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Categories: Anthropology: Early Humans, Paleontology: Early Mammals and Birds

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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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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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For a species of flycatcher in the remote Solomon Islands, scientists have so far found at least two genetic pathways leading to the same physical outcome: all-black feathers. This change was no random accident. It was a result of nature specifically selecting for this trait.

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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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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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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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Today, increasing levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are warming up the planet. Climate change can disrupt the balance of ecosystems and contribute to endangerment and extinction of some species. New research suggests that a period of intense volcanism in the Central Andes may be the missing link in the story of past climate changes that led to the extinctions of ancient marine mammals.

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A giant kangaroo that once roamed on four legs through remote forests in the Papua New Guinea Highlands may have survived as recently as 20,000 years ago -- long after large-bodied megafauna on mainland Australia went extinct, new research indicates. Palaeontologists, archaeologists and geoscientists, have used new techniques to re-examine megafauna bones from the rich Nombe Rock Shelter fossil site in Chimbu Province in a bid to better understand the intriguing natural history of PNG.

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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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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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A team of scientists has discovered the earliest gibbon fossil, a find that helps fill a long-elusive evolutionary gap in the history of apes.

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The skulls of tetrapods had fewer bones than extinct and living fish, limiting their evolution for millions of years, according to a latest study.

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The question of what makes modern humans unique has long been a driving force for researchers. Comparisons with our closest relatives, the Neanderthals, therefore provide fascinating insights. The increase in brain size, and in neuron production during brain development, are considered to be major factors for the increased cognitive abilities that occurred during human evolution. However, while both Neanderthals and modern humans develop brains of similar size, very little is known about whether modern human and Neanderthal brains may have differed in terms of their neuron production during development. Researchers now show that the modern human variant of the protein TKTL1, which differs by only a single amino acid from the Neanderthal variant, increases one type of brain progenitor cells, called basal radial glia, in the modern human brain.

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1 in 5 adult female white-necked jacobin hummingbirds look like males. New research shows that this is a rare case of 'deceptive mimicry' within a species: Females with male-like plumage are trying to pass themselves off as males, and as a result receive a benefit in the form of reduced aggression from males.