'Enormous' cave under Pembroke Castle could rewrite history, researchers say Archaeologists have so far uncovered

Huge hidden cave under castle with prehistoric hippo bones 'once in a lifetime' find www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

The Tool Systems Approach: Measuring Complexity in the Primatological, Archaeological, and Ethnographic Records - Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory Measuring technological complexity across species, as well as across temporal and spatial scales, is an ongoing challenge among authors who work on primatological, archaeological, and/or ethnographic ...

Our new paper exploring the measurement of complexity in tools - the result of significant and ongoing work, including that which emerged from our Complexity in Lithics Conference!
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Amazing work here by a fantastic collaboration- congratulations to all and well worth a read

The origins and development of mobile containers: Biocultural perspectives on Pleistocene containment Containers are ubiquitous and universal across all present-day societies. The substantial increase in the quantity and diversity of containers in the …

Awhile back I meet the brilliant Jenni French & and now been lucky to collab on a project w/ her for the last ~3 yrs. Along with Somaye Khaksar & @anthrofuentes.bsky.social our 1st project paper is out, on origins & development of mobile containers (1/n) 🧪 🧺
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🏺 🧪

Scientists sequence the genome of a 110,000-year-old Neanderthal and discover that he lived in the same cave as another Neanderthal 10,000 years earlier An international team of researchers, led from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and Yale University, has succeeded in sequencing the high-quality genome of a Neanderthal who live...

www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2026/03/s...

Figure 1 from Paabo et al 2026 paper, titled "A high-coverage Neandertal genome from the Altai Mountains reveals population structure among Neandertals". Image shows a map, photo of fossil fragment, and data on DNA. Caption text: "Neandertal D17 and its relationship with other Neandertals. (A) Locations of high-coverage Neandertal genomes used in the study. (B) Picture of the undiagnosed bone fragment from Neandertal D17. (C–F) Relative derived allele sharing between Neandertal genomes, computed using D-statistics of the form D-(ind1, ind2; ind3, Mbuti), where ind3 is either (C) Neandertal D17, (D) Neandertal D5, (E) Neandertal Chag8 or (F) Neandertal Vi33.19. In each panel, ind1 and ind2 are indicated at the Left and Right of the graph. Positive values indicate greater allele sharing between ind3 and ind1; negative values indicate greater allele sharing between ind3 and ind2. |Z-score| ≥ 3 are in red. (G) Schematic phylogenetic relationships among Neandertal D17, other archaic genomes, including the Denisovan D3, and modern humans inferred from autosomal DNA analyses using branch shortening and demographic modeling with cecast and F(A|B) statistics (SI Appendix, SI Appendix 6, 10, and 12). (H) Schematic mitochondrial (mt) DNA inferred from a Bayesian tree estimated using BEAST2 from previously published study on D17 mtDNA (11). (I) Y chromosome phylogeny as inferred from a Bayesian tree estimated using BEAST2 including previously published Y chromosomes of the Denisovan Denisova 8 (D8) and Neandertals Mezmaiskaya 2 (Mez2) (12) and Chagyrskaya 2 (Chag2) (7) (SI Appendix, SI Appendix 18).".

🧪🦣 🧬 New #Neanderthal genome just dropped!

Denisova cave male, c. 120 Ka, some Denisovan ancestry, and living in very small effective breeding population <50.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

🌍 Artifacts from Africa

These are Early Stone Age Acheulean handaxes, remarkable tools that show the ingenuity and skill of early humans. View them on display at the HUMANITY exhibition at @Iziko Museum, curated by HERI researchers.

Archaeogenetic insights into the demographic history of Late Neanderthals | PNAS The demographic history of Neanderthals is only partially understood. In Europe, some degree of genetic continuity has been shown from 120 thousand...

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Getting ready for the Land of Hope and Dreams American Tour!

Minneapolis to Washington, D.C. March 31–May 27.

