Homo georgicus: The First Human Outside Africa
At Dmanisi in Georgia, five skulls aged 1.8 million years revolutionize the history of human evolution. Discover the oldest hominins ever found outside Africa.
Read more →Investigations & syntheses
Long-form, documented and sourced articles connecting discoveries and telling the great transformations of humankind.
At Dmanisi in Georgia, five skulls aged 1.8 million years revolutionize the history of human evolution. Discover the oldest hominins ever found outside Africa.
Read more →1.9 million years ago, Homo ergaster redefined human evolution: modern body proportions, enlarged brain, Acheulean handaxes. Discover the Turkana Boy and the revolution he represents.
Read more →Between 780,000 and 130,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis emerged, the Schöningen spears attested sophisticated cooperative hunting, and the Sima de los Huesos at Atapuerca yielded what may be the oldest funerary gesture in human history. This dossier explores a crucial and often overlooked period during which the humanity that would give rise to both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens was forged.
Read more →Off the northern coast of Scotland, a wind-swept archipelago harbours one of the world's densest and most fascinating archaeological landscapes. Orkney concentrates, within just a few square kilometres, megalithic tombs, giant stone circles and an exceptionally well-preserved Neolithic village. This dossier traces five millennia of human presence in this extraordinary archipelago, from the first hunter-gatherers to the builders of monuments that still astonish us today.
Read more →In the Mayo-Louti department, some 500 abstract geometric engravings were carved into calcite marble slabs -- between 300 and 3,000 years ago. The Bidzar site, reported in 1933 and a UNESCO heritage candidate, is a unique prehistoric treasure in Central Africa.
Read more →In the east, a quartz-knapping workshop 9,000 years old in the Faleme hills. In the west, over 1,000 laterite stone circles raised along the Gambia River -- the largest megalithic concentration in the world, inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2006.
Read more →Inscribed on UNESCO's World Heritage List in 1982, the Tassili n'Ajjer preserves more than 15,000 rock paintings and engravings: a unique visual archive of 10,000 years of Saharan human history.
Read more →From the Mask of Agamemnon to the Uluburun shipwreck, from the Nebra sky disk to the cuneiform tablets of Sumer: this dossier traces the revolution of metals and writing that gave birth to the first great civilisations. In less than 2,500 years, humanity invented bronze, writing, the city, the state, law and international trade -- before a catastrophic systemic collapse around 1,200 BCE reduced this complex world to ashes. Ancient genomics, Mediterranean archaeology, cuneiform and archaeometallurgy: a comprehensive and fully sourced overview.
Read more →In 1987, the chance discovery of a circular Bronze Age city buried in the southern Ural steppe shook our understanding of Eurasian protohistory. Arkaim and the Sintashta culture, its builders, are now at the heart of debates about the origins of Indo-European peoples, the invention of the war chariot, and the rise of the first warrior societies of the steppe.
Read more →From thé Eastern European plains to Siberia, Russia holds one of thé world's richest Upper Palaeolithic héritages. Kostenki with its 60 sites, thé Venus of Zaraysk, thé mammoth-bone dwellings of Avdeevo, and thé beaded burial of Sungir reveal a hunter-gatherer civilization of astonishing sophistication.
Read more →Ancient DNA overturns long-held assumptions: in Peru 9,000 years ago, women were buried with complete hunting toolkits. 41 percent of the studied hunter burials contained female remains.
Read more →For 1.8 million years, Homo erectus colonised three continents, invented the Acheulean handaxe, tamed fire, and cared for its elderly. This dossier traces the history of the most long-lived human species: its discoveries, anatomy, migrations, and the mysteries it still poses.
Read more →Discovered in 1960 at Olduvai Gorge, Homo habilis is the first undisputed member of the genus Homo. Its Oldowan tools, expanded brain, and complex foraging strategies opened the way for all subsequent human evolution over two million years.
Read more →More than 200 feminine statuettes carved between 40,000 and 11,000 BP, spanning from the Pyrenees to Siberia: prehistoric Venus figurines form one of the most enduring and enigmatic artistic traditions in human history. A complete dossier, from Aurignacian origins to modern theories.
Read more →Between 2200 and 800 BCE, the Mycenaeans, Hittites, Minoans, and Egyptians formed the first "connected world" in history. Around 1200 BCE, this world came apart. Polycrisis, climate change, Sea Peoples: archaeology recomposes a collapse far more complex than it first appears.
Read more →From Neolithic trepanation to the 31,000-year-old surgical amputation at Borneo, prehistoric surgeons operated with surprising technical mastery and remarkable survival rates.
Read more →From Mesolithic forests to the first fields, from Göbekli Tepe to the megalithic alignments of Carnac: this dossier traces the greatest transformation in human history. In less than 7,000 years, Homo sapiens abandoned hunting and gathering to invent agriculture, animal husbandry, the permanent village, pottery and the first monumental architectures. Ancient genomics, Near Eastern archaeology, European megalithism and palaeopathology: a comprehensive and fully sourced overview of the Neolithic revolution and its lasting consequences.
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