An international team of archaeologists and scientists has reconstructed the diets of prehistoric communities from north-central Poland, shedding new light on how people adapted to changing environments and shifting social landscapes over three millennia between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

During an archaeological survey conducted in February, researchers from the Maritime Encounters programme at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, identified six previously unregistered Bronze Age mines in Extremadura, southwestern Spain. The discoveries may represent a crucial piece of the puzzle in understanding the origin of the metal used in Scandinavian Bronze Age artefacts.

A new research technique provides a fresh vantage point to Stone Age burial outfits and their decorations.

EMBARGO February 23, 2026 at 3:00 PM U.S. Eastern time -  Over 40,000 years ago, our early ancestors were already carving signs into tools and sculptures. According to a new analysis by linguist Christian Bentz at Saarland University and archaeologist Ewa Dutkiewicz at the Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte (Museum of Prehistory and Early History) in Berlin, these sign sequences have the same level of complexity and information density as the earliest proto-cuneiform script that emerged tens of thousands of years later, around 3,000 B.C.E. Using a computational approach, the team examined over 3,000 signs found on 260 objects to reveal insights on the origins of writing. Their findings, which will be published in the journal PNAS, were clear – and surprised even the researchers.

Isotope analysis of maize cob fragments at the University of California, Merced, supported a study that pre-Inca communities in Peru used seabird guano as fertilizer to supercharge food production.

A new study has determined that the archaeological site of ‘Ubeidiya in the Jordan Valley dates back at least 1.9 million years, pushing back evidence of early human presence in the region by hundreds of thousands of years and positioning the ‘Ubeidiya site, together with Dmanisi, Georgia, the oldest evidence of early humans outside of Africa. The discovery revises a critical moment in human evolution, indicating that ancient pioneers, equipped with a diverse array of stone tools, were established in the Levant at the dawn of our species’ global expansion.

A new study from Bar-Ilan University is shedding light on a long-overlooked social group in archaeology: the elderly. While research on women and children has flourished in recent decades, older adults have remained largely invisible, their lives reconstructed primarily through skeletal remains. Now, Bar-Ilan archaeologists present a new and innovative study, identifying the elderly through household artifacts, offering a fresh window into their daily lives and social roles.

DNA from graves at Ajvide on Gotland, Sweden shows that individuals buried together were often more distant relatives, such as cousins or aunts, rather than immediate family.

This suggests that Stone Age hunter-gatherers had strong awareness of family lineages and valued extended kin relationships.

The study provides new insights into the social organisation and burial practices of hunter-gatherers 5,500 years ago.

It’s long been assumed the Jomon people, who had inhabited the Japanese archipelago since around 16,000 years ago, had multiple lineages resulting from different migration routes. But, new genetic evidence, including mitochondrial DNA from 13 newly sequenced Jomon skeletons, suggests that an initial migration of a single lineage later split, giving rise to regional diversity. This research puts greater emphasis on environmental and cultural factors being the possible drivers for the East and West of prehistoric Japan, respectively.