And here’s my other human origins countdown to close out the year! 🏺🧪

Within a cave used by bird nest traders, archaeologists uncover a single tooth from an ancient group: the first evidence from an extinct hominin on the world’s third largest island. What group lived there in the millennia before modern people arrived? www.johnhawks.net/p/a-possible...

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... #OntarioArchaeology #FirstNations 🏺 #CulturalHeritage #TRC

New Perspective from myself, Sarah Heilbronner and @myoo.bsky.social . “Rethinking the centrality of brain areas in understanding functional organization” in Nature Neuroscience. 🧵 rdcu.be/eVZ1A

I got round to it! 🤣 bigbookoftorcs.com/2025/12/21/d...

A student's paper just described the interaction between Homo sapiens and Neandertals as "a situationship rather than a relationship" and I'm still laughing ten minutes later 💀🏺

the analogy I use with friends and family all the time is the jump from collegiate to professional sports. as soon as I explain it that way, it clicks in their brains what the academic job market is like.

🧪🦣 🏺 Super thread on complexity & pitfalls in using genetics to - crudely put - explain why H. sapiens are here but #Neanderthals aren't. For me, it underlines as usual that while the DNA revolution has been amazing, the #archaeology - what humans actually did - remains central to understanding.

Archaeologists, it's mystery object time! It's an iron rod with a spoon-like end. The other end is missing. Context could be anytime between 19th and 20th century Texas. 🏺

🇨🇦🇨🇦 Just announced: a massive new program from the Canadian govt, separate from the well-known CRCs and CERCs, to recruit foreign scientific talent Canada was already a destination for scientists but whoa. Real impressive for a new govt to back political talking points with serious investment

Great story in local CBC New Brunswick news about an archival artefact collection and the collaboration between U New Brunswick and Wolastoqey First Nation 🏺https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/bailey-collection-unb-artifacts-wolastoqey-collaboration-9.6991802

In ancient Mesopotamia, astronomers needed to know the moon’s position, even on a cloudy night. So they made records and calculations of the moon’s positions and velocity measured in degrees. This record from Uruk or Babylon from the Seleucid period covers 248 days. 📸 by Dr K. Wagensonner

All roads lead to cats.... "Roman military helped bring cats to Europe" A big week for cat #archaeologynews 🏺🐈 www.popsci.com/environment/... and connectsci.au/news/news-pa...

🏺 Archaeology = materiality, connection, deep-time relevance to present & future

8000 years ago in the remote, boreal landscape of the Siberian taiga, hunter-gatherers built the earliest fortified sites. The development of territoriality and social conflict was not necessarily tied to agriculture. 🔗 from 2023 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology 📷 N. Golovanov

Meanwhile in Sayburç, one of the PPN Taş Tepeler sites of Turkey: A human head carved on the base of one of the T shaped pillars has been found.🏺😲

Did Neandertals choose their prey when practicing cannibalism?🍖 Check out our new study, just published in Scientific Reports - @natureportfolio.nature.com! We provide the strongest evidence to date for a highly selective cannibalism at the end of Neandertal lineage, 41-45.000 years ago. 1/7

It's that special time of year we've all been waiting for, happy #GISDay everyone! 🗺️ Here's a mini #AntiquityThread on some of the fantastic #archaeology research published in Antiquity this year that applied this now-indispensable tool 1/6 🧵 🏺

Were Neanderthals Artists? Ochre Fragments Reveal Signs of Creative Expression. A new study suggests Neanderthals may have used crayon-like tools in symbolic mark-making. news.artnet.com/art-world/ne... 🏺

Essaouira’s Bizmoune Cave Yields New Clues to Early Humans. Moroccan archaeologists have opened a new research season at Bizmoune Cave near Essaouira. Fresh finds illuminate Stone Age life and deepen the site’s global importance. www.moroccoworldnews.com/2025/11/2677... 🏺

Despite their potential to teach us about precontact societies, the study of underwater prehistoric landscapes is still in its infancy in the Americas. Check out our review of 'Submerged prehistory in the Americas' in the latest #NewBookChronicle 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

The American sweet potato was introduced to Polynesia from South America, likely by seafarers crossing the Pacific. It can withstand harsher conditions than taro or uwhi (yam), so its introduction helped early migrants settle cooler southern Polynesia. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Yup... here it is, as found, in the PAS database - it's been straightened out for sale (something archaeological conservators wouldn't do - it was likely intentionally crushed in antiquity. Also, are we 100% sure this is right shape??) 1/4 #Archaeology #Detecting 🏺 finds.org.uk/database/art...

