Twenty-seven standardised bone tools dating back more than 1.5 million years were recently discovered in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by a team of scientists from the CNRS and l’Université de Bordeaux¹, in collaboration with international and Tanzanian researchers. This discovery challenges our understanding of early hominin technological evolution, as the oldest previously known standardised bone tools date back approximately 500,000 years.²

The oldest collection of mass-produced prehistoric bone tools reveal that human ancestors were likely capable of more advanced abstract reasoning one million years earlier than thought, finds a new study involving researchers at UCL and CSIC- Spanish National Research Council.

From war-torn Beirut and Ukraine to countries including Russia, Armenia and Brazil, women across the world are developing sacred art to bring messages of peace and solidarity, as well as preserving their cultural heritage.

And now, the first ever digital archive of women's iconography will be launched officially on March 10 as part of a series of events at Lancaster University Library to mark International Women’s Day (March 8).

Iconography is the oldest sacred art practice in the Christian tradition and was the only artform in use across the global Christian church until the Great Schism, the split between the East and West and the Catholic and Orthodox churches in 1054.

Most Bronze Age settlements have been documented in European territory. Despite its geographical proximity, the Maghreb has always been absent from these historical narratives, erroneously characterized as an ‘empty land’ until the arrival of the Phoenicians around 800 BC. Now, a research study led by Hamza Benattia Melgarejo ( University of Barcelona) has uncovered the first Bronze Age settlement in this geographical area, predating the Phoenician period. This discovery is of great significance for the history of Africa and the Mediterranean. 

Fossil eggshells from Utah's Cedar Mountain Formation include Cretaceous period eggs from 3 feathered bird-like dinosaurs, 2 herbivorous dinosaurs, and a crocodile-like species found for the first time outside Europe

The nailed heads ritual did not correspond to the same symbolic expression among the Iberian communities of the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula, but rather a practice that differed in each settlement. In some, external individuals were used as symbols of power and intimidation, while other settlements could have given priority to the veneration of members of the local community. This is the conclusion reached by a study led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) which analyses the mobility patterns of these human communities existing in the Iron Age of the last millenium BCE. Researchers studied seven nailed skulls of men found in two sites dating back to this period: the city of Ullastret (found in the same town of the province of Girona) and the settlement of Puig Castellar (Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Barcelona).