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More than 90% of ivory in large seized shipments came from elephants that died less than three years before, according to a new study led by the University of Utah and involving the University of Oxford. Combining radiocarbon ivory dating with genetic analysis provides a picture of when and where poachers are killing elephants - useful tools in the ongoing battle against illegal animal product trade.

A combination of historical and genetic research reveals the error and hype that led to the coining of the term 'Patient Zero' and the blaming of one man for the spread of HIV across North America.

950 years after William of Normandy landed on English soil in one of Britain's landmark historic moments, Cardiff University researchers are aiming to discover what impact the invasion had on diet, cooking habits and health. The Dietary Impact of the Norman Conquest will examine human and animal remains and pottery from preand post-Conquest Oxford to tell the story of the impact of 14 October 1066, better known as the Battle of Hastings.

Archaeologists have created a new database from the teeth of prehistoric humans found at ancient burial sites in Britain and Ireland that tell us a lot about their climate, their diet and even how far they may have travelled. In a paper, led by Dr Maura Pellegrini from the University of Oxford, researchers say that individuals in prehistoric Britain were highly mobile.

The first significant investigation into the genomics of Aboriginal Australians has uncovered several major findings about early human populations. These include evidence of a single 'Out of Africa? migration event, and of a previously unidentified, 'ghost-like' population spread which provided a basis for the modern Aboriginal cultural landscape.

Research involving the University is changing our understanding about when Mesolithic people began to consume cultivated plants, the precursor to our modern-day cereals. In a new joint study conducted by researchers at Cambridge, Cardiff, UCL and York universities, direct evidence that Mesolithic foragers of this region were consuming domestic cereals by 6600 BC has been found through the study of dental calculus from prehistoric remains.

Scientists have identified a new genetic mutation responsible for the black colouring of the coats of pigs in Hawaii, which is different to the Asian or European mutations leading to the black colour. Their paper suggests that human societies have independently selected domesticated pigs that express the trait of black-coloured coats on at least three separate occasions because they liked the novelty colour.

Using ancient DNA, researchers have created a unique picture of how a prehistoric migration route evolved over thousands of years - revealing that it could not have been used by the first people to enter the Americas, as traditionally thought.

Intestinal parasites as well as goods were carried by travellers on iconic route, say researchers examining ancient latrine. This proves for the first time that travellers along the Silk Road really were responsible for the spread of infectious disease along this route in the past Piers Mitchell An ancient latrine near a desert in north-western China has revealed the first archaeological evidence that travellers along the Silk Road were responsible for the spread of infectious diseases along huge distances of the route 2,000 years ago.

New archaeological evidence suggests that Brazilian capuchins have been using stone tools to crack open cashew nuts for at least 700 years, and the new research paper asks whether human behaviour was influenced through watching the monkeys. Researchers say, to date, they have found the earliest archaeological examples of monkey tool use outside of Africa.

The cultural and technological innovations of Middle Stone Age humans in Southern Africa may not be directly linked to climate, according to new research. Environmental records obtained from archaeological sites where there are Middle Stone Age deposits are the subject of the study published in the journal, PLOS ONE .

Archaeologists from Durham University and the crowd-funded archaeology platform DigVentures have found what they believe to be evidence of the earliest monastery on Lindisfarne. During an archaeological dig on the Holy Island in June a rare Anglo Saxon grave marker was found. Ancient name stone The small, round-headed sandstone marker, commonly known as a name stone, has been dated to the mid-7 th to 8 th Century AD, well within the period of Lindisfarne's first monastery.

A new study looks into the history of stone tools used by wild macaques in coastal Thailand. It finds they have been using them for decades..and possibly thousands of years.. to crack open shellfish and nuts. While there have been several studies observing living non-human primates, this is the first report into the archaeological evidence of tool use by Old World monkeys.

'Pristine' landscapes simply do not exist anywhere in the world today and, in most cases, have not existed for at least several thousand years, says a new study led by the University of Oxford. An exhaustive review of archaeological data from the last 30 years details how the world's landscapes have been shaped by repeated human activity over many thousands of years.

Heliconius butterflies have evolved bright yellow colours to deter predators, while peppered moths famously turned black to hide from birds. A new study reveals that the same gene causes both, raising fascinating questions about how evolution by natural selection occurs in these species. It raises the question that given the diversity in butterflies and moths, and the hundreds of genes involved in making a wing, why is it this one every time?

Archaeologists studying the distribution of ancient rice believe they may be close to solving one of the enduring mysteries of the ancient world - how people of South East Asian origin ended up living on the African island of Madagascar, 6,000 km away. Teams from the universities of Bristol, Oxford and Queensland excavated 18 sites in Madagascar, Comoros, and along the East African coast and recovered over 2,500 seed remains.

The question, 'Where do domestic dogs come from?', has vexed scholars for a very long time. Some argue that humans first domesticated wolves in Europe, while others claim this happened in Central Asia or China. A new paper suggests that all these claims may be right.

Researchers have helped solve one of the enduring mysteries of the ancient world: why the inhabitants of Madagascar speak Malagasy, a language otherwise unique to Southeast Asia and the Pacific - a region located at least 6,000 km away. An international research team has identified that ancient crop remains excavated from sites in Madagascar consist of Asian species like rice and mung beans: the first archaeological evidence that settlers from South Asia are likely to have colonised the island over a thousand years ago.

A study by Cardiff University researchers has shed new light on the origins of the Scottish Red Deer. For many years archaeologists have found ancient red deer remains on the distant Scottish isles. Evidence from tombs and houses dating from around 5,000 years ago show that humans exploited these iconic animals for food and resources.

Scientists from the universities of Oxford and Manchester have used a new molecular fingerprinting technique to identify one Neanderthal bone from around 2,000 tiny bone fragments. All the tiny pieces of bone were recovered from a key archaeological site, Denisova Cave in Russia, with the remaining fragments found to be from animal species like mammoths, woolly rhino, wolf and reindeer.