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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.

A research by six scientific institutions in the Abric del Pastor of Alcoi, including the universities of Valencia (UV) and Alicante (UV), has managed, through an interdisciplinary approach, to characterise a moment in the life of a Neanderthal group. This research has reduced the palimpsest effect (superimposition of multiple occupation episodes on the same surface over a long period of time) to a time resolution very close to the life of said group.

Although Levantine art has been recognized as World Heritage rock art and Asset of Cultural Interest by the UNESCO, we still have little information on how these cave paintings, typical of the Mediterranean area about 7,500 years ago, were made. Now, a study published in the journal PLOS ONE on the Levantine art site in el Carche (Valencia, Spain) identifies for the first time four different formulas used by the prehistoric communities to get paint by mixing minerals.

A multidisciplinary team with the participation of David Quixal, Consuelo Mata, Yolanda Carrión and Guillem Pérez, professors at the University of Valencia (UV), together with UV researchers, just pu

An international team of researchers, led by the professor of the University of Valencia (UV) Aleix Eixea, has applied for the first time a technique from nuclear physics, Neutron Activation Analysis (NAA), to determine the origin of some flint from Middle and Upper Palaeolithic sites in the current provinces of Valencia and Alicante.

The study of the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, has opened up new research paths that can broaden our understanding of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens. A study led by the UB has made an estimation of the time when some of the genetic variants that characterise our species emerged.

An international research that integrates experts from the universities of Durham, Seville, Southampton, Huelva and Gothenburg has just located a prehistoric stela, of the type known as 'warrior' in the burial complex of Cañaveral de León (Huelva). This is the second stela found in this site.

Modern humans are characterized by their prosociality, a broad term that encompasses intraspecies empathy, social tolerance, cooperation and altruism. These facets of social cognition have been associated with variations in the oxytocin and vasotocin genes (OT and VT) and their receptors (OTR and VTR).

Francesc Granell Sales, a researcher at the University of Valencia, has analysed the representation of King James I in visual culture during the period 1338-1538.

A research team from the Department of Prehistory, Archaeology and Ancient History of the University of Valencia (UV) led by Professor Aleix Eixea, in collaboration with the University of Alicante (UA), the Bizkaiko Arkeologi Museoa and the Institut des Sciences de l'Evolution of France have discovered and dated in Aspe (Alicante) an open-air Neanderthal habitat over 120,000 years old in the Natural Park of Los Aljezares.

The archaeology of the Roman period has traditionally been focused on monumental aspects, but very little is known about what the daily life of peasantry was like. An investigation by the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) delves into the life of peasant settlements based on the archaeological findings discovered in the Community of Madrid, in the numerous rescue excavations that were carried out during the real estate bubble period.