Cut a mammoth tusk across and a pattern appears that nobody drew. Rings like those of a tree trunk mark how the ivory grew, and are known as Owen’s lines. Crossing them runs a web of curved lines that looks like the mesh of a net, the Schreger lines. About 18,000 years ago, in a […]

Near Parabita, a town in the province of Lecce, in the heel of Italy’s boot (the region of Apulia, also spelled Puglia), a limestone cave holds a piece of Ice Age history. Two small bone figurines found there in 1966 belong to the group known as the Palaeolithic Venus figurines. Now a new survey suggests […]