Neanderthal growth hormone receptor increases muscle mass in people today
Scientists describe increased activity of the Neandertal growth hormone receptor and how it shapes the bodies of people who carry it today.
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Cover Stories
Showing Change: How Archaeology Pictures Time
Section drawings, comparative series, interpolated transitions and cut-out presenters — four ways archaeology draws change, and where each stops being evidence.
Reading Ancient Signals in a Modern World
The desire to stylize a mark is older than writing itself, and the typefaces of today shape what we remember, feel, and trust whenever we read.
“TRACEing” archaic hominin ancestry in modern humans without archaic genomes
Chilean mummies preserve ancient smallpox genome that traces disease to European colonization
From Ancient Aqueducts to Modern Fire Hydrants: The Archaeological History of Fire Suppression Infrastructure
Mesolithic hunter-gatherers on Malta
Societies around the world have buried their dead at home. Anthropologists want to understand why the practice started, and why it has largely disappeared
Diet reveals what life was like 2,700 years ago in a local community: Gender inequality, social status, and migration
Biological and archaeological analysis of human remains from a 2,700-year-old Italian necropolis reveals, through what the people ate, how they lived, how they moved, and how they organized their society.
How Digital Archives Reshape Archaeological Research
Digital archives have changed what archaeologists can access, compare, and verify. Here's what that shift actually looks like in practice and where the field is heading.
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Other Stories
Research reveals ancient Maya lessons on surviving drought
Huge variety of plant foods made their starvation unlikely.
Nits on ancient mummies shed light on South American ancestry
New technique means head lice can provide clues about ancient people and migration.
Scientists digitally ‘unwrap’ mummy of pharaoh Amenhotep I for the first time in 3,000 years
Study shows that 21st dynasty restorers ‘lovingly restored’ mummy, dispelling theory that they were bent on reusing old royal burial equipment.
New dates for Viking trade
Solar flare throws light on ancient trade between the Islamic Middle East and the Viking Age.
Humans Reached Remote North Atlantic Islands Centuries Earlier Than Thought
Faroes Settled Well Before Vikings Arrived, Lake Sediments Show.
Mystery solved: Footprints from site A at Laetoli, Tanzania, are from early humans, not bears
Findings provide conclusive evidence that multiple species of hominins co-existed on the landscape.
Volcanic eruptions contributed to collapse of China dynasties
Eruptions create sulfuric acid clouds in the upper atmosphere and can cool the climate.
A Child of darkness
The first partial skull of a child of Homo naledi begins to give us insight into all stages of life of this remarkable species.
More than ceremonial, ancient Chaco Canyon was home, new study says
Early puebloans impacted the ecosystem around Chaco Canyon earlier than previously believed.
