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The National Council for History Education (NCHE) is excited to announce a new partnership with the Library of Congress Teaching with Primary Sources program (TPS). As of February 2025, NCHE serves as the director of one of the Librarys newest regional granting entities, the Great Plains Region.
In this landscape stands Picuris Pueblo—a small, sovereign tribal nation whose history has long been narrated in stories passed down through generations. These stories speak of migration, of belonging, of origins tied to Chaco Canyon, one of the great ceremonial and cultural centers of the ancient Puebloan world.
More schools around the country, from Baltimore to Michigan to Colorado , are adopting these content-filled lessons to teach geography, astronomy and even art history. Some educators are calling for schools to adopt a curriculum that emphasizes content along with phonics. Weve all been there. Additional activities reinforced the lessons.
Credit: bioRxiv (2025). This suggests that light skin was never an evolutionary necessity but rather one of many possible adaptations shaped by cultural and environmental factors. A Complex, Ongoing Story The history of European pigmentation is far more intricate than previously thought. The evolution of human skin coloration.
But beyond their everyday function of fastening and securing, knots hold something deeper: a story about the evolution of human cognition, the flow of culture, and the quiet persistence of shared technique across continents and millennia. The process of Gauss coding a simple knot. Image credit: Roope Kaaronen / University of Helsinki.
In the 8th century CE, the Avars—an enigmatic group with roots in the East Asian steppes—settled in Central Europe, weaving a tapestry of cultural cohesion amid genetic diversity. Their findings reveal an intriguing story of cultural integration despite distinct genetic divides.
Yet, could these stories also encode the history of humanity’s migrations and interactions? Through statistical comparisons of genetic distances, geographic relationships, and the distribution of mythological motifs, the study reveals that both population movements and cultural diffusion have shaped the stories we tell today.
2025 In a new study published in Australian Archaeology 1 , Ana Paula Motta and colleagues, in partnership with the Balanggarra Aboriginal Corporation, have proposed that these figures represent a distinct rock art style they call the Linear Naturalistic Figures (LNF). Birth of the Rainbow Serpent in Arnhem Land Rock Art and Oral History.
An Ancient Cave with Modern Questions Franchthi Cave, nestled in the Peloponnesian peninsula of Greece, has been a silent witness to 40,000 years of human history. This nuance suggests a more varied diet than previously thought, shaped by both ecological and cultural factors. Read more 1 Martinoia, V., Papathanasiou, A.,
According to co-author Raven Garvey, an anthropologist at the University of Michigan, modern humans likely used a suite of cultural technologies to mitigate UV exposure. It is plausible, Garvey noted, that some caves were used not just for their cultural or symbolic significance but as literal refuges from a more dangerous atmosphere.
While sites in Iberia, Greece, and the Levant reveal a flourishing network of trade, agriculture, and technology, North Africa—except for Egypt—has often been cast as an empty land, a region untouched by the cultural currents shaping the rest of the ancient world. This is a crucial detail.
The Bone Archive of Human History If genes are blueprints, skulls are blueprints weathered by time. The results hint at a Europe in flux: a continent repeatedly reshaped not just by migration but by the slow churn of diet, disease, and cultural transformation. BC, without cultural affiliation, Věstonice cluster).
"We see a lag between when the genetic evidence tells us language capacity was present and when symbolic artifacts appear in the record," notes Ian Tattersall, a paleoanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History and co-author of the study. This challenges the long-held view that language and symbolism arose in tandem. Nitschke, R.,
A Milestone in Human History The Grăunceanu site opens a new window into early human history, revealing that hominins were present in Europe far earlier than previously thought. . “The preponderance of ephemeral traces for hominins in this region can no longer be ignored,” the authors emphasize. Drăgușin, V.,
Recent analysis of artifacts from two Lusatian Culture cemeteries suggests that early metallurgists were not only working with iron from terrestrial sources but also incorporating metal from ataxite meteorites—an extremely rare form of nickel-rich iron that originates in space. Pin fragment (E) from Częstochowa-Mirów (4).
By applying the Gini coefficient—a widely used metric for measuring inequality—to house sizes, the study created a cross-cultural snapshot of economic disparity over 10,000 years. Inequality is not a default state of civilization—it is a historical process shaped by choices, constraints, and cultural norms.
Human societies are built on layers of culture, law, and technology, yet beneath it all, some of the oldest instincts in the animal kingdom continue to shape our world. History provides ample evidence of this dynamic. Modern consumer culture, Colombo suggests, is another expression of this primal drive.
“It suggests that grammatical complexity, like genetic variation, can reflect the demographic history of a population,” the study concludes. Future research may extend this model to other regions, such as Southeast Asia and Oceania, or test whether similar gradients exist in cultural practices like myth, kinship, or cosmology.
The early human settlement of South America stands as one of the last great migrations in human history, yet the environmental conditions that shaped this journey remain debated. 2 ) takes different cultural components and specific lithic traditions/categories into account. The modelling work (e.g., <2,5000 masl = orange.
These instruments, linked to the Umm an-Nar culture, provide compelling evidence of a shared musical tradition between the ancient civilizations of the Arabian Peninsula and the Indus Valley. Al Rahbi Music has long served as a universal language, transcending geographical and cultural boundaries. S., & Douglas, K.
The Footprints That Rewrite History In the shifting gypsum sands of White Sands National Park in New Mexico, a series of fossilized human footprints have surfaced, casting a striking new light on the ingenuity of Ice Age inhabitants. Historically, it was used by Plains peoples to haul loads across the land, often drawn by horses or dogs.
