The Indonesian archipelago is host to some of the earliest known rock art in the world1,2,3,4,5. Previously, secure Pleistocene dates were reported for figurative cave art and stencils of human hands in two areas in Indonesia—the Maros-Pangkep karsts in the southwestern peninsula of the island of Sulawesi1,3,4,5 and the Sangkulirang-Mangkalihat region of eastern Kalimantan, Borneo2. Here we describe a series of early dated rock art motifs from the southeastern portion of Sulawesi. Among this assemblage of Pleistocene (and possibly more recent) motifs, laser-ablation U-series (LA-U-series) dating of calcite overlying a hand stencil from Liang Metanduno on Muna Island yielded a U-series date of 71.6 ± 3.8 thousand years ago (ka), providing a minimum-age constraint of 67.8 ka for the underlying motif. The Muna minimum (67.8 ± 3.8 ka) exceeds the published minimum for rock art in Maros-Pangkep by 16.6 thousand years (kyr) (ref. 5) and is 1.1 kyr greater than the published minimum for a hand stencil from Spain attributed to Neanderthals6, which until now represented the oldest demonstrated minimum-age constraint for cave art worldwide. Moreover, the presence of this extremely old art in Sulawesi suggests that the initial peopling of Sahul about 65 ka7 involved maritime journeys between Borneo and Papua, a region that remains poorly explored from an archaeological perspective.
Tag: lost civilizations
Genetic Study Rewrites the Story of Human and Neanderthal Interbreeding, Pointing to Social Interaction, Not Just Survival
Recent genetic research indicates that interbreeding between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals strongly favored female sapiens and male Neanderthal pairs, demonstrating that social interactions guided human evolution, previously believed to be governed solely by the survival of the fittest.
University of Pennsylvania researchers from the lab of Sarah Tishkoff revealed their findings in a study published in Science, which accounts for the tendency of Neanderthal DNA, common among populations of non-African descent, being largely absent from the X chromosome.
Previously, researchers had assumed that natural selection removed Neanderthal DNA from X chromosomes due to incompatibility or potentially harmful interactions with modern human DNA that would have produced less viable offspring.
Neanderthal DNA and X Chromosome
The chromosomal difference is significant because females are more likely than males to pass on an X chromosome to their offspring, suggesting a sex bias in interbreeding. The team also found that Neanderthals carried an excess of modern human DNA on their own X chromosomes, mirroring the pattern observed in modern humans.
These findings on the X-chromosome point to mating pairs consisting primarily of female Homo sapiens and male Neanderthals. The human genome preserves a long record of migrations, encounters, and intermixing between ancient populations, passing on shared ancestry to modern populations.
“Along our X chromosomes, we have these missing swaths of Neanderthal DNA we call ‘Neanderthal deserts,’” said co-first author Alexander Platt, a senior research scientist in the Tishkoff Lab. “For years, we just assumed these deserts existed because certain Neanderthal genes were biologically ‘toxic’ to humans—as tends to be the case when species diverge—so we thought the genes may have caused health problems and were likely purged by natural selection.”
Analyzing the Human and Neanderthal Genomes
The researchers examined alleles—variations in a gene at the same position on a chromosome—and compared human alleles on the X chromosome of three Neanderthals with alleles from an African genome, known to have not encountered Neanderthals.
“What we found was a striking imbalance,” says co-first author Daniel Harris, a research associate in the Tishkoff lab. “While modern humans lack Neanderthal X chromosomes, Neanderthals had a 62% excess of modern human DNA on their X chromosomes compared to their other chromosomes.”
The comparison revealed an unexpected reversal: human DNA appeared preferentially on the X chromosome in both species. This ruled out incompatibility or gene-interaction problems as the primary explanation. If such incompatibilities existed, human DNA would also have been filtered out of the Neanderthal X chromosome.
Instead, researchers concluded that mating patterns best explained the data. Males carry one X and one Y chromosome, while females carry two X chromosomes and therefore contribute X chromosomes more frequently to future generations. If male Neanderthals commonly mated with female Homo sapiens, the result would be fewer Neanderthal X chromosomes and more human X chromosomes in later populations.
60,000-Year-Old “Highly Unusual” Etchings Could Point to Humanity’s Earliest Use of Geometric Design
Evidence of early human use of geometric concepts in prehistoric art has surfaced in southern Africa, revealed in a series of archaeological discoveries that point to complex patterns and repetition in ancient etchings on ostrich eggshells.
The remarkable finds, uncovered at a series of archaeological sites throughout southern Africa, are believed to have been engraved by early Homo sapiens in the regions close to 60,000 years ago—far earlier than previous examples of organized markings suggestive of the use of geometric rules.
The new findings were made by a research team based at the University of Bologna and reported in a study published in PLOS One.
Echoes of Early Geometry?
