New fossils from the dawn of the human lineage suggest our ancestors may have lived alongside a diversity of extinct human species, researchers say.

Although modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only human species alive today, the world has seen a number of human species come and go. Other members perhaps include the recently discovered "hobbit" Homo floresiensis.

The human lineage, Homo, evolved in Africa about 2.5 million years ago, coinciding with the first evidence of stone tools.

For the first half of the last century, conventional wisdom was that the most primitive member of our lineage was Homo erectus, the direct ancestor of our species.

However, just over 50 years ago, scientists discovered an even more primitive species of Homo at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania they dubbed Homo habilis, which had a smaller brain and a more apelike skeleton.

Now fossils between 1.78 million and 1.95 million years old discovered in 2007 and 2009 in northern Kenya suggest that early Homo were quite a diverse bunch, with at least one other extinct human species living at the same time as H. erectus and H. habilis.

"Two species of the genus Homo, our own genus, lived alongside our direct ancestor, Homo erectus, nearly 2 million years ago," researcher Meave Leakey at the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, told LiveScience.

A 500 year old burial, with the complete skeleton of an individual, surrounded by more than a thousand human bones of children, teenagers and adults, was found recently by specialists from the National Institute of History and Anthropology (INAH - Conaculta) in the Historical Center of Mexico City, close to the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan. This finding is unique, claimed the archaeologist Raúl Barrera Rodríguez, who is responsible for the Urban Archaeology Program (PAU) of the INAH. There had been other multiple burials before in Mexican culture, but this is the first one in which the main skeleton was found accompanied by osseous human pieces of different age groups. Raúl Barrera Rodríguez also explained that besides the osseous remains, a circular structure of tezontle was found.

It contained a log which, determined by its location, should have belonged to one of the sacred trees associated to the Huitzilopochtli tributary temple, and given its circular platform - found in 2011 - it was determined that it is one of the five cuauhxicalco (ceremonial buildings) that were held in the sacred area of Tenochtitlan. The discoveries occurred during the work that was being done in a property named Plaza Manuel Gamio for the creation of an access hall to the Archaeological Zone and the Great Temple's Museum.

For 2000 years the ancient and decomposing hulk lay buried in deep, muddy waters, off the Italian coast. Everybody knew it was down there because for more than 80 years local fishermen had been collecting bits of Roman artefacts and pots in their nets. Finds of this nature are not unusual in Italian waters, which are littered with treasures going back thousands of years.
But these artefacts told a different story, and it was good enough to attract the interest of the archaeological community and a police commander who heads an expert diving squad in the city of Genoa.

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An excavation on Salisbury plain has proved an unusually emotional experience for the volunteer archaeologists, as soldiers recovering from injuries received in Afghanistan have made a surprise discovery: the remains of warriors who died more than 1,400 years ago.

The haul astonished professionals from Wessex Archaeology, who led Operation Nightingale, an award-winning project to give soldiers new skills and interests as part of their rehabilitation. The excavation was expected to produce modest results, after earlier digs had turned up empty army ration packs and spent ammunition. Instead, they revealed their ancient counterparts, including an Anglo Saxon soldier buried with his spear and what must have been a treasured possession, a small wooden drinking cup decorated with bronze bands.

Mike Kelly, from 1 Rifles, found a skeleton with its head covered by a shield. He believes the position was a sign of respect to a fallen warrior. "I have been to war myself and I can imagine what the soldier would have felt as he went into battle. Knowing that as a modern-day warrior I have unearthed the remains of another fills me with an overwhelming sense of respect."

Caffeine-loaded black drinks apparently dominated the heartland of America earlier than once thought - a beverage neither coffee nor cola, but instead brewed from holly leaves, researchers say.

The ancient people may have downed the brew before ritual vomiting as part of purification ceremonies, the scientists added.

The discovery was made after investigating artifacts from Cahokia, "North America's first city," researcher Thomas Emerson, the director of the Illinois State Archaeological Survey, told LiveScience.

Cahokia existed near the confluence of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers from about 1050 to 1350 in what is now in St. Louis, East St. Louis and the surrounding five counties, and inspired short-lived settlements as far away as Wisconsin.

The core of this society, Greater Cahokia, had as many as 50,000 residents in its heyday living amidst earthen mounds, some more than 100 feet (30 meters) in height, making it the largest prehistoric North American settlement north of Mexico.

Even after decades of research, archaeologists are at a loss to explain the sudden emergence of Greater Cahokia and its rapid decline, but its influences on art, religion and architecture are seen as far away as Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Wisconsin, Emerson said.

Marilyn mania in full swing on the eve of the 50th anniversary of her death, her FBI files are still mysteriously censored.

Like many of the stars of her era, Marilyn Monroe's movements, relationships and comments weren't just devoured by fans - they were followed closely by the FBI.

Records kept on Monroe, many of which were filed under "Foreign Counterintelligence," have intrigued many who have sought to learn more about the film star, including those who investigated her death.

