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Genetic studies, excavations and fossil finds: this section reports on research that changes what we know about the past, from Saharan skeletons to Bronze Age villages in southern Italy.
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Genetics is a major theme. Studies of skeletons from the Sahara point to a lineage unrelated to modern populations, while analyses of a Calabrian community, of the origins of domestic cats in China and of cave soil from the Ice Age shed new light on how people and animals lived.
Archaeology fills the rest: a temple to Zeus in Turkey, a lost city with more than 100 structures in Peru’s cloud forest, a cube-shaped skull in Mexico, royal palace remains on a mountaintop and dental plaque revealing medieval diets. Palaeontology fans will find a shark older than the megalodon, dinosaur tracks in Sichuan and bone tools made by Neanderthals.
Each article summarises the published findings in plain language, making them easy to share with students or curious readers.
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