As the branch of mathematics that involves spatial properties such as shape, size, and relative position, it is known that the Ancient Babylonians began using geometrical calculations to track the movement of planets like Jupiter at least 1,400 years earlier than previously believed.
To compare the etchings uncovered by the team led by Silvia Ferrara, a Professor at the University of Bologna’s Department of Classical Philology and Italian Studies, to the capabilities of the ancient Babylonians would be off base. However, evidence of more rudimentary geometric thinking—obvious repetition, use of parallel lines, presence of angles (orthogonality), and other distinctive geometric organization—in the ancient African discoveries is hard to ignore.
“These signs reveal a surprisingly structured, geometric way of thinking,” Ferrara said in a statement provided to the University of Bologna’s Unibo Magazine.
“We are talking about people who did not simply draw lines,” Ferrara adds, “but organized them according to recurring principles—parallelisms, grids, rotations, and systematic repetitions: a visual grammar in embryo.”
An Ancient Tale Told on Ostrich Eggs
Ferrara and her team have hypothesized that the primary purpose of these ostrich eggs was to transport water. Probing more deeply into the curious markings that covered many of the eggshell fragments recovered from a trio of southern African archaeological sites, the team conducted a quantitative and systematic investigation of 112 samples.
Employing statistical analysis and geometric methods of investigation that had never been used for such artifacts before, Ferrara and her team reconstructed the lines and designs on the eggshells.
The results were surprising: Ferrara’s team discovered that more than 80% of the etchings they analyzed showed signs of “coherent spatial regularities” and evidence of repetitive orthogonality, with angles near 90° and angles resulting from the convergence of groups of lines drawn parallel to each other.
Ferrara and the team also point to the complexity in several of the etchings, which include repetitive hatched bands, geometric shapes such as simple parallelograms, grid-like motifs, and other features, which they argue as evidence of complex cognitive operations. Beyond the etchings themselves, the markings reveal evidence of rotation, translation, and repetition by the ancient designers, who displayed remarkable capabilities 60,000 years ago at sites in South Africa and Namibia.
Geometric “Mastery” in Ancient Southern Africa
“These engravings are organized and consistent,” Ferrara said, “and show mastery of geometric relationships.”
“There is not only a process of repeating signs: there is real visuo-spatial planning, as if the authors already had an overall image of the figure in mind before engraving it,” she adds.
Did Archaeologists Uncover Evidence of a Neanderthal “Skull Cult” in This Ancient Spanish Cave?
Archaeologists in central Spain report the puzzling discovery of a collection of ancient animal skulls found deep within an ancient cave near Madrid.
The unusual find is believed to represent evidence of repeated activity carried out tens of thousands of years ago by Neanderthals who once lived in the region, and may offer compelling evidence of symbolic behavior previously thought to be unique to modern humans.
The discovery was detailed in recent research published in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences.
Discovery at the “Valley of the Neanderthals”
During excavations beginning in 2009, archaeologists uncovered a rich layer of Middle Paleolithic artifacts within Des-Cubierta Cave, located in Pinilla del Valle near Madrid, Spain. Since that time, the area has been dubbed the “Valley of the Neanderthals” for the remarkable ancient discoveries there.
Such finds include the recovery of several Mousterian stone tools—the primary culture of Middle Paleolithic Europe, as recognized by archaeologists—and a technological manifestation widely associated with Neanderthals in Europe.
Stone tools were not all that the cave had shielded against the elements for several tens of thousands of years: the additional presence of a concentration of animal crania added a layer of archaeological significance unlike those found at other European sites linked to the mysterious Neanderthals.
An Accumulation of Ancient Mammal Skulls
Altogether, portions of skulls associated with 35 large animals, including 28 cattle, five species of deer, and two ancient Ice Age rhinoceroses, were discovered in the cave. Curiously, no other skeletal remains from these animals were present, which included even jaws and facial bones that might normally be associated with the discovery of skulls from such animals under other circumstances.
Several questions lingered about whether natural conditions, such as flooding, might have carried the remains into the cave. However, the seemingly obvious implication, based on the very specific selection of only upper crania present within the cave, had been that the skulls were placed there intentionally at some point in the remote past. If so, why had the cave’s ancient visitors done this, and what might it potentially mean?
Evidence of a Neanderthal Skull Cult?
To answer such questions, the research team behind the investigation, led by archaeologist Lucía Villaescusa of the University of Alcalá, closely examined deposits in the cave, ranging from geological debris to fragmented bones. By mapping the distribution of artifacts and reconstructing bone fragments, the team discerned and analyzed preservation patterns to determine how the remains were brought to the cave.
During their investigations, the team found evidence of an ancient rockfall event that created a sloping, conical debris area. Significantly, it was only after this that evidence of skulls began to appear within the cave.
Scientists discover oldest form of writing in mysterious Stone Age engravings
The origins of writing aren’t set in stone.
