Language, our primary tool of thought and perception, is at the heart of who we are as individuals. Languages are constantly changing, sometimes into entirely new varieties of speech, leading to subtle differences in how we present ourselves to others. This revealing account … Continue reading
Understanding the evolution of language requires evidence regarding origins and processes that led to change. In the last 40 years, there has been an explosion of research on this problem as well as a sense that considerable progress has been … Continue reading
Anthropologists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and an international team of collaborators have discovered that early humans in East Africa had–by about 320,000 years ago–begun trading with distant groups, using color pigments and manufacturing more sophisticated tools … Continue reading
While white racism has global dimensions, it has an unshakeable lease on life in South African political organizations and its educational system. Donnarae MacCann and Yulisa Maddy here provide a thorough and provocative analysis of South African children’s literature during … Continue reading
By analysing a prehistoric site in the Libyan desert, a team of researchers from the universities of Huddersfield, Rome and Modena & Reggio Emilia has been able to establish that people in Saharan Africa were cultivating and storing wild cereals … Continue reading
During the last two decades, sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has become a dominant force in cultural activity ranging from taste in music and art to choices in food and lifestyles. The Field of Cultural Production brings together Bourdieu’s major essays on art … Continue reading
An international, interdisciplinary group of scholars working along the East African coast have discovered a major cave site which records substantial activities of hunter-gatherers and later, Iron Age communities. Detailed environmental research has demonstrated that human occupations occur in a … Continue reading
Neanderthals went extinct in Europe about 40,000 years ago, giving them millennia to coexist with modern humans culturally and sexually, new findings suggest. This research also suggests that modern humans did not cause Neanderthals to rapidly go extinct, as some … Continue reading
Neanderthal extinction began around 40,000 years ago in Europe after anatomically modern humans had reached the continent. This date, which is based on research published in Nature in 2014, is much earlier than previous estimates, and it was established through … Continue reading
Ancient “doctors” mixed magic and medicine to heal patients. Before the Greeks excelled in science and philosophy, the culture was blooming in Mesopotamia, located between the Euphrates River and the Tigris River in present-day Iraq. This region, known as the cradle … Continue reading
