The characters used to write the Vai script, which was invented in Liberia in 1833, have become visually simpler over time, reflecting the evolutionary pressures acting on writing. Image: Kelly et al.
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The ancient Egyptians were adept at bandaging dead bodies during the mummification process, but we have had no evidence of the way they dressed flesh wounds until now. Image: Free Public Domain Illustrations by rawpixel
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A bone found at an archaeological site may encode numerical information. And if that’s correct, anatomically modern humans might not have been alone in developing a system of numerical notations: Neanderthals might have begun to do so, too. Image: F. d’Errico
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With the archaeology of our coastal waters largely unexplored, we are missing a huge piece of human history. Now, however, that is changing. Image: NOAA’s National Ocean Service
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There are microbes near the bottom of the third deepest hole in the world. The cells, recovered from rocks almost 5 kilometres below the surface in China, are the deepest so far found anywhere on land – and they may push beyond the known heat tolerances of life on Earth. Image: Qin Wang et al
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