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‘Virtual fossil’ reveals last common ancestor of humans and Neanderthals

18 Dec 2015

New digital techniques have allowed researchers to predict structural evolution of the skull in the lineage of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals, in an...

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Millet: the missing piece in the puzzle of prehistoric humans’ transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers

14 Dec 2015

New research shows a cereal familiar today as birdseed was carried across Eurasia by ancient shepherds and herders laying the foundation, in...

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20 Years of Mandela Magdalene Scholarships

06 Nov 2015

Magdalene College recently celebrated the twentieth anniversary of the Mandela Magdalene scholarships which support graduates from South Africa in...

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Christopher Evans of the Cambridge Archaeological Unit shows local schoolchildren around the excavation site.

Earliest church in the tropics unearthed in former heart of Atlantic slave trade

06 Nov 2015

Remains of a church on Cabo Verde’s Santiago Island, off the West African coast, dates back to late 15th century – when Portugal first colonised the...

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Left: Skull of a Yamnaya, the people who migrated to Central Asia in early Bronze Age and developed the Afanasievo culture. The Afanasievo are one of the Bronze Age groups carrying Y. pestis. Right: Scanning Electron Micrograph Of A Flea

Plague in humans ‘twice as old’ but didn’t begin as flea-borne, ancient DNA reveals

22 Oct 2015

New research dates plague back to the early Bronze Age, showing it had been endemic in humans across Eurasia for millennia prior to the first...

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Archaeologists outside the entrance to the Mota cave in the Ethiopian highlands, where the remains containing the ancient genome were discovered.

Ancient genome from Africa sequenced for the first time

08 Oct 2015

DNA from 4,500-year-old Ethiopian skull reveals a large migratory wave of West Eurasians into the Horn of Africa around 3,000 years ago had a genetic...

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Left: The Mary Rose as depicted in the Anthony Roll. Right: one of the cod bones used in the study.

Cod bones from Mary Rose reveal globalised fish trade in Tudor England

09 Sep 2015

New analysis shows warship’s dried fish provisions were sourced from as far away as Icelandic and possibly even transatlantic waters. Researchers...

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Derge iron water bottle.

Where to find a dragon in Cambridge

24 Jun 2015

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, D is for...

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Finds beneath the Old Divinity School, St John's College

Archaeologists unearth medieval graveyard beneath Cambridge College

01 Apr 2015

Archaeological investigations discovered one of Britain’s largest medieval hospital cemeteries, containing over 1,000 human remains, when excavating...

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Spatula to poison darts, Malaysia

Poisons, plants and Palaeolithic hunters

21 Mar 2015

Dozens of common plants are toxic. Archaeologists have long suspected that our Palaeolithic ancestors used plant poisons to make their hunting...

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Right: excavation deep down into the latrine by the Ecole Biblique de Jerusalem. Left: Taenia tapeworm egg in the latrine indicating either pork or beef tapeworm.

Human parasites found in medieval cesspit reveal links between Middle East and Europe

19 Mar 2015

Analysis of a latrine in Jerusalem that dates back over 500 years finds human parasites common in northern Europe yet very rare in Middle East at the...

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A memorial to Nelson Mandela to mark centenary of Arch and Anth tripos

12 Mar 2015

A campaign has been launched to provide a Mandela Professorship in African Archaeology at the University of Cambridge.

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