The ancient cave peoples weren’t as illiterate as portrayed in popular media. Archaeologists have discovered Paleolithic glyphs in a German cave that could potentially push back the history of written communication by over 30,000 years, per a rock-solid study in the journal Proceedings Of The National Academy of Sciences.
According to the researchers, the symbols were engraved on artifacts that dated back some 40,000 years to the Stone Age, when early humans arrived in Europe from Africa and encountered the Neanderthals.
Despite their age, these ancient etchings boasted a complexity comparable to the early stages of the world’s oldest writing system, cuneiform, which originated around 5,000 years ago, the New Scientist reported.
“The artifacts date back to tens of thousands of years before the first writing systems,” exclaimed study co-author Ewa Dutkiewicz, an archaeologist at Berlin’s Museum of Prehistory and Early History, Popular Science reported.
Dutkiewicz and her team had came upon this writing revelation while investigating 260 relics discovered in cave repositories in the Swabian Jura, a mountainous region in Southwest Germany. This archaeological treasure trove included flutes, carvings of animals like mammoths, and figurines of animal-human hybrids.
They were etched with a total of 22 different recurring symbols, including a V-shaped notch and lines, crosses and dots.
‘Absolute surprise’: Homo erectus skulls found in China are almost 1.8 million years old — the oldest evidence of the ancient human relatives in East Asia
Three Homo erectus skulls previously unearthed in China are almost 1.8 million years old, around 600,000 years older than originally thought, a new study finds.
This revelation has made the Yunxian skulls from Hubei province the oldest evidence of our early human relatives, known as hominins, in East Asia, according to research published Wednesday (Feb. 18) in the journal Science Advances.
Study co-author Christopher Bae, a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told Live Science in an email that he felt “absolute surprise” when he first saw the results of the analysis. This more ancient age may force experts to rethink the date that H. erectus first emerged, which is believed to have occurred around 2 million years ago in Africa.
“What this means is that we need to consider pushing the origin of Homo erectus back” to around 2.6 million years ago, Bae said in an email.
H. erectus has long been considered the first human relative to leave Africa, with 1.78 million to 1.85 million-year-old fossils found at the Dmanisi site in Georgia being the earliest evidence of humans in Asia. But stone tools discovered at two sites in China dated to 2.1 million and 2.43 million years ago have complicated that picture, since they predate experts’ theory of when H. erectus originated.
The exact date of the three Yunxian skulls, which were found between 1989 and 2022, has long been debated, but they were previously considered to be around 1 million years old based on the age of animal teeth found close by, although one study dated them to around 1.1 million years ago using electron spin resonance and uranium-series dating. So when the opportunity arose to try a new dating technique at the site, Bae and his colleagues thought it was a good chance to revisit the debate.
Their team used a technique called cosmogenic nuclide burial dating to determine the age of the quartz found in the sediment layers where the skulls were found. This dating technique measures the half-life of two chemical variants — Aluminum-26 and Beryllium-10 — to determine how much time has passed since the quartz was exposed to cosmic rays.
5,300-Year-Old Egyptian Artifact Confirms Existence of “Mechanically Sophisticated” Drilling Technology Before the Age of the Pharaohs
Close to a century ago, researchers unearthed a small, unusual metal object during excavations at a cemetery in Upper Egypt. Now, a reinvestigation into the curious find has identified it as the earliest known rotary drill ever found in association with ancient Egyptian archaeology.
The small artifact, which measures less than 64 millimeters across and weighs under two grams, is crafted from copper-alloy and dates to the late 4th millennium BCE, which coincides with Egypt’s Predynastic period, a remote era that predates the reign of the earliest pharaohs.
The remarkable discovery, which experts now characterize as “a mechanically sophisticated drilling tool,” was recently detailed in a study published in the journal Egypt and the Levant.
An Ancient Curiosity Comes into Focus
The small artifact, retrieved from the burial of an ancient predynastic Egyptian man identified as Grave 3932, was first documented in the 1920s. At that time, the object was described as “a little awl of copper, with some leather thong wound round it,” a description that offered researchers little to go on as to what its potential use might have been.
Now, according to a team of archaeologists at Newcastle University, working in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, re-examination of the object under magnification has revealed wear patterns that are consistent with drilling devices from later periods in Egyptian history.
Specifically, the team points to evidence of edges rounded from wear, as well as striations and other features that are clear indicators of rotary motion.
“The ancient Egyptians are famous for stone temples, painted tombs, and dazzling jewelry, but behind those achievements lay practical, everyday technologies that rarely survive in the archaeological record,” said Dr. Martin Odler, a Visiting Fellow in Newcastle University’s School of History, Classics and Archaeology, in a statement.
