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Categories: Archaeology: General, Paleontology: Fossils
Published Anthropologists' research unveils early stone plaza in the Andes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Located at the Callacpuma archaeological site in the Cajamarca Basin of northern Peru, the plaza is built with large, vertically placed megalithic stones -- a construction method previously unseen in the Andes.
Published Some Pre-Roman humans were buried with dogs, horses and other animals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Some people from an ancient community in what is now northern Italy were interred with animals and animal parts from species such as dogs, horses and pigs. The reasons remain mysterious, but might indicate an enduring companion relationship between these humans and animals, or religious sacrificial practices, according to a new study.
Published Archaeologists discover oldest known bead in the Americas
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The bead found at the La Prele Mammoth site in Wyoming's Converse County is about 12,940 years old and made of bone from a hare.
Published The hidden rule for flight feathers -- and how it could reveal which dinosaurs could fly
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common. These 'rules' provide clues as to how the dinosaur ancestors of modern birds first evolved the ability to fly, and which dinosaurs were capable of flight.
Published Surprisingly vibrant color of 12-million-year-old snail shells
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Snail shells are often colorful and strikingly patterned. This is due to pigments that are produced in special cells of the snail and stored in the shell in varying concentrations. Fossil shells, on the other hand, are usually pale and inconspicuous because the pigments are very sensitive and have already decomposed. Residues of ancient color patterns are therefore very rare. This makes a new discovery all the more astonishing: researchers found pigments in twelve-million-year-old fossilized snail shells.
Published New fossil site of worldwide importance uncovered in southern France
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Nearly 400 exceptionally well-preserved fossils dating back 470 million years have been discovered in the south of France by two amateur paleontologists. The discovery provides unprecedented information on the polar ecosystems of the Ordovician period.
Published Scandinavia's first farmers slaughtered the hunter-gatherer population, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Following the arrival of the first farmers in Scandinavia 5,900 years ago, the hunter-gatherer population was wiped out within a few generations, according to a new study. The results, which are contrary to prevailing opinion, are based on DNA analysis of skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark.
Published Ancient Australian air-breathing fish from 380 million years ago
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The rivers of Australia, which once flowed across its now dry interior, used to host a range of bizarre animals -- including a sleek predatory lobe-finned fish with large fangs and bony scales. The newly described fossil fish discovered in remote fossil fields west of Alice Springs has been named Harajicadectes zhumini by palaeontologists.
Published Thailand's Iron Age Log Coffin culture
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A mortuary practice known as Log Coffin culture characterizes the Iron Age of highland Pang Mapha in northwestern Thailand. Between 2,300 and 1,000 years ago, individuals were buried in large wooden coffins on stilts, mostly found in caves and rock shelters.
Published Prehistoric mobility among Tibetan farmers, herders shaped highland settlement patterns, cultural interaction, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Using advanced geospatial modeling to compare environmental and archaeological evidence, researchers found evidence that connects ancient mobility and subsistence strategies to cultural connections forged among Tibetan farmers and herders in the Bronze and Iron Ages -- adding to understanding of how and why ancient communities built social relationships and cultural identities across the extreme terrain in Tibet.
Published Rare 3D fossils show that some early trees had forms unlike any you've ever seen
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source In the fossil record, trees typically are preserved with only their trunks. They don't usually include any leaves to show what their canopies and overall forms may have looked like. In a new study, researchers describe fossilized trees from New Brunswick, Canada with a surprising and unique three-dimensional crown shape.
Published Did dementia exist in ancient Greek and Rome?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Did the ancient Greeks and Romans experience Alzheimer's? Medical texts from 2,500 years ago rarely mention severe memory loss, suggesting today's widespread dementia stems from modern environments and lifestyles, a new analysis shows.
Published Archaeological evidence of seasonal vitamin D deficiency discovered
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Rickets ran rife in children following the Industrial Revolution, but new research has found factory work and polluted cities aren't entirely to blame for the period's vitamin D deficiencies.
Published Neanderthals and humans lived side by side in Northern Europe 45,000 years ago
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Archaeologists have debated whether Neanderthals or modern humans made stone tools that are found at sites across northern Europe and date from about 40,000 years ago. A new excavation at one site in Germany turned up 45,000-year-old bone fragments that, when analyzed for mitochondrial DNA, proved to be from Homo sapiens. This is the earliest evidence that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in northwest Europe, thousands of years before Neanderthals went extinct.
Published Scientists pinpoint growth of brain's cerebellum as key to evolution of bird flight
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Evolutionary biologists report they have combined PET scans of modern pigeons along with studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an enduring question in biology: How did the brains of birds evolve to enable them to fly?
Published How did humans learn to walk? New evolutionary study offers an earful
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study, which centers on evidence from skulls of a 6-million-year-old fossil ape, Lufengpithecus, offers important clues about the origins of bipedal locomotion courtesy of a novel method: analyzing its bony inner ear region using three-dimensional CT-scanning. The inner ear appears to provide a unique record of the evolutionary history of ape locomotion.
Published New research challenges hunter-gatherer narrative
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Analysis of the remains of 24 individuals from the Wilamaya Patjxa and Soro Mik'aya Patjxa burial sites in Peru shows that early human diets in the Andes Mountains were composed of 80 percent plant matter and 20 percent meat.
Published DNA from preserved feces reveals ancient Japanese gut environment
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source DNA from ancient feces can offer archaeologists new clues about the life and health of Japanese people who lived thousands of years ago, according to a new study.
Published Ancient brown bear genomes sheds light on Ice Age losses and survival
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The brown bear is one of the largest living terrestrial carnivores, and is widely distributed across the Northern Hemisphere. Unlike many other large carnivores that went extinct at the end of the last Ice Age (cave bear, sabretoothed cats, cave hyena), the brown bear is one of the lucky survivors that made it through to the present. The question has puzzled biologists for close to a century -- how was this so?
Published New pieces in the puzzle of first life on Earth
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Microorganisms were the first forms of life on our planet. The clues are written in 3.5 billion-year-old rocks by geochemical and morphological traces, such as chemical compounds or structures that these organisms left behind. However, it is still not clear when and where life originated on Earth and when a diversity of species developed in these early microbial communities. Evidence is scarce and often disputed. Now, researchers have uncovered key findings about the earliest forms of life. In rock samples from South Africa, they found evidence dating to around 3.42 billion years ago of an unprecedentedly diverse carbon cycle involving various microorganisms. This research shows that complex microbial communities already existed in the ecosystems during the Palaeoarchaean period.