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Anthropology and Sociology

TikTok star raking in millions of views by focussing on country football history and defunct ovals

Andy Munro has garnered a social media following of millions off the back of his reels documenting abandoned country footy grounds in Victoria and South Australia.
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A man smiles while holding black and white Carlton jumpers in front of a wall of different jumpers

Raquel lives 'off the grid'. She's part of a growing trend finding meaning in new age spiritual practices

New age spiritualism is not new, but it morphed during the COVID pandemic and appears more popular than ever. The first detailed Australian study examines what happens when spirituality and wellness intersect with conspiracy theories.
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A woman with brown hair stares soulfully at the camera.

Feel sleepy after a big meal? It's because we've evolved to have food comas

Humans have a long-standing tradition of eating themselves into a "food coma". So what's the science behind this post-meal slump?
Cropped shot of a family making a toast on Christmas day

Artefacts welcomed back to Anindilyakwa community

Indigenous leaders on a remote island in the Gulf of Carpentaria are celebrating the return of almost 200 artefacts from the Manchester Museum.
ABC News Current
Duration: 1 minute 47 seconds

'Special day' as artefacts collected from Groote Eylandt 70 years ago returned to Anindilyakwa

Groote Eylandt's Indigenous communities celebrate the return of 174 artefacts from the Manchester Museum, saying the move has encouraged them to start making and using them again.
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An Aboriginal man wearing a cap holds a small painting

For the first time, scientists have found evidence of menopause in wild chimpanzees

Urine samples collected from wild chimpanzees in Uganda over decades have revealed older female chimps undergo hormonal changes much like those in menopausal humans.
A chimpanzee, sitting among greenery, looking up with her bottom lip slightly open

Were finger marks etched into a cave wall around 57,000 years ago made by Neanderthals?

More than 57,000 years ago, a human traced their fingertips along the chalky wall of a French cave, leaving shallow, parallel furrows behind. But what species were they?
Two people stand in a cave shining a light on etched marks in the rock wall

Who wore this ancient pendant? DNA reveals it was a woman who lived 20,000 years ago

Scraps of ancient DNA coaxed out of a deer tooth pendant show it likely hung around the neck of a woman or girl around 20,000 years ago.
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A gloved hand holding a small white pendant

Mystery of blackened human jawbone found on NSW beach one step closer to being solved

An anthropologist's search through newspaper records reveals a human bone found on a Central Coast beach could be linked to a tragic double drowning more than 80 years ago.
Police use a rake to sift through sand on Umina Beach

Archaeologists discover ancient Mayan 'scoreboard' at Mexico's Chichen Itza

A stone scoreboard used in an ancient soccer-like ball game has been discovered at the famed Mayan Chichen Itza archaeological site, archaeologists said this week.
A circular white stone tablet with etchings on it is held up by a human hand as it rests on a pink felt surface.

A vault in Germany with a single key — and the curator who fell in love with the jawbone inside

See how a prized and contentious early human fossil is stored — and meet the scientist who developed a deep bond with it.
Dr Kristina Eck crouched down and smiling with the jawbone just in front of her jaw

New Easter Island Moai statue discovered in volcano crater

The 1.60-metre tall Moai was found by a group of volunteers working to restore marshland in the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano. 
A person crouched in long grass next to a large stone

Inside the operation to find and arrest a gang of kidnapping bandits in thick PNG jungle

Police in Papua New Guinea say there is "unfinished business" in their pursuit of the criminal gang who took an Australian archaeologist and three local women hostage in the country's highlands.
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A composite image shows three women, one kneeling in uniform that says ARCHAEOLOGY, one in close-up, and one smiling in yellow

A brazen kidnapping, a ransom demand and a rescue mission: Australian professor, PNG research team freed

An Australian archaeology professor and his two Papua New Guinean colleagues are released from captivity after more than a week of tense and traumatic negotiations, and a complex security operation involving police and defence personnel.
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A man and a woman pictured inside a helicopter, both looking out the door at the green forest below

Nearly 3 million years ago, a butcher hacked up a hippo with a crafted stone tool. They may not have been human

The discovery of fossils of 2.9-million-year-old butchered hippopotamus surrounded by crafted stone tools in Kenya suggests early humans may not have been the first species to use tools.
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Ancient stone flake next to ruler

James Cook University returns artefacts to traditional owners

Boomerangs, bark paintings, and photographic slides returned by James Cook University in what it says is the start of many more repatriations.
A man delicately holds a wooden boomerang, in front of it is a stone axe

Australian scientists publish study about Neanderthal family

Professor Richard Roberts spoke to the ABC and said, the research examined Neanderthal remains found in a Siberian cave and revealed a family unit.
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ABC News Current
Duration: 4 minutes 10 seconds

'It blurs the distinction between us and Neanderthals': new DNA study reveals portrait of an ancient cave family

A Neanderthal clan's family tree — the product of the largest single genetic study of Neanderthals to date —  reveals insights into their social behaviour.
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A Neanderthal father with his daughter riding on his shoulders

How an archaeologist stumbled upon boabs with snake carvings in northern Australia

Indigenous people and archaeologists have documented carvings on boab trees in northern Australia's Tanami Desert that support stories told by elders about how their land came to be.
Boab tree with spiral snake carving in Tanami

From ancient enemas to modern love, this year's 10 Ig Nobel prizes are things to make you go hmmm

The winners of the Ig Nobels, satirical prizes for scientific achievements that "make people laugh and then think", were awarded a fold-up paper prize and Zimbabwean $10 trillion note.
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Scene from ancient Mayan jar showing self-administered enema

In a secret cave on Mexico's coast archaeologist finds ancient skeleton

A prehistoric human skeleton is found in a cave system on Mexico's Caribbean coast that was flooded at the end of the last ice age 8,000 years ago.
Fragments of a pre-historic human skeleton partly covered by sediment in an underwater cave.

How a hunter-gatherer child had their leg amputated 31,000 years ago — and lived

The skeleton, found in a cave in Borneo, was missing the lower third of the left leg, which appeared to be chopped off  when they were a child.
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ABC News Current

Arnhem Land 'detectives': The artists helping discover who painted these priceless works

Artists visit a Melbourne Museum vault to identify the "master" creators of bark paintings commissioned 110 years ago by Sir Baldwin Spencer in exchange for tobacco and cash.
Four Arnhem Land men stand with a prized bark painting.

The first humans emerged long before our own species. So, who were they?

How far back in time must we go for our ancestors to not be "human", but apes walking on two legs? And what's needed to qualify as "human" anyway?
A man holding a skull

Global study shows period stigma 'all encompassing', with conversations key to change

Researchers say shame and stigma around menstruation exacerbate the burden of periods, with conversations the key to change.
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Three tampons sit on a pink surface.