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Categories: Offbeat: Paleontology and Archeology, Paleontology: Fossils
Published Neolithic ceramics reveal dairy processing from milk of multiple species


A new study has found evidence of cheesemaking, using milk from multiple animals in Late Neolithic Poland.
Published Paleontologists flip the script on anemone fossils


Billions of sea anemones adorn the bottom of the Earth's oceans -- yet they are among the rarest of fossils because their squishy bodies lack easily fossilized hard parts. Now a team of paleontologists has discovered that countless sea anemone fossils have been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years. It turns out that fossils long-interpreted as jellyfish were anemones. To do so, a team of scientists has simply turned the ancient animals upside down.
Published Jurassic shark: Shark from the Jurassic period was already highly evolved


Cartilaginous fish have changed much more in the course of their evolutionary history than previously believed. Evidence for this thesis has been provided by new fossils of a ray-like shark, Protospinax annectans, which demonstrate that sharks were already highly evolved in the Late Jurassic.
Published Dinosaur claws used for digging and display


Dinosaur claws had many functions, but now a team has shown some predatory dinosaurs used their claws for digging or even for display.
Published Ancient proteins offer new clues about origin of life on Earth



By simulating early Earth conditions in the lab, researchers have found that without specific amino acids, ancient proteins would not have known how to evolve into everything alive on the planet today -- including plants, animals, and humans.
Published Clues about the Northeast's past and future climate from plant fossils


A team of researchers is working to understand the details of the climate for the eastern portion of the United States from the Miocene, which unfortunately is a blank spot on paleo-climate maps. New findings suggest the future climate will be very close to the warmer, wetter, and more homogeneous climate similar to conditions experienced 5 million years ago.
Published Insect bite marks show first fossil evidence for plants' leaves folding up at night


Plants can move in ways that might surprise you. Some of them even show 'sleep movements,' folding or raising their leaves each night before opening them again the next day. Now, researchers offer convincing evidence for these nightly movements, also known as foliar nyctinasty, in fossil plants that lived more than 250 million years ago.
Published Early Cretaceous shift in the global carbon cycle affected both land and sea


Geologists doing fieldwork in southeastern Utah's Cedar Mountain Formation found carbon isotope evidence that the site, though on land, experienced the same early Cretaceous carbon-cycle change recorded in marine sedimentary rocks in Europe. This ancient carbon-cycle phenomenon, known as the 'Weissert Event' was driven by large, sustained volcanic eruptions in the Southern Hemisphere that greatly increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and produced significant greenhouse climate effects over a prolonged time.
Published Archaeologists uncover early evidence of brain surgery in Ancient Near East


A recent excavation in Megiddo, Israel, unearthed the earliest example of a particular type of cranial surgery in the Ancient Near East -- and potentially one of the oldest examples of leprosy in the world.
Published Gene variations for immune and metabolic conditions have persisted in humans for more than 700,000 years


A new study explores 'balancing selection' by analyzing thousands of modern human genomes alongside ancient hominin groups, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. The research has 'implications for understanding human diversity, the origin of diseases, and biological trade-offs that may have shaped our evolution,' says evolutionary biologists.
Published Scientists find world's oldest European hedgehog


The world's oldest scientifically-confirmed European hedgehog has been found in Denmark by a citizen science project involving hundreds of volunteers. The hedgehog lived for 16 years, 7 years longer than the previous record holder.
Published Oldest spinosaur brains revealed


Researchers have reconstructed the brains and inner ears of two British spinosaurs, helping uncover how these large predatory dinosaurs interacted with their environment.
Published Researchers solve a 150-year-old mystery: Aetosaur find involves juveniles


Aetosaurs had a small head and a crocodile-like body. The land dwellers were up to six meters long and widely distributed geographically. They died out about 204 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic. In Germany, an assemblage of 24 Aetosaurus ferratus individuals, only between 20 and 82 centimeters long, was discovered in 1877. Since then, scientists have been puzzling over whether they were juveniles or small adults. A team has now solved the mystery: Bone examination of two specimens shows that they are juveniles.
Published Fossil discovery reveals complex ecosystems existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought



About 250 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction killed over 80 per cent of the planet's species. In the aftermath, scientists believe that life on earth was dominated by simple species for up to 10 million years before more complex ecosystems could evolve. Now this longstanding theory is being challenged by a team of international researchers.
Published Scientists develop new index based on functional morphology to understand how ancestors of modern birds used their wings


Scientists have compared the relationship among the strength of flight bones, body mass, and the way modern birds fly to better understand the evolution of flight in birds and extinct animals, such as the Pteranodon.
Published Caribou have been using same Arctic calving grounds for 3,000 years


Caribou have been using the same Arctic calving grounds for more than 3,000 years. Female caribou shed their antlers within days of giving birth, leaving behind a record of their annual travels across Alaska and Canada's Yukon that persists on the cold tundra for hundreds or even thousands of years. Researchers recovered antlers that have sat undisturbed on the arctic tundra since the Bronze Age.
Published Codebreakers crack secrets of Mary Queen of Scots' lost letters


Secret, coded letters penned by Mary Queen of Scots while she was imprisoned in England by her cousin Queen Elizabeth I have been uncovered by a multidisciplinary team of international codebreakers. Launched on the anniversary of Mary's execution, study reveals 50 new letters in cipher -- with some still believed missing -- shedding new light on her captivity.
Published A fossil fruit from California shows ancestors of coffee and potatoes survived cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs



The discovery of an 80-million-year-old fossil plant pushes back the known origins of lamiids to the Cretaceous, extending the record of nearly 40,000 species of flowering plants including modern-day staple crops like coffee, tomatoes, potatoes and mint.
Published Mistaken fossil rewrites history of Indian subcontinent for second time


Scientists discovered the first-ever Dickinsonia fossil in India two years ago, changing our understanding of how the continent came to be. Now, new research shows the 'fossil' was just a beehive all along, changing our understanding for a second time, and the original scientists now support the new findings.
Published 319-million-year-old fish preserves the earliest fossilized brain of a backboned animal


The CT-scanned skull of a 319-million-year-old fossilized fish, pulled from a coal mine in England more than a century ago, has revealed the oldest example of a well-preserved vertebrate brain.