As part of the HEAS Seminar Series in Human Evolution and the Palaeolithic, Palesa Madupe from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology will give a talk on Understanding South African Pl...

Ancient DNA can be preserved on materials from archaeological floor deposits such as bones, sediments and artifacts. Here, the authors investigate whether Palaeolithic wall art can preserve human DNA for study.

npj Heritage Science - Internal structure of Mammoth ivory inspired the design of Mizyn (Ukraine) Upper Palaeolithic figurines

Postdoctoral research job in Palaeolithic archaeology at CNRS, France. Open to PhD holders in archaeology, prehistory, and related fields.

The research looked at 18 "Venus" models discovered in Ukraine and thought to be 18,000 years old.

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Scientific Reports - A taphonomic reassessment of Qafzeh 25 and its implications for violence, health and funerary practices

Has the oldest rock art in Ireland been found, and dated to much older than previously thought? Read on to find out, the evidence for, and against, and a cautionary media tale in academia!

Lithic weapon points occasionally found in Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal sites are large and do not differ in size, shape or type from those used in other activities such as butchering or plant gath...

Lithic weapon points occasionally found in Middle Palaeolithic Neanderthal sites are large and do not differ in size, shape or type from those used in other activities such as butchering or plant gathering. The presence in a same assemblage of various types of projectile armatures, some of which are microlithic and designed for this purpose, has only been documented in Modern Humans sites. Recent studies indicate that light projectile points, which would become a key element in Upper Palaeolithic lithic industries, were already present in its formative stages. However, they remain marginal in debates regarding the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition. We present the initial findings of a traceological search for weapon heads in the oldest layers of the Obi-Rakhmat rock shelter in Uzbekistan, dating back around 80 ka. The lithic industry of this settlement is forming part of the Levantine Early Middle Paleolithic continuity but with several innovative traits. This site, located in the western foothills of the Tian Shan Mountains, northeastern Uzbekistan, has yielded throughout 10 meters of Pleistocene deposits covering 40,000 years a lithic industry characterized by the systematic production of blades (regular thick narrow blades from unipolar and bipolar sub-prismatic and narrow-faced cores, thin and wide blades from flat-faced Levallois-like cores) along with shorter pieces from convergent or centripetal Levallois cores, and bladelets from burin-cores and other small cores. Three types of projectile armature are identified over a selection of 20: retouched points, bladelets and more particularly unretouched triangular micropoints which had previously gone unoticed due to their fragmentary state. According to the fundamental principles of hunting weapon design these micropoints are too narrow for having been fitted to anything other than arrow-like shafts. They resemble the armatures described in a pioneer settlement by Sapiens in the Rhône Valley, France, 25,000 years later.

Objects on display include a hand axe found near a woolly mammoth and a replica jaw of a domesticated Palaeolithic dog