Articles by Sandee Oster
Phys.org / Iron Age Botswana site sourced copper across southern Africa—but tin from just one place
Around 700 years ago, people living on hilltop settlements on the edge of the Kalahari wore beads, bangles and clips made from metal traded across the southern half of the African continent.
Phys.org / Resin-mounted wallaby teeth reveal rare 1,200-year-old ornaments in Queensland
While sorting through animal bones in a rock shelter in Queensland, Australia, archaeologists came across a tooth where something was "not quite right." Stuck to the tip of its root was a blackish-brown ball of glue-like ...
Phys.org / Aboriginal artists painted giant ancestral beings as colonization arrived, study finds
Slithering across the ceiling of an Australian rock shelter is a giant snake with a crocodile-like head, razor-sharp teeth and a long tongue. It's more than 6 meters (20 feet) long, making it one of the largest Rainbow Serpent ...
Phys.org / Centuries of child labor left lasting spinal damage in Dutch children, study finds
Children in the postmedieval Dutch workforce worked so hard that their spines became worn and deformed, with some children affected before they even had a chance to lose their baby teeth, a new study published in the International ...
Phys.org / A museum-shelf mystery reveals 6,500-year-old human tooth pendant in Serbia
More than 6,500 years ago, someone carefully drilled a hole in a human tooth, strung it on a cord and likely used it as a necklace. Found during field surveys at the Vinča cultural site of Jablanica in Serbia, the human tooth ...
Phys.org / Archaeologists uncover 11 rare marked arrowheads at Tepecik-Çiftlik whose purpose remains a mystery
For decades, archaeologists have been uncovering rare and mysterious incised obsidian arrowheads across Neolithic Central Anatolia, each one bearing a unique design etched into its glassy black surface nearly 9,000 years ...
Phys.org / Guangzhou crucibles provide earliest direct evidence of brass-making in East Asia
For centuries, scholars have read ancient documents describing the production of brass in 10th-century A.D. China. The problem was that the earliest physical evidence of brass production would be found nearly 600 years later, ...
Phys.org / First evidence of Neanderthal bone tool use in Romania discovered
Deep in the Vârghiș Gorges, tucked away in the dark recesses of a cave, researchers have found the first evidence that Neanderthals used bone tools in Romania.
Phys.org / Arctic fossil abandoned in 1948 proves to be record-size Triassic hunter
Nearly 80 years ago, a British expedition discovered the battered remains of a giant fossil on the peak of an Arctic island. Unable to take it with them, they snapped some pictures, took some bones and left the fossil to ...
Phys.org / Oldest known giant rock scallop bead suggests California coastal trade began millennia earlier
Archaeologists have discovered two giant rock scallop beads that push back the clock on the first appearance of these high-status ornaments. The discovery shows that these prized marine beads were traded hundreds of miles ...
Phys.org / Scattered Roman bones point to potential fourth-century purge at Brading Villa
Disarticulated bones found scattered across a luxurious Roman villa on England's Isle of Wight may be evidence of a massacre carried out during a brutal political purge in the fourth century, a new study in Britannia suggests.
Phys.org / Laid to rest with care: Ancient infants, perhaps twins, found in 1,200-year-old latrine
More than 1,000 years ago, two babies were tucked away in an abandoned Roman toilet channel. Yet, despite what the location suggests, they were cherished, not discarded.
Phys.org / Moonlight-like fur and feathers may explain Egyptian god Thoth's two animal forms
The ancient Egyptian god of the moon had two very different faces: a crescent-beaked white bird and a silver-coated baboon. Now, researchers think they may have found the common thread connecting them all.
Phys.org / Angola's oldest burials, including its only known ancient cremation, uncovered at a 15th-century site doomed by a dam
As the construction of a hydroelectric dam loomed, archaeologists raced to uncover Angola's earliest dated burials and its only known cremation at a 15th-century settlement before it vanished beneath the water.
Phys.org / Portugal's ancient giant bears shrank over thousands of years and humans may be to blame
About 22,000 years ago, a giant brown bear lumbered across what is now Portugal. The creature weighed around 385 kg (about 850 pounds), making it one of the largest of its kind ever found, towering over the Iberian brown ...
