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The earliest introduction of domestic chickens and black rats from Asia to the east coast of Africa came via maritime routes between the 7th and 8th centuries AD. In a paper published last week in the journal PLOS ONE , an international team of researchers, including Professor Mark Horton from the University of Bristol's Department of Anthropology and Archaeology , used new techniques to analyse ancient DNA and proteins from 496 bone samples from 22 island, coastal and inland sites in eastern Africa.

Over the course of the Neolithic period, secondary products from cattle such as milk, manure and animal power became more important. This led to larger herds, and the increased demand for grazing resources could have led to herding strategies that took advantage of grazing grounds away from the permanent settlement.

The UK's synchrotron facility, Diamond Light Source, has been used by scientists at UCL to document for the first time the rate of evolution of seed coat thinning, a major marker of crop domestication from archaeological remains. Writing in the journal Scientific Reports , the authors present evidence for seed coat thinning between 2,000 BC and 1,200 BC in the legume horsegram (Macrotyloma uniflorum), a bean commonly eaten in southern India.

Research by an international team, led by the University of Bristol, has shed new light on the fate of the ancient people of Rapa Nui (Easter Island). It had been proposed that vast forests of giant palm trees were cut down by the people of Rapa Nui leaving them among other things without canoes. With no canoes, they could no longer fish so they ate chickens, rats and agricultural crops.

Archaeologists from the University of Glasgow have uncovered conclusive evidence that a wooden hut traditionally associated with St Columba at the monastery on the island of Iona does indeed date to his lifetime in the late sixth century AD. Carbon dating has led to the significant breakthrough, which categorically proves samples of hazel charcoal, unearthed from an excavation of a simple wattle and timber structure on Iona 60 years ago, dates back to the exact period Columba lived and worked at the Inner Hebridean monastery.

A new study has shown that air pollution levels across Europe have been higher than previously thought for the last 2000 years, with the exception of a four-year period during a catastrophic pandemic. The findings in this latest study will have significant implications for current public health and environmental policy which have so far deemed pre-industrial lead pollution levels to be 'natural' and so presumably 'safe'.

Study finds that ancient Egyptians were most closely related to ancient populations from the Middle East and Western Asia. The combined use of artefacts, textual evidence and ancient DNA data allows a more holistic study of past identities and cultural exchange. W. Paul van Pelt An international team of researchers have successfully recovered and analysed ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies dating from approximately 1400 BCE to 400 BCE, including the first genome-wide data from three individuals.

A team of international scientists led by the University of Oxford has combined ancient DNA analyses with statistical modelling to pinpoint the timing of the selection for traits associated with modern chickens. They found that medieval Christians who fasted may have played a part in producing less aggressive farm birds.

New research shows that a volcano in northeastern Australia last erupted around 7000 years ago - and stories passed down by the Gugu Badhun Aboriginal people suggest they were there to see it happen. In a paper published in the journal Quaternary Geochronology, geologists based in Scotland and Australia outline how they used a sophisticated rock dating technique to determine when the eruption occurred.

Researchers have used data on skeletal remains to calculate how the average height of Englishmen rose or fell over 2,000 years of history. They reasoned that height, which is linked with childhood nutrition, is a good alternative measure of wellbeing and can be estimated accurately from the length of a full grown man's femur.

Archaeologists have helped solve a centuries' old medical mystery which could change the way doctors today view the common condition of prostate stones. An international team of researchers, including experts at Durham University, used neutron beam technology to identify three stone-like objects found during excavations of a prehistoric grave in Central Sudan.

Ancient DNA traces from the family of viruses that cause a rare type of leukaemia have been found in the genomes of bats, filling the "last major gap" in retrovirus fossil record.‌‌‌ The research offers conclusive evidence that these viruses are between 20 and 45 million years old. The findings represent the first concrete piece of evidence that the 'Deltaretrovirus' group has a truly ancient origin in mammals.

A new book by Dr Sarah Chaney from Queen Mary University of London charts the delicate and often misunderstood history of self-harm in Britain. Taking the reader from the Victorian era to modern Britain, Psyche on the Skin challenges the idea that self-harm is a phenomenon that can be attributed to 'how we live now'.

A new, historically accurate portrait of the most admired and revered romantic leading man in literary history, Fitzwilliam Darcy, has been unveiled for the first time, following new research co-led by QMUL's Professor Amanda Vickery. The new portraits paint a very different picture of the literary heartthrob when compared to modern day TV depictions, portrayed by Hollywood actors such as Colin Firth, Elliot Cowan and Matthew MacFadyen.

New guidelines have been developed that it is hoped will help to progress research into vascular cognitive impairment (VCI) following a study led by academics at the University of Bristol that brought together the views of over 150 researchers in 27 countries. VCI refers to a decline in mental abilities, such as memory, thinking and planning, caused by problems with the blood supply to the brain.

What could be learnt about the world if you could read the news from over 100 local newspapers for a period of 150 years? This is what a team of researchers from Cardiff University and the University of Bristol have done using of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to analyse 150 years of British regional newspapers.

A team of scientists from the University of Bristol has suggested that we need to use a fresh approach to analyse relationships in the fossil record to show how all living and extinct species are related in the 'tree of life'. The researchers from the Bristol Palaeobiology Group , part of the School of Earth Sciences , studied the best way to understand relationships of extinct animals to other extinct species as well as those alive today.

What could be learnt about the world if you could read the news from over 100 local newspapers for a period of 150 years' This is what a team of Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers from the University of Bristol have done, together with a social scientist and a historian, who had access to 150 years of British regional newspapers.

Thought to have arrived from China in 2000 BC, latest research shows domesticated rice agriculture in India and Pakistan existed centuries earlier, and suggests systems of seasonal crop variation that would have provided a rich and diverse diet for the Bronze Age residents of the Indus valley.

An inter-disciplinary team of scientists and archaeologists have discovered widespread evidence of prehistoric milk production in southern Europe. The study uncovered evidence that humans have been utilising milk and dairy products across the northern Mediterranean region from the onset of agriculture - some 9,000 years ago.