Did a powerful queen of Cobá, one of the greatest cities of the ancient Maya world, build the longest Maya road to invade a smaller, isolated neighbor and gain a foothold against the emerging Chichén Itzá empire? The question has long intrigued Traci Ardren, archaeologist and University of Miami professor of anthropology. Now, she and fellow scholars may be a step closer to an answer, after conducting the first lidar study of the 100-kilometer stone highway that connected the ancient cities of Cobá and Yaxuná on the Yucatan Peninsula 13 centuries ago.

Fossils and stone tools are key findings unearthed at any archaeological site focused on human evolution studies, however, behavior does not fossilize, and it is not possible to observe hominins using their tools. Thus, primatology plays an important role, as the study of modern primates can help us to understand the behavior of the earliest human populations. In this context, an international research team is focused on the analysis of capuchin monkeys from Serra da Capivara, in Brazil. The main goal is to investigate the use-wear marks developed on the stone tools used by these monkeys and build a theoretical model that could help to understand the emergence of hominin behavior.

When a tiny fragment of human bone shows up in an excavation, Nicole Smith-Guzman can tell you where exactly it came from in the body. Her interest in bones began during her childhood and adolescence, after fracturing a few of them, including her pelvis. Later, as an anthropology major in college, a human osteology class hooked her for good, connecting her intellectual interests with one of her favorite hobbies: jigsaw puzzles.

The largest study on hiring practices in Europe reveals that children of immigrants experience discrimination when accessing the labor market. That is the main conclusion of the European GEMM Project, in which researchers from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid are participating.

It has become fashionable to talk about the concept of post-truth. “It’s been successful, because, in part, it sounds apocalyptical, it has spectacularity, and also partly because it is extremely moralistic with a scant theoretical basis,” observed the author of study, Professor Pilar Carrera, from the Department of Journalism and Audiovisual Communication, who has recently published this research work in the Revista Latina de Comunicación Social.

A thousand years ago, Native Americans in South America used multiple psychotropic plants -- possibly simultaneously -- to induce hallucinations and altered consciousness, according to an international team of anthropologists.