🎥: Pam Springsteen

Many ❤️❤️❤️❤️ for West Tofts

Nice new Palaeolithic evidence from eastern Arabia. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Much needed timeline cleanse - some handaxes

Palaeolithic Tools of Potency: Handaxes Shaped around Fossils and Other Extraordinary Features at Sakhnin Valley, Israel www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Our new paper reporting the Acheulian to Middle Stone Age sequence from the Area 7 spring eye at Amanzi Springs. This paper is the culmination my my good friend's (Alex Blackwood) PhD research. share.google/OyoFDFyPBJtk...

New paper alert! Part of our work in West Africa also involves trying to understand later processes, in this case the expansion of pearl millet agriculture into Senegal.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/citedby/...

Latests open access paper from Amanzi Springs, with the oldest MSA on the southern African coast at ~230 ka & potential evidence for regional variability in the transition from the Acheulian along the Palaeo-Agulhas Plain compared to the Highvelt interior of S. Africa
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Reminder: The GSSA Western Cape Branch Alex du Toit Lecture is coming up.

Presented by HERI’s Associate Professor @pickeringrobyn.bsky.social on early humans and hydrology in southern Africa.

RSVP by 25 March 2026.

Anyone else getting bored and disillusioned with so much AI generated content and text? Yes, I too have used AI in some of my LinkedIN posts, however, in the last month or so the pervasive use of this tool is so overt and I'm really not convinced it adds as much value as everyone seems to claim...

Lyndal Roper: ‘Drastic’ cuts to UK humanities risk brain drain Newly crowned winner of Holberg Prize raises alarm over job losses and shuttering of courses across UK

"I’m very worried about what is being destroyed. We’re all extremely worried, because what we’re seeing is the ad hoc closure and drastic cutting of many, many departments across the country."

Historian Lyndal Roper in today's THE: bit.ly/4sqsfJ2 #Skystorians 1/2

Earth as seen from space. Courtesy of the National Geophysical Data Center and Getty Images

Cultural evolution accelerated human range expansion by more than two orders of magnitude 🏺🧪
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

These findings quantify culture’s distinctive role in driving rapid human ecological expansion.

Really looking forward to welcoming the brilliant @cathrynpearce.bsky.social Join us online tomorrow for her lecture to the Sussex Archaeological Society. 🏺

We didn’t conquer the world alone. This is humanity’s untold origin story | BBC Science Focus Magazine We’re discovering there were more characters, and more acts, in the tale of how Homo sapiens spread across the globe.

We didn’t conquer the world alone. This is humanity’s untold origin story 🏺 @lemoustier.bsky.social www.sciencefocus.com/science/huma...

Ancient amputations tell remarkable stories of survival and care A 33,000-year-old case of an amputated leg prompts comparisons to earlier Neandertal instances of amputation.

Ancient amputations tell remarkable stories of survival and care @johnhawks.net open.substack.com/pub/johnhawk...

Redefining Failure and Re‑centring the Human: A Challenge to UK Higher Education | James Cole In a sector shaped by cost‑of‑living pressures, restructures and endless digital noise, I’m increasingly convinced that universities need to redefine failure and re‑centre what it means to be human in...

Some thoughts on where I think we need to shift towards in HE - I know many will also be thinking and acting along the same lines: www.linkedin.com/posts/dr-jam...

An incredible role here for fellow researchers

Skeletal inventory and thermal alteration color changes. Preserved skeletal elements and changes in bone coloration in relation to temperature and fire exposure. Additional fragments not shown in the figure: an unsided patella, the lower right articular facet of a lumbar vertebra, and unidentified long bone fragments. Modified with permission by J.I.C.-R. from (65).

Earliest evidence for intentional cremation of human remains in Africa 🏺🧪
Jessica Cerezo-Román, Justin Pargeter @justinpargeter.bsky.social et al
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

A large cremation feature at Hora 1 in Malawi dates to ~9500 years ago and contains the remains of a small, gracile adult

Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey

Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Book your tickets and join us for the 2026 Long Man Lecture with @archaeologyuk.bsky.social President Raksha Dave

The lost languages of ancient humans: Listen to stone-age chat The fossilised bones of our ancestors remain silent. So, how can we possibly imagine what our earliest languages sounded like?

I was interviewed for an interesting BBC Futures article recently on hominid cognition and language development - check it out if you are interested: www.bbc.co.uk/future/artic...