Cranbrook, Kent: I have a stretch of leggy hawthorn that needs attention, so I head out into the cold with my axe and billhook

9,500-year-old pyre uncovered in Malawi offers rare insight into rituals of ancient African hunter-gatherer groups A cremation pyre built about 9,500 years ago has been discovered in Africa, offering a fresh glimpse into the complexity of ancient hunter-gatherer communities. Researchers say the pyre, discovered in a rock shelter at the foot of Mount Hora in northern Malawi, is thought to be the oldest in the world to contain adult remains, the oldest confirmed intentional cremation in Africa, and the first pyre to be associated with African hunter-gatherers. Continue reading...

Growing stretches of the English countryside are “falling behind a paywall,” campaigners warn as national parks grapple with drastic funding cuts.

Campaigners say designation promotes unsustainable sheep farming at expense of nature recovery and local communities

Pebble found in central Spain features what is thought to be world’s oldest fingerprint, and represents a nose One day around 43,000 years ago, a Neanderthal man in what is now central Spain came across a large granite pebble whose pleasing contours and indentations snagged his eye. Something in the shape of that quartz-rich stone – perhaps its odd resemblance to an elongated face – may have compelled him to pick it up, study it and, eventually, to dip one of his fingers in red pigment and press it against the pebble’s edge, exactly where the nose on that face would have been. Continue reading...

MPs had previously backed Conservative amendment to ask developers to provide hollow bricks for endangered birds