Sep
09
2009
About 10,000 years ago, the prehistoric hunter-gatherers of Europe began meeting some new neighbors.
These farmers spread gradually at first, expanding from the Near East through Anatolia and the Balkans. Then agriculture exploded, reaching present-day Britain within a few thousand years. The farmers settled into houses, which soon evolved into villages, towns and eventually cities.
The archaeological [...]
Tags: Ancient DNA, Europe, farming, hunter-gatherers, mtDNA
Jul
01
2009
On August 20, 79 AD, a series of small tremors and earthquakes began to shake the two ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Lying in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius — about 150 miles south of the Roman capital — the two cities were often hit by tremors and earthquakes, so most residents were [...]
Tags: Ancient DNA, Herculaneum, Mount Vesuvius, Pompeii, Rome
Dec
10
2008
Archaeologists rarely agree on anything. So it’s no surprise that for years two groups of scholars have drawn completely opposite conclusions about the relationship between the ancient people of Thailand and China.
Some experts argue that, thousands of years ago, people from Thailand migrated into East Asia, becoming the ancestors of present-day Chinese peoples. Others argue [...]
Tags: agriculture, Ancient DNA, mtDNA, Thailand
Nov
19
2008
About 4,600 years ago, in northern Germany, a small village buried 13 of its residents. The deceased ranged in age from less than a year to nearly 60 years old and were buried in pairs or small groups. And virtually all of them had suffered violent, probably painful deaths. Because the majority of the deceased [...]
Tags: Ancient DNA, burial rites, Germany, neolithic
Jul
15
2008
The place of Neanderthals in the story of human evolution has been hotly debated for decades. A distant cousin to our species, Neanderthals had already been in Europe over 250,000 years when Homo sapiens first arrived there 35,000 years ago.
Often called Cro-Magnoids, these first Europeans are believed by many scientists to have out-competed the Neanderthals, [...]
Tags: Ancient DNA, Cro-Magnoids, human origins, Neanderthals
