Rare wooden tools from Stone Age China reveal plant-based lifestyle of ancient lakeside humans Ancient wooden tools found at a site in Gantangqing in southwestern China are approximately 300,000 years old, new dating has shown. Discovered during excavations carried out in 2014–15 and 2018–19, the tools have now been dated by a team of archaeologists, geologists, chronologists (including me) and paleontologists.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-....rare-wooden-tools-st

New evidence suggests Neanderthals were rendering fat nearly 100,000 years before other early humans The hunting and gathering activities of early humans required a high-calorie diet consisting of a variety of macronutrients—protein, carbohydrates, and fat. While hunting big-game animals—like deer, horses and animals in the bovine family—provided a large supply of calories all at once, much of these calories came in the form of protein. However, human and Neanderthal bodies have a limit on the amount of protein intake that the liver can handle.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-....evidence-neanderthal

Regional disparities exist in US media coverage of archaeology research, finds study What archaeological discoveries are considered newsworthy by U.S. media outlets and audiences? A new analysis of "pop-science" reporting reveals topical and regional disparities, including an apparent underrepresentation of Chinese archaeology and preference for findings relevant to white Christian histories.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-....regional-disparities

New France had child slaves, and they were Indigenous, studies reveal Between 1632 and 1760, records show that 734 Indigenous children were enslaved in France's North American colony, historian Dominique Deslandres reveals in two recent studies.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-....france-child-slaves-

Ancient Egyptian genome reveals North African roots and Fertile Crescent ancestry Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute and Liverpool John Moores University (LJMU) have extracted and sequenced the oldest Egyptian DNA to date from an individual who lived around 4,500 to 4,800 years ago, the age of the first pyramids, in research published in Nature.
https://phys.org/news/2025-07-....ancient-egyptian-gen