What Ancient Stone “Swiss Army Knives” Mean
An archaeologist explains new evidence from stone tools that shows strong and wide social connections among our ancestors who lived 65,000 years ago in Southern Africa.
Archaeology
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Stop Projecting Nationalism Onto Stonehenge
Two archaeologists respond to the portraits of Queen Elizabeth II beamed onto Stonehenge—the latest attempt to appropriate the monument for nationalist messages.
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Can Machine Learning Translate Ancient Egyptian Texts?
A new program aims to use AI to help academics and the public decipher hieroglyphs. Here’s an inside look at how—and whether—it works.
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What the Discovery of Denisovan Remains in Laos Means
The new excavation of a fossil tooth places an enigmatic group of ancient humans in Southeast Asia 164,000 years ago.
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Tree Rings Are Evidence of the Megadrought—and Our Doom
Scientists are using dendroclimatology to investigate megadroughts in the western U.S., and the trees are telling a disturbing tale.
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Five Turning Points in the Evolution of Wine
Anthropologists have helped uncork the fascinating history of winemaking—from drunken primates to Stone Age seed domestication to intoxicating religious rites.