3+ day, 4+ hour ago   (363+ words) Archaeologists have unearthed a rare collection of Denisovan fossils and over 1,300 stone tools at a cave site in southwestern China, providing unprecedented insights into the daily lives of the enigmatic ancient human species. The discoveries at Bianfu Cave in Yunnan…...

3+ day, 14+ hour ago   (332+ words) Two ancient forager skeletons from Sulawesi show deep tooth grooves and psychoactive traces, reported as possibly the earliest known evidence of human drug use. Two pre-agricultural foragers who lived on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi may represent the earliest known…...

3+ day, 15+ hour ago   (528+ words) Fossilised teeth from Sulawesi carry the oldest known traces of human drug use, dated to between 16,000 and 25,000 years ago, researchers report. Traces of betel nut have been found in fossilised teeth from Indonesia's Sulawesi island, in what researchers describe as…...

4+ day, 23+ hour ago   (199+ words) A recent crossword clue about a Middle English earth-thrower highlights the fascinating history of the obsolete word "mouldwarp." To medieval farmers who rarely saw the reclusive, nearly blind animal itself, the most obvious evidence of its existence was the fresh…...

5+ day, 23+ hour ago   (335+ words) Slate's September 7 SoundBites asks which creature's name means 'earth thrower' in Middle English, reviving moldwarp, a 600-year-old word for the mole. Somewhere beneath an ordinary lawn, a small mammal is pushing soil to the surface, unaware that its 600-year-old English…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (443+ words) Ten Gordonstoun students on a six-day dig found altar steps beneath a ruin on Swona, an Orkney island inhabited only by feral cattle since 1974. The cottage had no electricity, the well was ancient and the only neighbours were feral cattle....