Archive | anthropology

New Book: “Across Atlantic Ice : The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture”

New Book: “Across Atlantic Ice : The Origin of America’s Clovis Culture”

Supplying archaeological and oceanographic evidence, this book persuasively links Clovis technology with the culture of the Solutrean people who occupied France and Spain more than 20,000 years ago. [...more]

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Ancient popcorn discovered in Peru

Ancient popcorn discovered in Peru

People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 2,000 years earlier than previously reported and before ceramic pottery was used there, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [...more]

anthropology Comments (2)

Rising seas, development are altering prehistoric artifacts in the Chesapeake’s tidal zone

Rising seas, development are altering prehistoric artifacts in the Chesapeake’s tidal zone

As a coastal archaeologist and expert in prehistoric and historic settlement sites in the Chesapeake Bay region, Darrin Lowery of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and University of Deleware, is carefully watching the effects of coastal erosion and rising sea levels on coastal archaeological sites. [...more]

anthropology, paleontology Comments (0)

Members of small monkey groups more likely to fight, researchers find

Members of small monkey groups more likely to fight, researchers find

Small monkey groups may win territorial disputes against larger groups because some members of the larger, invading groups avoid aggressive encounters. [...more]

anthropology, zoology Comments (0)

Members of the Human Origins Program team at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History describe why they love their job.

Members of the Human Origins Program team at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History describe why they love their job.

Members of the Human Origins Program team at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History describe why they love their job. [...more]

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VIDEO: Smithsonian 1880s explorations-Who built ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America?

VIDEO: Smithsonian 1880s explorations-Who built ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America?

Bruce Smith, anthropology curator at the Smithsonian's Naitonal Museum of Natural History, talks about the Smithsonian explorations in the 1880s to determine who built the ancient earthen mounds in eastern North America. [...more]

Featured, anthropology Comments (0)

Peruvian mummy as seen by a SOMATOM Emotion 6CT scanner

Peruvian mummy as seen by a SOMATOM Emotion 6CT scanner

Viewed from inside the SOMATOM Emotion 6CT scanner used at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the skeleton and internal organs of this well-preserved Peruvian mummy can now be studied non-destructively and non-invasively. CT scanners are fundamentally changing the way scientists examine museum specimens. The SOMATOM Emotion 6CT scanner was recently donated to the Smithsonian by [...] [...more]

Science Spotlight, anthropology Comments (0)

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

Siemens donates SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner to National Museum of Natural History

With the gift of a Siemens SOMATOM Emotion 6 CT scanner from Siemens Healthcare, Smithsonian researchers are acquiring information about museum objects that is fundamentally changing the way scientists examine specimens [...more]

New Acquisitions, anthropology, conservation biology, materials science Comments (1)

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Science Spotlight

This fossil represents a new genus and species of extinct aneuretopsychid, Jeholopsyche liaoningensis, recently described in a paper in the journal ZooKeys by Conrad Labandeira of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and Dong Ren and ChungKun Shih of the College of Life Sciences, Capital Normal University, Beijing. The aneuretopsychidae are a family of long-proboscid insects that lived in Asia from the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous. The paper documents the first formal record of fossil Aneuretopsychidae in China. The new fossils reveal previously unknown and detailed structure of the mouthparts, antennae, head, thorax, legs and abdomen of this distinctive insect lineage.

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