According to Odler, the lead author of the recent study that reassessed the artifact, one of the most important technologies behind such famous achievements afforded us by the ancient Egyptians was the drill, which had uses in everything from woodwork to shaping stone for construction and the creation of decorative pieces.
Evidence of a Bowstring Emerges
Intriguingly, the early 20th-century references to “some leather thong” have proven correct, as the Newcastle team and their Italian collaborators say that six coils of a very fragile piece of leather cordage appear to represent clear evidence of a bowstring which would have been used to power the drill.
Such ancient bow drills served as an early form of rotary tool, which one could liken to an ancient counterpart to modern hand drills. To function, these bow drills featured a small length of leather wrapped around a shaft, which spins the drill very quickly as the string is moved back and forth.
Did modern humans wipe out the Neanderthals? New evidence may finally provide answers.
About 37,000 years ago, Neanderthals clustered in small groups in what is now southern Spain. Their lives may have been transformed by the eruption of the Phlegraean Fields in Italy a few thousand years earlier, when the caldera’s massive explosion disrupted food chains across the Mediterranean region.
They may have gone about their daily life: Crafting stone tools, eating birds and mushrooms, engraving symbols on rocks, and creating jewelry out of feathers and shells.
They likely never realized they were among the last of their kind.
But the story of their extinction actually begins tens of thousands of years earlier, when the Neanderthals became isolated and dispersed, eventually ending nearly half a million years of successful existence in some of the most forbidding regions of Eurasia.
By 34,000 years ago, our closest relatives had effectively gone extinct. But because modern humans and Neanderthals overlapped in time and space for thousands of years, archaeologists have long wondered whether our species wiped out our closest relatives. This may have occurred directly, such as through violence and warfare, or indirectly, through disease or competition for resources.
Now, researchers are solving the mystery of how the Neanderthals died out — and what role our species played in their demise.
“I think the fact is, we do know what happened to Neanderthals, and it is complex,” Shara Bailey, a biological anthropologist at New York University, told Live Science.
12,000-Year-Old Discovery in an Oregon Cave Reveals First Evidence of a “Complex” Ancient American Technology
Two small pieces of animal hide recovered from an ancient dwelling place within a cave in Oregon could represent the earliest known evidence of sewing among America’s early inhabitants.
The remarkably well-preserved artifacts include portions of hide stitched together with handwoven cord and believed to have been crafted more than 12,000 years ago.
If confirmed, this possible evidence of sewn materials could offer archaeologists a rare look at the emergence of complex technologies employed by America’s early inhabitants to ward off the extreme temperatures that still prevailed during the final years of the last Ice Age.
A Discovery at Cougar Mountain Cave
The discoveries were made within Cougar Mountain Cave, an ancient rock shelter in Oregon’s Great Basin. This vast region is best known for its arid landscape and sagebrush valleys, which lie between isolated mountains that have helped craft the very unique ecosystems that were home to significant prehistoric human activity.
An international research team, led by Richard Rosencrance of the University of Nevada and Katelyn McDonough of the University of Oregon, reported their discovery of what appears to be cordage, bone needles, and wooden artifacts alongside remnants of botanical materials in a recent paper featured in Science Advances.
The discovery of artifacts made from such materials that date to this early period of North American occupation is extremely rare, since they are highly perishable, leaving many questions about what kinds of garments and cordage were employed by some of the earliest arrivals in the New World.
4,700-Year-Old Discovery Reveals Clues to Cult of Ishtar’s Spread Throughout the Ancient World
Hidden beneath an ancient temple in Assur, Iraq, archaeologists have made a discovery that holds potentially crucial evidence for the cult of Ishtar’s origins in the area.
The researchers behind the discovery date the temple’s foundation to between 2896 BCE and 2702 BCE, saying that it provides crucial evidence for the spread of Mesopotamian ritual practice to northern Iraq and urban life at Assur over 4,700 years ago, revealing the growth of cult worship.
The findings were published in The Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.
Assur’s Ishtar Temple
Assyria was a major Mesopotamian civilization that began as Assur—initially a meager city-state—and eventually expanded into a much larger empire.
The city itself is located on the western bank of the Tigris River, and during the first millennium BCE, the Neo-Assyrian empire became well established, leaving a rich corpus of well-preserved records about these later periods. Yet, earlier records are murkier or nonexistent, leaving Assur’s beginnings shrouded in mystery.
German archaeologist Walter Andrae first excavated the Ishtar Empire between 1903 and 1914. However, the deepest layers remained covered until the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich’s Assur Excavation Project in 2024. Modern coring technology has enabled archaeologists to access the temple cella.
“The excavators of the Ishtar temple simply didn’t report it, so we assume they didn’t see it,” lead author Mark Altaweel told The Debrief in an email. “The sand is below the last floor level of the temple, so it is possible they just didn’t dig far enough or reach the bedrock. We basically cored until we hit the bedrock.”
Hellbound and Down 
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