Many of the giant marsupials and birds that roamed ancient Australia vanished 40,000 years ago. While the duration and drivers of these extinctions remain debated, fossils clearly show the continent lost a host of creatures that would have dwarfed humans. These giant creatures included short-faced kangaroos, diprotodons, “thunderbirds,” giant goannas, and giant skinks. Our study ...
On September 13, 2013, speleologists Rick Hunter and Steven Tucker descended deep into South Africa’s Rising Star Cave system and discovered the first evidence of an extraordinary assemblage of hominin fossils. To date, the remains of more than 15 individuals belonging to a previously unknown species of extinct human, dubbed Homo naledi, have been found ...
Kangaroos are an enduring symbol of Australia’s uniqueness. To move, they do what no other large mammals do: They hop along on oversized hind legs. So you may be surprised to learn that there are tree-kangaroos that actually live in trees, and are among the most endearing and threatened of all marsupials. Today, biologists recognize ...
Imagine the surprise when a team of researchers stumbled upon a remarkable artifact, a 2000-year-old Buddha statue, during an archaeological excavation in Egypt. The discovery raised numerous questions about how such an object ended up in a land far from its origins. Archaeological discoveries can rewrite history and shed light on ancient civilizations. The unearthing ...
Although long dead, fossil skeletons provide an incredible window into the lifestyle and environment of an extinct animal. By analyzing the various features of fossil bones, we can reveal not only the overall size and shape of the animal, but also what kind of movement the animal was capable of, its lifestyle, and the environment ...
An international team of researchers has recovered DNA from the owner of a deer-tooth pendant jewelry that was buried inside a remote Siberian cave for tens of thousands of years. In research published in Nature, Elena Essel of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany and colleagues detail how they developed a new ...
Hunter-gatherers took shelter from the ice age in Southwestern Europe, but were replaced on the Italian Peninsula according to two new studies, published in Nature and Nature Ecology & Evolution. Modern humans first began to spread across Eurasia approximately 45,000 years ago, arriving from the near east. Previous research claimed these people disappeared when massive ...
The year is 1959. Speleologists descend a 17-meter shaft to explore the depths of Mairs Cave in the southern Flinders Ranges. Some 55 meters into the main chamber, they find fossils scattered throughout a boulder pile. Among these fossils are a claw and part of a wing bone that appear to have come from a ...
Over the past five years, archaeologists have identified more than 1,600 monumental stone structures known as mustatils dotted across a swathe of Saudi Arabia larger than Italy. The purpose of these ancient stone buildings, dating back more than 7,000 years, has been a puzzle for researchers. Our excavations and surveys reveal these were ritual structures, ...
Madagascar’s extinct elephant birds — the largest birds ever to have lived — have captured the public’s interest for hundreds of years. Little is known about them due to large gaps in the skeletal fossil record. A new study published in Nature Communications used ancient molecules extracted from fossil eggshells to reveal surprising new insights ...
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