June 27, 2026

Anthropology Watch

80,000-year-old DNA from Stajnia Cave reveals the oldest Neanderthal group in Central-Eastern Europe |– timesofindia.indiatimes.com

pgnewser April 22, 2026 0

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Neanderthals are also continuing their own journey through history, and the latest scientific study conducted at Stajnia Cave in Poland is bringing an exciting new dimension to it. For the first time, scientists have been able to reconstruct what appears to be the oldest Neanderthal population in Central-Eastern Europe, thereby giving us more information about how these prehistoric humans were able to adapt to and survive in the wild. Through the use of DNA from cave deposits dating back over 80,000 years, scientists have managed to piece together the information regarding this group of Neanderthals.

This discovery is based on an in-depth examination of DNA taken from the Neanderthal tooth discovered in Stajnia Cave. Using highly sophisticated paleogenomic methodology, the scientists have successfully analysed the mitochondrial DNA and came to the conclusion that the Neanderthal was from a branch genetically connected with their contemporaries who lived in the Caucasus area.As reported in the article “First multi-individual Neanderthal mitogenomes from north of the Carpathians,” published by Scientific Reports, this discovery implies significant migration or at least contacts of the populations living over a large territory of Eurasia. As the researchers write:“The genetic affinities of the Stajnia individual imply connections between the populations of Central European and Caucasus Neanderthals.”In other words, there were no isolated communities of Neanderthals in Europe.

Early humans may have walked from Türkiye to mainland Europe– cosmosmagazine.com

pgnewser September 22, 2025 0

Early humans may have walked from Türkiye to mainland Europe– cosmosmagazine.com
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While it has long been thought that early humans arrived in mainland Europe from Africa via the Middle East and the Balkans, a new study hypothesises that they may have also moved through Ayvalık, Türkiye.

The study, published in the Journal of Island and Coast Archaeology, presents 138 lithic or stone artifacts discovered in Ayvalık which indicate early hominins may have been living in the region.

The archaeological findings suggest that early hominins may have been able to cross between present-day Europe and Türkiye on continuous landmasses that are now submerged beneath the Aegean Sea.

“We are very excited and delighted with this discovery,” says author of the study, Dr Göknur Karahan, from Hacettepe University in Türkiye.

“These findings mark Ayvalık as a potential new frontier in the story of human evolution, placing it firmly on the map of human prehistory – opening up a new possibility for how early humans may have entered Europe.”

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past– www.scientificamerican.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past– www.scientificamerican.com
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September 18, 2025

3 min read

Genetics Can Track How Languages Mixed in the Past

New research shows that wherever human populations mix, their languages blend as well

By Cody Cottier edited by Allison Parshall

PhotoHamster/Getty Images

When speakers of different languages meet, their words, sounds and even grammatical structures mingle in surprising ways. Ketchup, for example, may be an American staple today, but its name entered English via the Chinese language Hokkien around the end of the 17th century. Or consider the phrase “attorney general”: we place the adjective after the noun because that was standard word order in French when the Normans invaded England in 1066. This kind of exchange, called linguistic “borrowing,” is a big part of how languages evolve worldwide.

Because of gaps in the historical record of human encounters, it can be hard to measure exactly how contact between different populations shaped any given language over the years. But a vestige of all those past interactions persists in human DNA: whenever a person’s genes indicate their ancestors came from two separate populations, it stands to reason that said ancestors interacted closely enough for their languages to merge, too. So a team of researchers analyzed genetic data from nearly 5,000 individuals living in the last few decades, spanning every inhabited continent, and identified 126 cases where those individuals’ ancestry indicated interbreeding between two distinct populations at some point in the past. Though a person’s genetic heritage doesn’t necessarily reflect the language they speak, the researchers expected to find similarities between the languages spoken by those converging groups.

Early humans reached Europe via an Ice Age land bridge from Turkey– www.popsci.com

pgnewser September 19, 2025 0

Early humans reached Europe via an Ice Age land bridge from Turkey– www.popsci.com
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The Aegean coast of Ayvalık in Turkey is composed of numerous islands and peninsulas today, but the region looked quite different 2.58 million—11,700 years ago during the Pleistocene Ice Age. During this epoch, expanses of coastal plains revealed themselves as sea levels dropped by around 330 feet. These climatic shifts allowed the formation of continual landmasses, including one that bridged Anatolia and Europe.

The landmass was exposed as sea levels dropped by as much as 330 feet during the Ice Age. Credit: Göknur, Kadriye, and Hande

“In all these periods, the present-day islands and peninsulas of Ayvalık would have formed interior zones within an expansive terrestrial environment,” study co-author Kadriye Özçelik said in a statement.

Smoke-dried human remains found in Asia may be world’s oldest known mummies, researchers say– www.cbsnews.com

pgnewser September 16, 2025 0

Smoke-dried human remains found in Asia may be world’s oldest known mummies, researchers say– www.cbsnews.com
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Scientists have discovered what’s thought to be the oldest known mummies in the world in southeastern Asia dating back up to 12,000 years.

Mummification prevents decay by preserving dead bodies. The process can happen naturally in places like the sands of Chile’s Atacama Desert or the bogs of Ireland where conditions can fend off decomposition. Humans across various cultures also mummified their ancestors through embalming to honor them or send their souls to the afterlife.

Egypt’s mummies may be the most well-known, but until now some of the oldest mummies were prepared by a fishing people called the Chinchorro about 7,000 years ago in what’s now Peru and Chile.

A new study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences pushes that timeline back.