An analysis of 5000-year-old DNA taken from the remains of four Stone Age humans excavated in Sweden is helping researchers understand how agriculture spread throughout Europe. According to Pontus Skoglund from Uppsala University in Sweden and colleagues, the practice of farming appears to have moved with migrants from southern to northern Europe.

In South Africa, researchers have discovered a 100,000-year-old workshop that may have been used by early Homo sapiens to make, mix, and store ochre—the earliest form of paint.

The use of ochre, which is essentially just colorful dirt, has been well-documented after about 60,000 years ago. But these new findings show that early humans were using ochre much earlier than that, as well as producing and storing it.