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Cultures News -- ScienceDaily
Cultures of the World. News and findings about early human cultures. Learn about trading, colonization, early language development and the showoff hypothesis.

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New evidence suggests sexual division of labor as farming arose in Europe
'); document.write('A new investigation of stone tools buried in graves provides evidence supporting the existence of a division of different types of labor between people of male and female biological sex at the start of the Neolithic.'); document.write('
Grave goods show gendered roles for Neolithic farmers
'); document.write('Grave goods, such as stone tools, have revealed that Neolithic farmers had different work-related activities for men and women.'); document.write('
Modern human brain originated in Africa around 1.7 million years ago
'); document.write('The human brain as we know it today is relatively young. It evolved about 1.7 million years ago when the culture of stone tools in Africa became increasingly complex. A short time later, the new Homo populations spread to Southeast Asia, researchers have now shown using computed tomography analyses of fossilized skulls.'); document.write('
800-year-old medieval pottery fragments reveal Jewish dietary practices
'); document.write('Archaeologists have found the first evidence of a religious diet locked inside pottery fragments excavated from the early medieval Jewish community.'); document.write('
Genomes of the earliest Europeans
'); document.write('Ancient genomes shed new light on the earliest Europeans and their relationships with Neanderthals.'); document.write('
Neanderthal ancestry identifies oldest modern human genome
'); document.write('The fossil skull of a woman in Czechia has provided the oldest modern human genome yet reconstructed, representing a population that formed before the ancestors of present-day Europeans and Asians split apart.'); document.write('
Humans were apex predators for two million years, study finds
'); document.write('In a new study, researchers were able to reconstruct the nutrition of stone-age humans. The study\'s authors collected about 25 lines of evidence from about 400 scientific papers from different scientific disciplines, dealing with the focal question: Were stone-age humans specialized carnivores or were they generalist omnivores?'); document.write('
Ancient genomes trace the origin and decline of the Scythians
'); document.write('Generally thought of as fierce horse-warriors, the Scythians were a multitude of Iron Age cultures who ruled the Eurasian steppe, playing a major role in Eurasian history. A new study analyzes genome-wide data for 111 ancient individuals spanning the Central Asian Steppe from the first millennia BCE and CE. The results reveal new insights into the genetic events associated with the origins, development and decline of the steppe\'s legendary Scythians.'); document.write('
Ancient Maya houses show wealth inequality is tied to despotic governance
'); document.write('Archaeologists examined the remains of houses in ancient Maya cities and compared them with other Mesoamerican societies; they found that the societies with the most wealth inequality were also the ones that had governments that concentrated power with a smaller number of people.'); document.write('
New evidence in search for the mysterious Denisovans
'); document.write('Researchers have conducted a comprehensive genetic analysis and found no evidence of interbreeding between modern humans and the ancient humans known from fossil records in Island Southeast Asia. They did find further DNA evidence of our mysterious ancient cousins, the Denisovans, which could mean there are major discoveries to come in the region.'); document.write('
Ancient bone artefact found
'); document.write('The discovery of a rare bone artefact near the Lower Murray River casts more light on the rich archaeological record on Ngarrindjeri country in southern Australia. The Murrawong bone point has been dated to between c. 5,300-3,800 years old.'); document.write('
Roof-tiles in imperial China: Creating Ximing Temple\'s lotus-pattern tile ends
'); document.write('Researchers have studied variations in the lotus-pattern tile ends used in the roof of the Ximing Temple, Xi\'an, and found that they indicate that two separate production systems were involved in the manufacture of the tiles. Moreover, they found that the increasing degree of variation over time suggests a decentralization of the tile-production process in the Late Tang dynasty.'); document.write('
Researchers solve more of the mystery of Laos megalithic jars
'); document.write('Sediment samples and Optically Stimulated Luminescence help determine age of jars of one of South East Asia\'s most important archaeological sites.'); document.write('
Scythian people weren\'t just nomadic warriors, but sometimes settled down
'); document.write('New research finds that Scythian people of ancient Ukraine led more complex lives than commonly assumed.'); document.write('
Neanderthal and early modern human stone tool culture co-existed for over 100,000 years
'); document.write('Research has discovered that one of the earliest stone tool cultures, known as the Acheulean, likely persisted for tens of thousands of years longer than previously thought.'); document.write('