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A team of researchers from the University of Cape Town (South Africa), the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the University of Valencia has analysed human remains from the Oakhurst rock shelter in the far south of Africa and has reconstructed the genomes of thirteen individuals who died between 1,300 and 10,000 years ago, including the oldest human genome recovered from southern Africa to date.

This megalithic construction, located in Antequera and built 6000 years ago, shows signs of advanced techniques that suggest the great precocity of the technical and scientific developments existing i

A US research team unveils this practice, which was intended to meet the demand in places where amber was scarce. A study by the QUANTAS research group of the University of Seville has revealed that prehistoric communities in Spain and Portugal developed the first known composite to simulate amber, reflecting the development of complex technical systems by these Neolithic artisans in regions where amber was scarce.

Study demonstrates for the first time that Neanderthals cared for and protected children with Down syndrome Original temporal bone and 3D reconstruction of the CN-46700 fossil from Cova Negra in anterior view. Researchers from the University of Valencia, the University of Alcalá and the Chair of Evolutionary Otoacoustics and Paleoanthropology at HM Hospitals have discovered the first case of Down syndrome among Neanderthals.

New study develops revolutionary method for establishing time between Neanderthal fires Santiago Sossa-Ríos, from the Universitat de València, excavating a hearth at El Salt. Photo: Sven Kleinhapl. The interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Universitat de València, the University of Burgos, the University of La Laguna, the University of Alacant, the Complutense University of Madrid and the Institute of Geosciences has succeeded in determining, with high precision, the time between different Neanderthal fires at the El Salt site (Alcoi, Alicante).

A study develops a revolutionary method to establish the time between Neanderthal fires Santiago Sossa-Ríos, from the Universitat de València, excavating a hearth at El Salt. Photo: Sven Kleinhapl. The interdisciplinary research team from the Universitat de València, the University of Burgos, the University of La Laguna, the University of Alacant, the Complutense University of Madrid and the Institute of Geosciences has succeeded in determining with high precision the time between different Neanderthal fires at El Salt site (Alcoi, Alicante).

A Digital Archaeology pioneering study has revealed that the eyed idols of the Iberian Peninsula, prehistoric figures carved from long bones that represent eye-shaped motifs, had their original focus in the south of the current province of Valencia and the north from that of Alicante, specifically the basin of the Serpis river, and from there they expanded to those of the Tajo-Jùcar rivers, and also towards the Segura-Guadiana.

Mètode magazine publishes a report on the research developed at the Universitat de València on the scientific names dedicated to female researchers. Cytophaga johnsonae. This is the name of the bacterium named after Delia E. Johnson, American microbiologist and the first woman in the history of microbiology to name an organism, one hundred and twenty-five years after a man did so.

A study shows great genetic differences of the European population in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic The University of Valencia (UV) participates in an international study published in Nature magazine and led by the University of Copenhaguen in which more than 1,600 ancient human genomes are analysed to shed unprecedented insights into the past human gene pools of western Eurasia (current Europe).

US researchers participate in a study that shows the application of new wood and stone technologies that allowed the construction of an unprecedented monument.

Researchers from the University of Valencia have revealed that social relations during the Copper Age in the Iberian Peninsula went from a first homogeneous phase of great connectivity to a more fragmented and regionalised stage. Through the analysis of the ceramic decorations of the Bell Beaker vase, characteristic of the European Chalcolithic and associated with funerary contexts of the elites, the work published in the Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory concludes that these vessels were -democratised- in almost 300 years, with the consequent reinterpretation and heterogenisation.

An international research team led by the University of Valencia, in which the University of Cambridge and the Italian Ministry of Culture participate, has analysed for the first time the bones of the Pompeii Casts (the skeletons of its inhabitants in a plaster mould) with an innovative technique, x-ray fluorescence analysis, and concludes that they died of suffocation, not burned or dehydrated as other theories defend.

An international research team lead by the University of Tübingen and the Brazilian University of São Paulo, with CIDEGENT researcher Domingo C. Salazar from the University of Valencia, compiled the largest genomic dataset from Brazil to demonstrate that sambaqui communities on the southern and southeastern coasts didn-t represent a genetically homogeneous population.

An international team led by Postdoctoral Researcher Margarita Salas of the University of Valencia Rafael Marquina, has studied the fossil remains of small vertebrates recovered from the Illa Grossa, the largest island of the archipelago of Columbretes.

Recerca Around 12,000 years ago, the Neolithic revolution radically changed the economy, diet and structure of the first human societies in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. With the beginning of the cultivation of cereals —such as wheat and barley— and the domestication of animals, the first cities emerged in a new social context marked by a productive economy.

Jorge Ramón, a researcher at the Department of Modern and Contemporary History at the University of Valencia, has explored, through the satirical press of the late nineteenth century, how the social

Coprolites, or fossil faeces from around 30,000 years ago, have been used to identify the presence of bearded vultures ( Gypaetus barbatus ) at the Palaeolithic site of Lagar Velho (Portugal). A comparison of the coprolites found in the excavations with the faeces of present-day lammergeyers has confirmed the presence of these animals in the past.

Domingo Carlos Salazar, CIDEGENT researcher at the University of Valencia (UV), has led a study that dates the occupation of the Neolithic site of Cova Bonica, located near the coast and the Llobregat River Delta. The results, published in the Frontiers magazine, confirm the important weight of an agricultural-livestock economy 7,400 years ago now, with a diet based on domesticated species of cereals and animals, and without the presence of fish.

Domingo Carlos Salazar, molecular archaeologist and researcher at the University of Valencia, has participated in the first analysis of zinc isotope ratios (atoms of different masses of the same chemical element) in the dental enamel of a Neanderthal to determine his position in the food chain. The study, published in the journal PNAS, and led by a researcher from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, has determined that the Neanderthal to which the tooth belonged probably had an almost carnivorous diet.

Cultura Researchers Adelina Millet and Lluís Feliu, members of the Institute of Ancient Near East Studies (IPOA) of the University of Barcelona, have published a new edition of the Epic of Gilgamesh , the oldest literary epic and a classic in universal literature. Recent archaeological findings led to an update of the Epic, of which a first edition was published in Catalan in 2007.