Snippet “ The research team led by the Nagoya University Museum and Graduate School of Environmental Studies in Japan believe Paleolithic humans understood which rocks were appropriate for making tools and, therefore, intentionally searched for them. According to their hypothesis, Paleolithic humans intentionally searched for...
Full text (but there are some more pics if you click in): “Ancient animals were walking around on bird-like feet over 210 million years ago, according to a new study....
“Archaeologists have discovered dozens of unique artifacts that span more than 7,000 years in melting ice patches in British Columbia's Mount Edziza Provincial Park, Canada....
Snippet. “Only meters away from Constituyentes Avenue, at the periphery of the third section of Chapultepec Forest, researchers from the National Institute of Anthropology and History (INAH) have discovered a collection of ancient pre-Hispanic burial sites. The ten “conical” tomb structures dated back to around 3,500...
“ How did our species, Homo sapiens, arrive in Western Europe? Published in Nature Ecology & Evolution, our new study analyzes two skull fragments dating back between 37,000 and 36,000 years to conclude that our ancestors came from Eastern Europe and migrated westwards....
“Researchers suggest that strange blobs near the center of the Earth are remnants of an ancient planet that violently collided with Earth billions of years ago in the same giant impact that created our Moon.”...
“The world's oldest human statue has been unearthed in Karahan Tepe, Turkey. The 7.5-foot-tall statue is estimated to be about 11,000 years and depicts a man clutching his penis with both hands…...
Archaeologists working in the western part of Racibórz, called Studzienna, Poland, have unearthed stone tools that are 130,000 years old, or possibly even older.
“Despite numerous studies, many questions still remain as to the origin of Indo-European: where was the original Indo-European language spoken in prehistoric times? How long ago did this language group emerge? How did it spread across Eurasia?…...
“ The research team, led by Durham University, UK, used satellite data and radio-echo sounding techniques to map a 32,000 km2 area of land underneath the vast ice sheet....
“An interdisciplinary project led by primatologist Gisela Kopp is using genetic analysis to determine the geographic origin of mummified baboons found in ancient Egypt. The team finds evidence that the two legendary trading regions of Punt and Adulis may have been the same place separated by a thousand years of history.”
“ Until the discoveries at Melka Kunture, the oldest known Acheulean tools were dated to approximately 1.6 million years ago. But the new study links this technology with Homo erectus settlers who occupied the Ethiopian highlands 350,000 earlier, which makes them the first group from the fossil record to be connected to this...
“An international team of scientists have discovered a huge spike in radiocarbon levels 14,300 years ago by analyzing ancient tree-rings found in the French Alps. The radiocarbon spike was caused by a massive solar storm, the biggest ever identified.”
Snippet “ The researchers use the "remarkable evidence" to tell a compelling story from 45,000–50,000 years ago with new detail: how the first humans migrated across Europe and Asia....
Snippet “…over the years, archaeologists have dug up mysteriously black and fertile patches of ancient soils in hundreds of sites across the Amazon. This "dark earth" has been found in and around human settlements dating back hundreds to thousands of years. And it has been a matter of some debate as to whether the super-rich...
At the Kalambo Falls archaeological site in northeastern Zambia, archaeologists recovered specimens of ancient wood in the form of logs that had been preserved in waterlogged sand next to the Kalambo River for nearly a half-a-million years—or for 476,000 years, to be more exact. Using a new dating technology known as...
“ Inside the grave were the skeletal remains of a man who had died at the age of 30 or 40. All possible weapons surrounded the deceased Frankish warrior. Under his right arm, he had the most precious weapon, a spatha, a double-edged sword with a blade 75 cm long - including the hilt and pommel 93 cm. The blade is in excellent...
Snippet: “ There is widespread evidence that the Sahara was periodically vegetated in the past, with the proliferation of rivers, lakes and water-dependent animals such as hippos, before it became what is now desert. These North African Humid Periods may have been crucial in providing vegetated corridors out of Africa,...
Snippet: “Dinosaurs have quite the reputation for being the largest, fiercest predators in life's history. Yet, 40 million years before dinosaurs ruled, Pampaphoneus biccai dominated South America as the biggest and most bloodthirsty meat eater of its time…....
Snippet: “One of the most important clues revealing the age of the cave paintings was left behind by cave bears . At various points in the cave these now-extinct inhabitants of Paleolithic Europe left scratch marks on the walls, some of which actually covered a few of the finger flutings made by the cave artists. Since the...
“A new study shows that flowering plants escaped relatively unscathed from the mass extinction that killed the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. While they suffered some species loss, the devastating event helped flowering plants become the dominant type of plant they are today.”
“To the modern observer, the hippopotamus might seem a curious creature - large and often languid in its watery habitat. However, in ancient Egypt, the hippo was regarded as one of the most ferocious beasts, a symbol of power and destruction.”
“Birds descended from theropod dinosaurs by the Late Jurassic, but our understanding of the earliest evolution of the Avialae, the clade comprising all modern birds but not Deinonychus or Troodon, has been hampered by a limited diversity of fossils from the Jurassic…...
““Our results suggest that the spheroids of ‘Ubeidiya are a complex formal technology that represent a manifestation of the complex cognitive and skillful capacities of Early Acheulean hominins,” write the authors in the study. Notably, each spheroid possesses a prominent "primary surface" surrounded by smaller worked...