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Categories: Anthropology: Early Humans, Paleontology: Dinosaurs

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A team of researchers has identified a group of human DNA sequences driving changes in brain development, digestion and immunity that seem to have evolved rapidly after our family line split from that of the chimpanzees, but before we split with the Neanderthals.

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The preserved footprints found in New Mexico's Lake Otero Basin would upend scientific understanding of how, and when, humans first arrived in North America, if they are accurately dated. A new study brings the age claim into question.

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Artificial intelligence has revealed that prehistoric footprints thought to be made by a vicious dinosaur predator were in fact from a timid herbivore.

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The remains of a huge carp fish mark the earliest signs of cooking by prehistoric human to 780,000 years ago, predating the available data by some 600,000 years, according to researchers.

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Using DNA from two ancient humans unearthed in two different archaeological sites in northeast Brazil, researchers have unraveled the deep demographic history of South America at the regional level with some surprising results. Not only do they provide new genetic evidence supporting existing archaeological data of the north-to-south migration toward South America, they also have discovered migrations in the opposite direction along the Atlantic coast -- for the first time. Among the key findings, they also have discovered evidence of Neanderthal ancestry within the genomes of ancient individuals from South America.

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The use of ancient DNA, including samples of human remains around 45,000 years old, has shed light on a previously unknown aspect of human evolution.

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A fossil discovery from Scotland has provided new information on the early evolution of lizards, during the time of the dinosaurs.

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Piecing together the crushed skull of a fossil bird that lived alongside the dinosaurs helped researchers extrapolate what its brain would have looked like: big olfactory bulbs would have meant that this bird, the earliest known animal to eat fruit, had a better sense of smell than most modern birds. And the bones around its eye sockets revealed that it would have been better at seeing by day than at night.

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The first genetic data from Palaeolithic human individuals in the UK -- the oldest human DNA obtained from the British Isles so far -- indicates the presence of two distinct groups that migrated to Britain at the end of the last ice age, according to new research. Published today in Nature Ecology and Evolution, the new study by UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the Francis Crick Institute researchers reveals for the first time that the recolonisation of Britain consisted of at least two groups with distinct origins and cultures.

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Ostrich-like dinosaurs called ornithomimosaurs grew to enormous sizes in ancient eastern North America, according to a new study.

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Researchers have managed to sequence multiple individuals from a remote Neanderthal community in Siberia. Among these thirteen individuals, the researchers identified multiple related individuals -- among these a father and his teenage daughter. The researchers were also able to use the thirteen genomes to provide a glimpse into the social organization of a Neanderthal community. They appear to have been a small group of close relatives, consisting of ten to twenty members, and communities were primarily connected through female migration.

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A process of desiccation and deflation explains why dinosaur 'mummies' aren't as exceptional as we might expect, according to a study.

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Scientists have shown that in one in every 4,000 births, some of the genetic code from our mitochondria -- the 'batteries' that power our cells -- inserts itself into our DNA, revealing a surprising new insight into how humans evolve. Researchers show that mitochondrial DNA also appears in some cancer DNA, suggesting that it acts as a sticking plaster to try and repair damage to our genetic code.

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A trove of fossils in China, unearthed in rock dating back some 436 million years, have revealed for the first time that the mysterious galeaspids, a jawless freshwater fish, possessed paired fins.

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An international team has reconstructed the genome organization of the earliest common ancestor of all mammals. The reconstructed ancestral genome could help in understanding the evolution of mammals and in conservation of modern animals. The earliest mammal ancestor likely looked like the fossil animal 'Morganucodon' which lived about 200 million years ago.

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Interdisciplinary research in southern Ethiopia enabled the deciphering of eastern Africa's climatic heartbeat and shows how key phases of climate change influenced human evolution, dispersal and innovation.

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Mutations can drastically help or hurt the odds of an organism surviving and reproducing. Researchers have created a computer program called ExtRaINSIGHT that tracks the history of harmful mutations throughout human evolution. They've discovered several regions of the genome are especially vulnerable to mutations, meaning any mutations there could lead to severe or lethal consequences.

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Researchers have conducted a new analysis of the origins of 'bird-hipped' dinosaurs -- the group which includes iconic species such as Triceratops -- and found that they likely evolved from a group of animals known as silesaurs, which were first identified two decades ago.

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In the largest early-medieval population study to date, an interdisciplinary team consisting of geneticists and archaeologists analyzed over 400 individuals from ancient Britain, Ireland, Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands. The results show in detail one of the largest population transformations in the post-Roman world.

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Researchers have discovered a new extinct species of lizard-like reptile that belongs to the same ancient lineage as New Zealand's living tuatara. A team of scientists describe the new species Opisthiamimus gregori, which once inhabited Jurassic North America about 150 million years ago alongside dinosaurs like Stegosaurus and Allosaurus. In life, this prehistoric reptile would have been about 16 centimeters (about 6 inches) from nose to tail -- and would fit curled up in the palm of an adult human hand -- and likely survived on a diet of insects and other invertebrates.