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Spain’s Move to Decolonize Its Museums Must Continue

Sapiens

In early 2024, Spain’s culture minister announced that the nation would overhaul its state museum collections, igniting a wave of anticipation—and controversy. It is crucial to understand that decolonizing efforts in museums do not equate to an immediate, wholesale return of cultural material. Unlike the U.K.,

Museum 124
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Fire in the Cold: The Hidden Pyrotechnics of Ice Age Foragers

Anthropology.net

And yet, the archaeological record for that period—from roughly 26,500 to 19,000 years ago—tells a strangely quiet story. Or has the archaeological record simply failed to preserve these ephemeral traces of life? Fire as Cultural Technology Fire is not merely a survival tool. Did hunter-gatherers abandon fire?

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Neanderthal Ingenuity: The Tar-Burning Hearth at Vanguard Cave

Anthropology.net

Such tasks likely involved collaboration and the transmission of knowledge within the group, suggesting that these skills were culturally shared over generations. This discovery supports growing evidence that Neanderthals possessed the cognitive abilities and social structures necessary for cultural innovation. 147–165.

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Mapping Ancient Emotions: How Mesopotamians Felt and Expressed Their Feelings in the Body

Anthropology.net

Discovering Emotion in Ancient Mesopotamia From the flutter of "butterflies in the stomach" to the weight of a "heavy heart," emotions are often tied to physical sensations in modern cultures. Towards a Universal Understanding of Emotions This study opens new doors to understanding whether emotions are universal or culturally specific.

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Two Worlds, Two Technologies: The Divergent Stone Industries of the Uluzzian and Châtelperronian Peoples

Anthropology.net

Found in different parts of Europe, these two industries have often been grouped together as “transitional industries,” implying that they might share a common technological or cultural origin. A new study published in the Journal of Paleolithic Archaeology 1 has upended this assumption. But do they? 4a) blade-like. (4b)

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Children's Role in Upper Paleolithic Cave Art

Anthropology.net

It suggests that these journeys were neither incidental nor purely educational but held profound cultural and spiritual significance. Liminal Beings: Children as Mediators In many indigenous cultures, children are perceived as liminal beings—occupying a threshold between the earthly realm and the spiritual world.

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Strategic Minds of the Early Acheulian Toolmakers

Anthropology.net

The Acheulian culture, which emerged around 1.75 Using experimental archaeology, advanced 3D scanning, and photogrammetry, they recreated and analyzed the wear patterns on stone tools from Melka Wakena. ” Melka Wakena’s archaeological record offers a glimpse into these capabilities. Quaternary International.