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Categories: Archaeology: General, Paleontology: Dinosaurs

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The Black Death, the biggest pandemic of our history, was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and lasted in Europe between the years 1346 and 1353. Despite the pandemic's immense demographic and societal impacts, its origins have long been elusive. Now, scientists have obtained and studied ancient Y. pestis genomes that trace the pandemic's origins to Central Asia.

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A royal shipwreck has been discovered off the English coast. The wreck is of one of the most famous ships of the 17th century -- The Gloucester -- which sank 340 years ago while carrying the future King of England, James Stuart. Since running aground on a sandbank on May 6, 1682, the wreck has lain half-buried on the seabed, its exact whereabouts unknown. It has now been found.

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A new study combining archaeological, historical and bioarchaeological data provides new insights into the early Islamic period in modern-day Syria. The research team was planning to focus on a much older time period but came across what they believe to be remains of early Muslims in the Syrian countryside.

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The Wallacean islands of present-day Eastern Indonesia have a long history of occupation by modern humans. Notably, the maritime expansion of Austronesian speakers into Wallacea left archaeological traces of a Neolithic lifestyle and a genetic imprint still detectable in Eastern Indonesians today. To gain further insights into Wallacea's settlement history, scientists sequenced and analyzed sixteen ancient genomes from different islands of Wallacea, finding evidence for repeated genetic admixtures starting at least 3,000 years ago.

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Palaeontologists have identified the remains of one of Europe's largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and lived around 125 million years ago.

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The fossil of a still-unnamed species provides the first known record of the abelisaurid group of theropods from a middle Cretaceous-aged (approximately 98 million years old) rock unit known as the Bahariya Formation, which is exposed in the Bahariya Oasis of the Western Desert of Egypt.

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Archaeologists have uncovered a 3400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city once located on the Tigris River. The settlement emerged from the waters of the Mosul reservoir early this year as water levels fell rapidly due to extreme drought in Iraq. The extensive city with a palace and several large buildings could be ancient Zakhiku -- believed to have been an important center in the Mittani Empire (ca. 1550-1350 BC).

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A cave in southern Spain was used by ancient humans as a canvas for artwork and as a burial place for over 50,000 years, according to a new study.

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Several hundred settlements from the time between 500 and 1400 AD lie in the Bolivian Llanos de Mojos savannah and have fascinated archaeologists for years. Researchers have now visualized the dimensions of the largest known settlement of the so-called Casarabe culture. Mapping with the laser technology LIDAR indicates that it is an early urbanism with a low population density -- the only known case so far from the Amazon lowlands. The results shed new light on how globally widespread and diverse early urban life was and how earlier societies lived in the Amazon.

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Paleontologists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded, like modern mammals and birds, or cold-blooded, like modern reptiles. In a new paper, scientists are unveiling a new method for studying dinosaurs' metabolic rates, using clues in their bones.

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New research moves back the moment of the radiation of squamates -- the group of reptiles that includes lizards, snakes and worm lizards -- to the Jurassic, a long time before current estimates.

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Precipitation more than temperature influenced the distribution of herbivorous dinosaurs in what is now Alaska, according to new research. The finding discusses the distribution of hadrosaurids and ceratopsids -- the megaherbivores of the Late Cretaceous Period, 100.5 million to 66 million years ago.

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A set of dinosaur footprints in Spain has unusual features because the dinosaur that made the tracks had an injured foot, according to a new study.

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Extinct for 66 million years, T. rex still inspires speculation about its anatomy, behavior and fierce physique. One conundrum: its peculiarly short forelimbs, which have relatively limited mobility. While scientists have suggested explanations, a paleontologist puts the proposals to the test and finds them wanting. He hypothesizes that the arms reduced in size to limit damage, possibly fatal, when a pack of T. rexes descended on a carcass with their bone-crunching teeth.

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Prehistoric mammals bulked up, rather than develop bigger brains, to boost their survival chances once dinosaurs had become extinct, research suggests.

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Spinosaurus is the largest predatory dinosaur known -- over two metres longer than the longest Tyrannosaurus rex -- but the way it hunted has been a subject of debate for decades. In a new paper, palaeontologists have taken a different approach to decipher the lifestyle of long-extinct creatures: examining the density of their bones.

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New research has revealed that soil erosion and wildfires contributed to a mass extinction event 201 million years ago that ended the Triassic era and paved the way for the rise of dinosaurs in the Jurassic period.

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Scientists describe the find of a new softshell turtle from the end of the Cretaceous Period.

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Relatively small, but fearsome-looking stegosaur measured about 2.8 meters (9 feet) from nose to tail -- but scientists can't tell whether the remains are those of an adult or juvenile.

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A physics professor has developed an innovative activity that poses the question: Is Usain Bolt faster than a 900-pound dinosaur?