A new archaeobotanical study by researchers from the University of Oxford and the University of Kiel has revealed that increases in cereal grain size at the dawn of agriculture, more than 11,000 years ago, were initially driven by plants' plastic responses to favourable growing conditions, rather than by genetic selection under cultivation as previously thought. To test competing explanations for early grain enlargement, the international team applied an integrated analytical approach combining morphological, weed ecological and stable carbon isotope analyses of charred barley and emmer wheat remains recovered from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic settlements of el-Hemmeh and Sharara located in the Wadi el-Hasa, Jordan. The study, now published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS) shows that developmental plasticity played a key role in shaping the evolutionary trajectories of cereals before they became domesticated.

Communities living in Colombia thousands of years ago achieved an engineering wonder of the world based on cooperation among family groups without top-down government, a new study shows. Archaeologists argue that policymakers in Colombia should now adopt a similar strategy to solve the country’s current water management crisis.

In a paper published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences, a research team led by Professor Chengbang An reconstructed 4,000 years of dietary evolution in the central-eastern Eurasian Steppe from the Bronze Age to the Tang Dynasty, revealing synchronized dietary shifts across multiple regions: increased millet and meat consumption from the Early Iron Age to the Han Dynasty, followed by a return to wheat- and barley-based C₃ diets during the Jin-Tang periods. The study further demonstrates that these transitions were jointly driven by climate change, intensified interregional interaction among pastoralist groups, and innovations in grain processing technology. This work provides a critical reference for understanding human-environment interactions in the Eurasian Steppe.

A new study provides experimental evidence that wild capuchin monkeys use more than just physical cues when selecting stone tools; they also rely on visible signs that a stone has previously been used for this purpose. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and the University of São Paulo investigated how nut-cracking capuchin monkeys choose between stones of different hardness and appearance, examining whether evidence of prior use, as indicated by percussive damage, can override the influence of a stone's intrinsic material properties.

Analysing ancient DNA of over 500 mammoth bones, an international team of researchers found that Ice Age humans selectively targeted female woolly mammoths. The results of the study, published in Current Biology, show that in contrast to the sex ratio among naturally occurring woolly mammoth remains, large bone accumulations associated with ancient human activity are dominated by females.

An international collaboration led by University of Michigan researchers studied herd management techniques by examining isotopes embedded in tooth enamel of sheep from a medieval Kazakhstan town.