An international team of researchers, including UC Davis Associate Professor of Anthropology Nicolas Zwyns, has uncovered the earliest known representation of a sexed personal ornament in human history. The study, published in Scientific Reports, describes and analyzes a phallus-shaped black pendant discovered in northern Mongolia and dating back to 42,000 years ago. In addition to pushing back the timeline for sexed symbolic representation in the archaeological record, the pendant was discovered in a location where Homo sapiens mingled with other ancient human species, including the extinct Denisovans. The research adds more fuel to the debate about whether figurative depictions in art was a trait exclusive to Homo sapiens in ancient human history.
The Tibetan Plateau has long been considered one of the last places to be populated by people in their migration around the globe. A new paper by archaeologists at UC Davis highlights that our extinct cousins, the Denisovans, reached the “roof of the world” about 160,000 years ago — 120,000 years earlier than previous estimates for our species — and even contributed to our adaptation to high altitude.
Four associate professors in the College of Letters and Science recently were named Chancellor’s Fellows for excellence in their research, creative work, teaching and service. The college's newest Chancellor's Fellows include an expert on immigrant family well-being, an artist/author, a political theorist and an archaeologist.
Stone tools uncovered in Mongolia by an international team of archaeologists indicate that modern humans traveled across the Eurasian steppe about 45,000 years ago, according to a new University of California, Davis, study. The date is about 10,000 years earlier than archaeologists previously believed.