Painting from El Castillo cave (Cantabria, Spain). Early Upper Palaeolithic or older. Photo Becky Harrison and courtesy Gobierno...
Prehistory
Before written records, humanity left its history in landscapes, artifacts, bones, and inherited memory. Explore our origins and movements across the earth, the rise of settled life, and the communities that built worlds without writing.
Ludovic Mann (right) and a colleague studying the site in 1930s. Historic Environment Scotland It’s arguably Europe’s premier...
One of the spear points found in the 2,500-year-old grave in Pocklington, East Yorkshire. Anna Gowthorpe/PA What’s in...
The owner of this skull had a nasty run in with an axe. Christian Meyer These massacres entail killing...
Rock art in central Northumberland, northern England. Author provided Trying to save Neolithic rock art made by our ancient ancestors is no easy task. But it tells us how...
Cat’s Brain long barrow is near the more famous Stonehenge (pictured) but predates it by hundreds of...
3D virtual reconstruction of two-million-year-old ear. Rolf Quam, CC BY-ND Beyond the cool factor of figuring out hominin hearing capacities two...
Behold the femur. Bence Viola, MPI EVA Radiocarbon-dated to around 45,000 years old. By Dr. Daniel Zadik / 10.24.2014 Postdoctoral Researcher...
A replica of a Homo naledi skull. GCIS/Flickr, CC BY-ND New evidence suggests that Homo naledi didn’t deliberately deposit their dead in a...
The earliest hominin cancer. Patrick Randolph-Quinney (University of Central Lancashire/University of the Witwatersrand) Cancer is not the modern disease...
Illustration of ritualised human sacrifice in traditional Hawaiian culture, as documented by the French explorer and artists...
Middle Palaeolithic artefacts emerged during excavation at Attirampakkam. Sharma Centre for Heritage Education, India Modern humans could have left Africa shortly after evolving, making...
By about 320,000 years ago, humans in Kenya began using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools. Human...
A reconstruction of Homo erectus making fire, Zhoukoudian Museum, China. Darren Curnoe, Author provided Few of us pause to reflect...
Artist’s impression of waterfalls pouring over the original land bridge connecting England with France. CREDIT: Imperial College London/Chase...
Photo by Ivor Molleema, Florida Department of State In an unprecedented discovery, archaeologists identify a site where...
Ivory beads and ochre—affixed to the pelvic bones of a child—likely decorated the burial clothing of this...
Neanderthal art. P. Saura   By Dr. Chris Standish (left) and Dr. Alistair Pike (right) / 02.22.2018 Standish:...
By Matthew A. McIntoshPublic HistorianBrewminate 1 – Early Inhabitants of the Americas 1.1 – Migration to North...
Deep inside Monte Kronio, hot, humid and sulfurous caves held an ancient secret. Giuseppe Savino, La Venta Esplorazioni...
Paleolithic sculptures found in caves are some of the earliest examples of representational art. Hand Stencils from...
Creative Commons Edited by Matthew A. McIntosh / 02.12.2018 Historian Editor-in-Chief, Brewminate The Study of History Splitting...
Fossilized teeth from a modern human who lived in Israel close to 200,000 years ago. Israel Hershkovitz, Tel...
During Wintersession, students learn to make and use the technology that revolutionized human life. The atlatl, or...
Artefacts revealed by melting ice patches in the high mountains of Oppland shed new light on ancient...
A neanderthal skull, left hand side of one of Boule’s stereographs included in his L’Homme de La Chapelle (1911)...
New excavations on the remote island of Keros reveal monumental architecture and technological sophistication at the dawn...
Zooarchaeologist E. Grace Veatch investigates rat remains near the Liang Bua Cave on the Indonesian island of...
Map of France showing the location of Lascaux By Mary Beth Looney / 11.19.2015 Acting Program Director...
The first study to compare ancient and living female bones shows that women from early agricultural eras...