In connection with the 50th anniversary of Monroe's death on 5 August, The Associated Press has attempted under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain the most complete record of the bureau's monitoring of Monroe.

Nearly nine months later - after several requests and an appeal - obtaining a more complete record of how the FBI investigated Monroe in the months before she died have been stymied by an effort to simply find the files.

The FBI says it no longer has the files it compiled on Monroe; the National Archives - the usual destination for such material - says it doesn't have them either.

Finding out precisely when the records were moved - as the FBI says has happened - required the filing of yet another, still-pending Freedom of Information Act request.

The twee town of Torquay, on England's Devon coast, has two major claims to fame: It was the birthplace and longtime home of mystery writer Agatha Christie, and it's the home of Kents Cavern, one of the United Kingdom's most important archaeological sites.

Last year, researchers reported that an upper jaw found in the cave could be the oldest modern human fossil in Europe. But a new study questions that claim, arguing that the date of the jawbone may never be known with certainty. The controversy has an important bearing on debates about the spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa.

"One bad date can rewrite the entire prehistory of our species in Europe," says Paul Pettitt, an archaeologist at the University of Sheffield in the United Kingdom and co-author of the new study, which is in press at the European Journal of Archaeology. But members of the original team, who published their dating results last year in Nature, have responded sharply to the criticisms.

The new study's conclusions, says Thomas Higham, a radiocarbon dating expert at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of the Nature paper, "expose a breathtaking ignorance of the [new] developments in scientific approaches to the past."

Kents Cavern has been excavated numerous times since the 1820s by some of the United Kingdom's most famous archaeologists. In 1927, Arthur Ogilvie, then curator of the Torquay Museum, discovered the partial jawbone, which includes three teeth.

Over the years, researchers have debated whether the fossil was that of a modern human or a Neandertal, as well as how old it was. In 1989, scientists at the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit attempted to directly date the bone and came up with an age of approximately 35,000 years. (All dates in this story are calibrated to account for fluctuations in atmospheric radiocarbon over time.)

Archeologists have long known that cacao was important to the ancient Mayans who used it to make beverages and perform rituals, but some recently discovered evidence shows that these people added cacao to flavor their food as far back as 2,500 years ago.

Traces of chocolate that were found on plate fragments could be evidence of a Mayan precursor for modern Mexican dishes like mole, the chocolate-based sauce served with chicken or beef.

Earlier this week, Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History announced the discovery, which was based on artifacts taken from the Paso del Macho archaeological site in Yucatan in 2001.

"This is the first time it has been found on a plate used for serving food," archaeologist Tomas Gallareta said. "It is unlikely that it was ground there (on the plate), because for that they probably used metates (grinding stones)."

Fragments recovered from the site were tested by a joint team of scientists that included experts at Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi.

The chemical tests revealed a "ratio of theobromine and caffeine compounds that provide a strong indicator of cacao usage," according to a statement from the college.

A small stone seal found in Israel could be the first archaeological evidence of the story of Samson, the Bible's most famous strongman.

Less than an inch in diameter, the seal depicts a man with long hair fighting a large animal with a feline tail.

The seal was excavated at the Tell Beit Shemesh site in the Judaean Hills near Jerusalem at a level that dates to roughly the 11th century BC.

Biblically speaking, this was during the time when the Jews were led by leaders known as Judges, one of whom was Samson.

The location where the stone seal was unearthed, close to the Sorek river that marked the ancient border between Israelite and Philistine territories, suggests the figure could represent the Biblical slayer of Philistines.

A character that jumped from the Old Testament into legend, Samson was given supernatural strength by God to overcome his enemies.

The strength, which Samson discovered after encountering a lion and ripping it apart with his bare hands, was contained in his long hair.

Dr. Karina Croucher, who has studied buried remains of people living between 7,500 and 10,000 years ago across the Middle East, says the stereotypical view of how Neolithic men and women lived is wrong.

Unlike today, she argues, it was normal for men and women to show compassion for each other- and gender was not so clearly defined.

The researcher argues male bias in archaeology has distorted our understanding of how ancient peoples lived, in a new book published by Oxford University Press.

Of the 40 people buried in a "death pit" in South Eastern Turkey where she was part of an excavation team, there were equal numbers of men and women.

Her theory is also based, in part, by the find of a teenage girl's skull buried carefully by the pit, called Kim by the team.

The girl - between 15 and 17 years old - whose face has been reconstructed by Chris Rynn and Caroline Wilkinson, now at Dundee University with Stuart Campbell from The University of Manchester, was deeply cared for by the men and women who tended the site. The facial reconstruction creates an emotive picture of the girl who lived 7,500 years ago.

Kim was carefully placed next to the death pit. The pit contained the fragmented remains of around 40 people, along with animal remains, pottery, flint, obsidian, and other material culture. It also displays signs of cannibalism.

Though the finds to modern eyes are gruesome, Dr. Croucher says, they show a compassionate side to both Neolithic men and women.