Fossil Treasure Trove Shows Complex Social Herd Behavior in Dinosaurs 193 Million Years Ago
Fossils indicate a communal nesting ground and adults who foraged and took care of the young as a herd, scientists say. To borrow a line…
Archaeology
Move Over Columbus: Europeans Were Already Active in the Americas 1,000 Years Ago
Columbus was not the first European to reach the Americas. The Vikings got there centuries beforehand, although exactly when has remained unclear. Here, an international…
Genetics and Skeletal Biology Debunks Popular Theory of Native American Origins
Latest scientific findings suggest the ancestral Native American population does not originate in Japan, as believed by many archaeologists. A widely accepted theory of Native…
New Evidence: America’s First Civilization Was Made Up of “Sophisticated” Engineers
The Native Americans who occupied the area known as Poverty Point in northern Louisiana more than 3,000 years ago long have been believed to be…
Human Sustainability Challenges: Deep Roots of the “Anthropocene” Can Be Found in Tropical Forests
Tropical forests regularly appear in the news as the front line of climate change and human sustainability challenges. They are some of the most threatened…
Late Persistence of Human Ancestors at the Margins of the Monsoon Zone in India
The longest lasting tool-making tradition in prehistory, known as the Acheulean, appears more than 1.5 million years ago in Africa and 1.2 million years ago…
Bronze Age Mystery Surprise: Milk Enabled Massive Steppe Migration
From the Xiongnu to the Mongols, the pastoralist populations of the Eurasian steppe have long been a source of fascination. Amongst the earliest herding groups…
Fossil Footprints Reveal Humans Inhabited North America Over 21,000 Years Ago
Newly discovered fossil human footprints embedded in an ancient lakebed show that humans inhabited North America during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), occupying the region…
Late Pleistocene Humans May Have Hatched and Raised “World’s Most Dangerous Bird” 18,000 Years Ago
As early as 18,000 years ago, humans in New Guinea may have collected cassowary eggs near maturity and then raised the birds to adulthood, according…
Fire and Brimstone: A Giant Space Rock Demolished an Ancient Middle Eastern City and Everyone in It
A giant space rock demolished an ancient Middle Eastern city and everyone in it – possibly inspiring the Biblical story of Sodom. As the inhabitants…
Maya Rulers Transformed Cities, Put Their Personal Stamp on Monumental Complexes
Maya rulers transformed cities, forging new memories of the landscape. Early Maya cities featured monumental complexes, which centered on a shared form of religion but…
Ancient Footprints Provide Evidence of Human Activity in the Americas Thousands of Years Earlier Than Thought
Footprints found at White Sands National Park in New Mexico provide the earliest unequivocal evidence of human activity in the Americas and offer insight into…
Archaeological Evidence Shows Early Homo sapiens in Europe Faced Subarctic Climates
New insights into the climatic backdrop for an early wave of dispersal of our species into Europe during the last glacial period. The process how…
Sodom and Gomorrah? Evidence That a Cosmic Impact Destroyed a Biblical City in the Jordan Valley
An Ancient Disaster In the Middle Bronze Age (about 3,600 years ago or roughly 1650 BCE), the city of Tall el-Hammam was ascendant. Located on…
Finally, A Statistical Fix for Archaeology’s Radiocarbon Dating Problem
Archaeologists have long had a dating problem. The radiocarbon analysis typically used to reconstruct past human demographic changes relies on a method easily skewed by…
400,000 Years Ago, Ancient Humans Turned Elephant Remains Into a Surprising Array of Bone Tools
Ancient humans could do some impressive things with elephant bones. In a new study, University of Colorado Boulder archaeologist Paola Villa and her colleagues surveyed…
Neptune’s Vishnu Otter: A New Species Discovered in Germany
An Indian Otter found at Hammerschmiede: Neptune’s Vishnu otter arrived 11.4 million years ago from Southeast Asia. Researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and Zaragoza…
Surprising Diversity of Cretaceous Reptiles at Argentina Fossil Site – Revealed by Discovery of Ancient Teeth
Remains include the first armored dinosaurs and land-dwelling crocs from the region. Where skeletons are rare, isolated teeth can flesh out our understanding of ancient…