Smithsonian Magazine Originally Posted: August 23, 2017 The so-called Clovis people, one of the earliest communities to inhabit North America, left behind more than 10,000 arrowheads scattered throughout the continent. Depending on their location, the crafted blades have slightly differing designs, but archaeologists still aren't sure why these differences evolved. Over the last year, however, Kent State University archaeologist Metin Eren has turned his lab into a modern-day weapons workshop to find out. Recently, Eren's experiments helped solve a long simmering mystery about grooves carved in some Clovis points, reports Dake Kang for the Associated Press. Outwardly, the grooves in the blades appear to serve no functional purpose, leading archaeologists in the past to speculate they were decorative or served some religious purpose, reports Kang. However, by using replicated arrowheads, a mechanical crusher and computer simulations, Eren revealed [...]

Sapiens Originally Posted: August 22, 2017 Mary (a pseudonym) was 18 years old and halfway through her second pregnancy when anthropologist Carolyn Smith-Morris met her 10 years ago. Mary, a Pima Indian, was living with her boyfriend, brother, parents, and 9-month-old baby in southern Arizona. She had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes during both of her pregnancies, but she didn’t consider herself diabetic because her diabetes had gone away after her first birth. Perhaps her diagnosis was even a mistake, she felt. Mary often missed her prenatal appointments, because she didn’t have a ride to the hospital from her remote home on the reservation. She considered diabetes testing a “personal thing,” so she didn’t discuss it with her family. As Smith-Morris’ research revealed, Mary’s story [...]