Spencer Wells
scientist • author • explorer
Lombok, Indonesia 🇮🇩
lombokdiaries.substack.com
- Siberia’s Last Shaman: DNA Study Uncovers a Woman Who Defied Empire and Time ⛏️🧬 arkeonews.net/siberias-las...
- Social networks spanned thousands of square kilometers during the Upper Paleolithic period ⛏️🇪🇸 phys.org/news/2026-01... V
- Humanity’s oldest known cave art has been discovered in Sulawesi 🎨🇮🇩 theconversation.com/humanitys-ol...
- Rock art from at least 67,800 years ago in Sulawesi 🎨🇮🇩 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- Neanderthals took reusable toolkits with them on high-altitude treks through the Alps ⛏️🇮🇹 phys.org/news/2026-01...
- Top 10 Discoveries of 2025: The First Indo-European Speakers ⛏️🧬 archaeology.org/issues/onlin...
- One of Europe’s Most Mysterious Languages May Share Ancient Roots with Iberian 📜 arkeonews.net/one-of-europ...
- Home at last: ‘Java Man’ fossils anchor new National Museum exhibit 💀🏛️🇮🇩 www.thejakartapost.com/culture/2026...
- “Unlike the harsh polar desert conditions of glacial Beringia, this coastal zone offered comparatively stable marine and terrestrial resources.” ⛏️🇯🇵🌎 arkeonews.net/the-first-am...
- The earliest Homo species did not look human, partial skeleton shows 💀 www.science.org/content/arti...
- Scientists reveal what drives homosexual behavior in primates 🐒🦍 phys.org/news/2026-01...
- “Taken together, researchers say, the findings suggest that as SARS-CoV-2 continues evolving in its preferred host (humans), successive variants may be losing their affinity for non-human animals.” 🦠 medicalxpress.com/news/2026-01...
- Deep Sulawesi cave dig could reveal overlap between extinct humans and us ⛏️🇮🇩 phys.org/news/2026-01...
- ‘Extraordinary’ iron age war trumpet find in Britain may have Boudicca links ⛏️📯🇬🇧 www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
- "Our leading idea is that there's a particular kind of E. coli that lives in the bowels of young people today that wasn't there in the past." 🦠☠️ www.bbc.com/news/article...
- Eye-opening research: Greenland sharks maintain vision for centuries through DNA repair mechanism 🧬👁️🦈 phys.org/news/2026-01...
- Yes — Camels Really Lived in Basel During the Roman Era ⛏️🐪🇨🇭 arkeonews.net/yes-camels-r...
- Evidence of upright walking found in 7-million-year-old Sahelanthropus fossils ⛏️🦴🇹🇩 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- Genomic study reveals how people moved pigs across the Pacific 🐖⛵️🌏 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history 🌎🌍🌏 aeon.co/essays/there...
- Anatolia’s First Phoenician Find: Human-Faced Glass Beads and Baby Jar Burials Unearthed ⛏️🇹🇷 arkeonews.net/anatolias-fi...
- There is still good science being posted on X, despite Ⓜ️elon’s efforts to make it a…well, you know. The bot-posted precious metal silliness is absolutely ridiculous, though. 🤖📱
- Ancient Puebloans kept macaws and parrots in great houses for ceremonial use ⛏️🦜🌎 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- “The bone skates would have allowed residents to travel efficiently across [the] frozen [Kerch Strait], likely for purposes related to trade, communication, seasonal movement, or economic activity.” ⛸️⛏️🇷🇺 arkeonews.net/archaeologis...
- Humans and other hominins in Sulawesi 50,000 years ago: 'These two populations may have met and interacted with each other' 💀🇮🇩 www.bbc.com/indonesia/ar...
- How did Bronze Age plague spread? A sheep might solve the mystery. 🦠🧬⛏️ phys.org/news/2025-12...
- New Guineans and Aboriginal Australians descend from two groups who arrived 60,000 years ago, research suggests 🧬🌏 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- Merry Christmas from Lombok! 🎄🏝️🇮🇩
- “Until now, mainstream scholarship held that Oghuz Turkish only became a written language in the 13th century, following the spread of Arabic script during the Seljuk and post-Seljuk periods.” ⛏️🇰🇿 arkeonews.net/kultobe-insc...
- Late Miocene megalake regressions in Eurasia 🌊🌏 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- No Mortar, No Cement, No Metal – How Sardinia’s Nuragic Towers Have Defied Gravity for 3,500 Years ⛏️🏰🇮🇹 arkeonews.net/no-mortar-no...
- 7 of the Most Fascinating Archaeological Finds of 2025 ⛏️ www.history.com/articles/arc...
- “By sequencing the DNA, the research team was, on a weekly basis, able to identify the presence of 2,700 organism groups within several miles of the station, and track how their populations increased or decreased over 34 years.” 🧬💨 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- Stories from traditional knowledge combined with archaeological work trace 2,300km of Songlines 🗺️🇦🇺 theconversation.com/stories-from...
- 8.2 ka event triggered social transformation, not destruction, at China's Jiahu site ⛏️🇨🇳 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- A Warming Arctic May Be Changing Polar Bears’ DNA 🧬🐻❄️ Wild… nautil.us/a-warming-ar...
- New biomolecular technique uncovers millet in medieval Ukrainian dental calculus 🌾🦷 Very cool. phys.org/news/2025-12...
- Little Foot hominin fossil may be new species of human ancestor 💀🇿🇦 www.theguardian.com/science/2025...
- Romania confirms first leprosy cases in over 40 years, two more under investigation 🦠🇷🇴 Yikes… www.romania-insider.com/romania-lepr...
- Huge undersea wall dating from 5000 BC found in France 🤿⛏️🇫🇷 www.bbc.com/news/article...
- “The scientists do not know exactly what has caused this pandemic, but Cano said humans were ‘probably involved’ in the distribution of the disease. Current theories about its transmission include shipping, changes to currents and abnormal wave activity.” 🦠🪸 www.theguardian.com/environment/...
- Cats' purrs reveal who's who better than their meows 😺 phys.org/news/2025-12...
- Personal risk tolerance has sweeping implications for how societies evolve ⚠️🌍 phys.org/news/2025-12...
