A fresh excavation of the eastern deposit at Riparo Mochi, a rock shelter near today's French–Italian border, has pushed back the timeline for when Ice Age hunter-gatherers from Spain first entered Italy... A study of a recent excavation published in...

It's not easy to extract iron from its ore. But the peoples of the ancient city of Great Zimbabwe—the capital of a thriving kingdom in southern Africa between A.D. 1000 and 1700—were masters.

A new study by Tel Aviv University researchers suggests that this practice stretches back approximately half a million years, with important consequences for the evolution of memory. The study was published in the journal Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews.

To understand how societies might react to climate change, archaeologists look at social responses to extreme climate events in the past—and in some places, that included measures as drastic as human sacrifice. Mass ritual sacrifices along the desert coast of...