The future is uncertain, but archaeologists are still working to discover our past.
Agence France-Presse via
It was a difficult year for archaeologists, at least in terms of getting out there on excavation sites.
Archaeology isn't just about sifting through soil in search of lost artifacts.
A lot of the work happens far away from the dig site, in labs where scientists are analyzing the objects that have been found.
Archaeologists spent less time digging in 2021, but it was still a good year.
We look at some of the biggest changes in archaeology this year. The Trowelblazers are a group of female archaeologists who are dedicated to highlighting the roll of women in the digging sciences.
Some of the most important developments in their field were what they told us.
Neanderthals might have been more human than we think.
Neanderthals are a relative of modern humans that went extinct about 40,000 years ago.
She chose to highlight a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports about the discovery of Neanderthal footprints on a coastal area of the Spanish Iberian peninsula.
Researchers used modern technology to analyze 100,000-year-old footprints.
Eduardo Mayoral and his team have scientific reports.
These aren't the first Neanderthal footprints to be found, but they are very special.
This is especially nice, because it's a group of people of mixed ages. Wragg Sykes said that they seem to be on the edge of a lagoon.
The diversity in age helps to challenge a common assumption that Neanderthals foraged in solitude, with the adults peeling off from the group to find food for the children.
The discovery supports the theory that hunting and gathering might have been a family affair.
The paper noted that some of the footprints belonged to children and that they were grouped in a chaotic way.
"That's an angle on the Neanderthal life that we don't often get to see, and it helps give a sense of humanity to this distant human relative," Wragg said.
The women of ancient Spain were powerful.
A set of woman's remains adorned with precious objects was found in the La Almoloya grave and suggests female power in society.
The research group is at the Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona.
Dr. Hasset is a biological archaeologist who describes her specialty as fascinating and exciting, while also a bit gruesome.
My job is to find dead people. I study the lives of people in the past to understand how they lived and died.
Hasset was most excited by a paper published in the journal Antiquity about a 3,700-year-old grave site in Spain. The remains of a man and a woman were held in one tomb at the site.
The woman's remains were adorned with a number of precious objects, such as bracelets, necklaces, and a silver diadem.
Hasset said that you can tell what someone meant to their community by what's buried in their graves.
The research group is at the Universitat Autnoma de Barcelona.
A lot can be learned about a person's role in society by their buried things. The presence of these objects suggests that the woman held a high social status.
"We think of these societies as being run by manly men and their objects to enforce power," Hasset said. Are we actually seeing signs of a type of women's power when we see these women with these exceptional artifacts?
The mammoth is a million years old.
The oldest known sequence of mammoth teeth is over one million years old.
Koichi Kamoshida is a photographer.
Dr. Victoria Herridge is a paleontologist who specializes in elephant species.
She chose to highlight a paper published in Nature in February of last year that reported the successful sequence of DNA from mammoth teeth found in Siberia. The oldest DNA to ever be successfully mapped is more than a million years old. The theory that there was only one mammoth species in Siberia was challenged by the discovery. The researchers spoke with All Things Considered.
The age of the DNA got Herridge the most excited, which has broad implications for paleontology, archaeology and a number of adjacent fields.
It's like a proper game change for me.
The last million years were a key period for understanding the course of mammal evolution, and Herridge said this DNA was valuable.
She points out that the age of the samples is not as old as the cold conditions of the permafrost might suggest.
It shows that you can get genetic information way back in time.
One of the paper co-authors, Patrcia Penerov, was highlighted by Herridge.
It shows that things that were previously dismissed as impossible may be possible. Maybe we shouldn't rule out the chances with good lab work and developing techniques.
How to keep track of our tracks.
Dr. Suzanne Pilaar Birch is an associate professor at the University of Georgia.
She chose to feature a paper in Nature about a renewed analysis of footprints discovered in the 1970s. The tracks found at the site were determined to be from an early hominin species, not a bear as was previously thought.
The oldest evidence of bipedal locomotion in a human is from the 3.6 million year old prints. The findings were covered earlier this month by NPR.
Pilaar Birch highlighted the need for better preservation of our archaeological assets when he highlighted this story.
The casts that had been made from this trackway had actually been lost.
She notes that if the casts had been taken care of, it might not have been necessary to go back to the site.
Pilaar Birch said there was a need to improve the preservation of archaeological assets.
She said there was a movement to change funding in the area of data preservation and aggregation.
The National Science Foundation is very supportive and funding new database initiatives.