Journal of Quaternary Science (2025) A new study in the Journal of Quaternary Science 1 suggests that at least one band of Late Upper Paleolithic foragers made their way to the windswept tip of the Isle of Skye, a place so remote it has long been considered beyond the reach of early postglacial settlement. Hardy et al., Hardy et al.,
We invite proposals for individual papers, panels, and workshops/roundtables on any aspect of the Greco-Roman world, including but not limited to poetry (from epic, lyric, and pastoral to elegy, satire, and the epigram), drama, history, philosophy, archaeology, religion, and social life (from family and gender roles to slavery and prostitution).
In the long arc of human history, what makes a settlement persist? Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1 , the study draws on data from over 47,000 houses spanning nearly 3,000 archaeological sites and 10,000 years of human history. Assessing grand narratives of economic inequality across time. Ortman, S.
For much of history, the rise of inequality has been treated like gravity: inevitable, natural, and inescapable. From the sprawling villas of Roman elites to the thatched huts of the poor in medieval Europe, textbook history often presents wealth disparity as a consequence of human progress. Three excavated Classic period (ca.
The shift from a hunter-gatherer existence to an agrarian lifestyle stands as one of the most profound transformations in human history. More importantly, our model also highlights the role of migration and cultural mixing in the rise of farming." 122 (14) e2416221122, [link] (2025). Szécsényi-Nagy, A.,
But every now and then, a new discovery forces a rewrite of this narrative, reminding us that human history is more intricate than we once thought. Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2025). Credit: Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences (2025). What Comes Next?
Leopard cats, roughly the size of modern house cats, are adaptable predators with a long history of interaction with human societies. The Cultural Shift: How China Embraced the Domestic Cat The arrival of Felis catus was not merely a biological event; it marked a cultural shift in how Chinese society interacted with felines.
Social Studies Soundtracks: Using Music to Teach Social Studies May 2, 2025 By Debbie Bagley NEWSLETTER At first glance, social studies and music might seem like two separate subjects, but they can come together harmoniously to make learning more engaging and memorable. It is deeply rooted in our cultures, histories, geographies, and values.
Diversity of Relations from Antiquity to Modernity April 10-11, 2025 We are delighted to invite you to participate in the fifth interdisciplinary international academic conference on the relationship between ancient Rome and the Iberian Peninsula. Material culture remains from the Roman times on the Peninsula’s territory.
“This is the first commodity to be exported across the entire continent in British history,” said Dr. Benjamin Roberts, associate professor of archaeology at Durham University. A Mining Culture Without Cities What makes the story more astonishing is who was doing the mining. It stitched distant communities together.
Often, the product of this influence is a colonialist narrative that presents past cultures as flawed or inconsistent (because they fail to meet modern criteria) and modern (usually Western) cultures as the resolution of these inconsistencies. Fellowships will be distributed equally across the 2025-2026 academic year (i.e.,
Exploring the Assumptions of CulturalHistory: Call for Fellows kskordal Mon, 03/04/2024 - 13:37 Image The Future of the Past Lab and the Center for Premodern Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities are excited to announce a three-year series of visiting fellowships titled “Exploring the Assumptions of CulturalHistory.”
On the May 12th, 2025 cover of Time Magazine , you will see a picture of a white wolf below the bold word Extinct slashed through with a red block. Below it reads “This is Remus. He’s a dire wolf. The first to exist in over 10,000 years. Endangered species could be changed forever.” Talk about a bait and switch!
Within a few decades, they built an empire that stretched from the Eurasian steppe to the heart of Central Europe, reshaping political landscapes and leaving an imprint on European history. The results paint a complex picture of migration, cultural blending, and long-distance connections. But where did they come from? Rasmussen, S.,
On his Facebook page, Zed says: After six years of working on The Anthropocene Illusion, the project (and I) have won the Sony World Photography Award 2025. In a tiny fraction of our Earths history, we humans have used our power to exploit the Earth and other animals. Not the occupant of the cage. Here's the book.
The discovery of an Epigravettian layer at Grotta della Lea now provides a new chapter in this long history, capturing a time when small bands of hunter-gatherers were adapting to life at the edge of the Last Glacial Maximum. What the Bones Reveal Beyond the tools, the cave's faunal remains tell a story of survival and adaptation.
They were the remains of animals deeply intertwined with the histories and cultures of Indigenous communities. Lakota elder Milo Yellow Hair looks over bison skulls stored in the CU Museum of Natural History. Horses, bison, and other creatures hold deep cultural and spiritual significance. “You care for horses.
Call for Proposals: Symposium Vesuvianum 2026 kskordal Mon, 01/27/2025 - 08:36 Image Call for Proposals Symposium Vesuvianum 2026 The Vergilian Society seeks proposals for its annual Symposium Vesuvianum to take place at the Villa Vergiliana in Cuma, Italy in October 2026. Informal inquiries are also welcome at this email address.
The approach allows archaeologists to pinpoint events within the span of a single human life—offering a more intimate view of history. For much of the 20th century, archaeologists often removed human remains and cultural artifacts without consultation or consent. But this precision comes at a cost. Related Research Manning, S.
For some subjects, like history, teachers say it’s hard to find comprehensive curricula that not only includes histories of marginalized communities but also includes a state’s local communities. That’s costing families about $100 million collectively each year, the report found.
CFP: Ancient Leadership Series for SAGE Business Cases kskordal Wed, 01/29/2025 - 08:32 Image Since 2018, SAGE Business Cases (SBC) has been inviting authors to contribute to its Ancient Leadership series. Proposal deadline is February 10, 2025. Authors will be notified of proposal decisions by mid-February 2025.
The series, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, is focused on six themes that are at the heart of SNCC’s history of grassroots organizing: the organizing tradition, voting rights, Black Power, women and gender, freedom teaching, and art and culture in movement building.
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