Interested studying human evolution at @ucl.ac.uk with a dedicated MSc in palaeolithic archaeology, palaeoanthropology, Ice Age fauna, isotopes, aDNA, ancient environments & more? Get in touch for a chat or even a tour of the department with me. @uclarchaeology.bsky.social #PaPa 🏺🦣🧪

Woodhenge was discovered in Dec 1925. Delighted to see my article about this in @CurrentArchaeo’s December issue - fittingly for the 100th anniversary of this state monument. 🏺https://the-past.com/feature/100-years-of-woodhenge-tracing-an-archaeological-icon-from-discovery-to-new-dating-evidence/

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Legit, who wants to work on a women-through-prehistory timeslip computer game with me? I HAVE IDEAS 🏺🎮

I like how the small tools look like Goldfish crackers. 🧪🏺

Latest paper: Boxgrove is a key European site dating to 480,000 years ago. At GTP17, hominins knapped handaxes and then butchered an adult female horse. A fragment of the horse's scapula appeared to have evidence of impact from a wooden spear..... www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Super excited to use this fabulous ‘Behind the Paper’ article by @petravaiglova.bsky.social and @kjkillackey.bsky.social to teach my undergrad theory students about how good visualisations are well-theorised ones. Such a wonderful piece of sci comm! 🏺🧪 communities.springernature.com/posts/making...

Arrowheads from the 13th-century-BC conflict in the Tollense Valley 🇩🇪 Variation in their forms suggest some of the combatants came from many kilometres away, adding to evidence for a clash between local and incoming groups. 🔗 from 2024 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

This is such a great paper. We make endless small steps ahead in archaeology every week. I remember when I was starting out and the number of colleagues who told me not to waste my time with satellite imagery analysis. Now, it's used by everyone. Tremendous use case here. 🏺

As more people in Southwest Asia began living in cities, how did they ensure they had enough food? #Zooarchaeology shows they were reliant on rural satellite settlements to support increasingly large and diverse urban populations #WorldUrbanismDay 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Deadline approaches for our open professorship here at @au.dk @auarcher.bsky.social. Get in touch if you have q international.au.dk/about/profil...

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Heyyyy we desperately need more archaeologists to volunteer to answer questions from students via video chat through @skypeascientist.bsky.social. We have 80 unmatched teams. We’ve already matched 650 😵‍💫 If you know any archaeologists, please send them here www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

Our own Prof Eileen Murphy looking great as well she may!

📢 Job Alert! 🏺🧪 Over 30 positions at the National Geographic Society!

The mausoleum of China's first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, is best-known for the terracotta warriors, but analysis of charred timbers here sheds light on the sophisticated logistical planning and resource mobilisation of the Qin Dynasty. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

What was everyday life like in ancient West Africa? Excavation at the c. AD 1456–1661 Yoruba town of Orile-Owu, Nigeria sheds light on diet, food processing, medicinal practices and daily routines during a period of sociopolitical change. 🆓 doi.org/10.15184/aqy... 🏺 #Archaeology

Revisiting old Liang Bua documentaries and getting a kick out of this scene. 🏺

Paranthropus boisei is a human fossil cousin w/ giant jaws and teeth that lived in East Africa ~2.6 to 1.3 million years ago. Whether it could make & use tools has been a paleoanthropological mystery since the 1960s. Our new paper describes the first firmly associated hand and foot. 1/

What human-made structures are visible from space, and what does this mean? 🧪 🏺 #PlanetSci

📰 What was thought to be a Palaeolithic oil lamp was likely in fact a 13,000-year-old paint pallet, and contains the oldest instance of blue pigment in Europe! 🏺 #AntiquityResearch #ArchaeologyNews via @smithsonianmag.bsky.social www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/t...

📢 Come join us! Penn State Anthropology is hiring *two tenure-track assistant professors*, one in human reproductive ecology and one in archaeology. Here are just a few reasons why working at Penn State is awesome:

@sriucl.bsky.social is HIRING 2 permanent Lecturers 🚀 in #QuantitativeSocialScience! It comes with smart and lovely colleagues🌟, a central London office, and many big ideas and questions 🧐 Apply now! www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...

Don’t be puzzled by the lack of deadline in the ad. This is an imposed HR quirk. Reviews will begin c. November 1st! Happy to field any questions! #archaeology

🧪🏺 "My work takes up the theoretical challenge first posed fifty years ago that reliance on agriculture is responsible for a Neolithic increase in disease" Brenna is one of the most modest AND most sharp scholars I know - this project will be fantastic!

For more on this site and others in central Tanzania, check out our recent paper in African Archaeological Review 🏺