is uncertain, but evidence suggests people were cooking food at least 50,000 years ago and as early as 2 million years ago. This evidence comes from two fields: archaeology and biology.

One piece of archaeological evidence for cooking is cooked starch grains found in dental calculus, or hardened dental plaque. "People can find it in teeth that are 50,000 years old," said Richard Wrangham, a retired professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University and the author of "Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human" (Basic Books, 2009).

But earlier than that, the evidence is less clear. Generally, scientists look for evidence that people were controlling fire. But evidence of controlled fire isn't necessarily evidence of cooking; — people could have used that fire for heat or to make tools, for example.

'Since Inuvialuit ancestors arrived in the Mackenzie Delta around 800 years ago, beluga whales have been central to their livelihood and culture,' said archaeologist and co-senior author Professor Max Friesen from University of Toronto.

'However, little is known of the impact of centuries of sustained subsistence harvests on the beluga population'.

Integrating paleogenomics, genetic simulations, and stable isotope analysis of 45 zooarchaeological beluga remains, and comparing the findings with contemporary data from tissue samples provided by Inuvialuit hunters from their beluga subsistence hunts, the team characterised the effect of 700 years of subsistence harvests on beluga genetic diversity, population structuring, and foraging ecology.

An ancient DNA (aDNA) study at the 17th-century English colony of Jamestown, Virginia, has identified two of the town's earliest settlers, and revealed an unexpected family secret.

Founded in AD 1607, Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the New World. Excavations at the site discovered human remains in the 1608–1616 church.

As such, it was thought that they were the bodies of some of the original colonists.

"These graves were purposely buried near the altar in the Church Chancel," says co-author of the research Dr. William Kelso, Emeritus Director of Archaeology at Jamestown Rediscovery. "This prominent location suggests the graves contained the remains of high-status individuals."

A company developing an industrial-scale solar panel array on Badger Mountain in Eastern Washington has paused permitting activities on the project amid concerns about impacts to Indigenous cultural sites.

The decision comes on the heels of an investigation by High Country News and ProPublica this year, which found that a land survey funded by the developer, Avangrid Renewables, had omitted more than a dozen sites of archaeological or cultural significance on the public parcel included in the project area. This survey is required by the state before it can permit the project so construction can begin.

In a June 27 letter to the state agency responsible for approving the project, Avangrid wrote that it will be pausing project planning for two to three months “while we re-evaluate public comments, including from our project landowners and affected tribal nations.”

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation have objected to the Badger Mountain solar project for years, according to tribal business councilmember Karen Condon. They officially registered their opposition in May 2023, citing the foods, medicines, archaeological heritage sites and other cultural resources found on the mountain. They were joined shortly after by the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation. Both tribal nations have the right to access and use public lands in their ancestral territory, which includes the state-owned parcel on Badger Mountain.