Fossil and Archaeology News Archives Page 9

Birds may not have clawed their way up the evolutionary tree (11/17/2007)

Researchers have clipped the wings of the idea that the ancestors of modern birds were tree dwellers. ...> Full Article

Researchers study toothy, ground-feeding dinosaur (11/16/2007)

Paleontologists have discovered and spent the past decade making sense of a bizarre dinosaur with a mouth that worked like a vacuum cleaner, hundreds of tiny teeth and a paper-thin spine. ...> Full Article

Anthropologist digs ancient Sudan bones (11/15/2007)

From the looks of the woman's skeleton, she might have been in a serious car accident. But, the woman lived sometime between A.D. 300 and A.D. 600, so it was obviously not a crash that killed her. ...> Full Article

Chimps Dig Up Clues to Human Past? (11/14/2007)

One of the keys enabling the earliest human ancestors to trade a forest home for more open country may have been the ability to gather underground foods. Now a team of scientists reports for the first time that in Tanzania our closest living relatives, chimpanzees, are using sticks and pieces of bark to dig for edible roots, tubers and bulbs. ...> Full Article

Human Ancestors: Gatherers or Hunters? (11/13/2007)

Early humans may have dug potato-like foods with tools ...> Full Article

Maya politics likely played role in ancient large-game decline (11/9/2007)

New study is the first to document ancient hunting effects on large-game species in the Maya lowlands of Central America, and shows political and social demands near important cities likely contributed to their population decline, especially white-tailed deer. ...> Full Article

Why dinosaurs had fowl breath (11/8/2007)

Scientists have discovered how dinosaurs used to breathe in what provides clues to how they evolved and how they might have lived. ...> Full Article

Earliest Birds Acted More Like Turkeys Than Common Cuckoos (11/6/2007)

The earliest birds acted more like turkeys than common cuckoos, according to a new report. By comparing the claw curvatures of ancient and modern birds, the researchers provide new evidence that the evolutionary ancestors of birds primarily made their livings on the ground rather than in trees. ...> Full Article

How Old Tree Rings And Ancient Wood Are Helping Rewrite History (11/5/2007)

Cornell archaeologists are rewriting history with the help of tree rings from 900-year-old trees, wood found on ancient buildings and through analysis of the isotopes (especially radiocarbon dating) and chemistry they can find in that wood. ...> Full Article

Fossil record reveals elusive jellyfish more than 500 million years old (11/4/2007)

Using recently discovered 'fossil snapshots' found in rocks more than 500 million years old, researchers have described the oldest definitive jellyfish ever found. ...> Full Article

Dinosaur Deaths Outsourced to India? (11/4/2007)

A series of monumental volcanic eruptions in India may have killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, not a meteor impact in the Gulf of Mexico. The eruptions, which created the gigantic Deccan Traps lava beds of India, are now the prime suspect in the most famous and persistent paleontological murder mystery, say scientists who have conducted a slew of new investigations honing down eruption timing. ...> Full Article

Tracing the Roots of the California Condor (11/3/2007)

At the end of the Pleistocene epoch some 10,000 years ago, two species of condors in California competed for resources amidst the retreating ice of Earth's last major glacial age. The modern California condor triumphed, while its kin expired. ...> Full Article

Paleontologists Discover Ancient Jurassic Mammal with New Type of Teeth (11/2/2007)

A team of Chinese and American scientists has discovered a new mammal from the 165 million-year-old lakebeds of the Jurassic Period in Northern China. ...> Full Article

Age of earliest human burial in Britain pinpointed (11/2/2007)

The oldest known buried remains in Britain are 29,000 years old, archaeologists have found - 4,000 years older than previously thought. The findings show that ceremonial burials were taking place in western Europe much earlier than researchers had believed. ...> Full Article

Earliest ancient cemetery in the Pacific (11/1/2007)

Analysis of strange burial positions and skeletons' teeth has given clues about earliest Pacific Island society, according to new research published today. ...> Full Article

Fossilized Body Imprints Of Amphibians Found In 330 Million-year-old Rocks (11/1/2007)

Unprecedented fossilized body imprints of amphibians have been discovered in 330 million-year-old rocks from Pennsylvania. The imprints show the unmistakably webbed feet and bodies of three previously unknown, foot-long salamander-like critters that lived 100 million years before the first dinosaurs. ...> Full Article

Scientist brings 50 million year old spider 'back to life' (10/31/2007)

A 50-million-year-old fossilised spider has been brought back to life in stunning 3D by a scientist at The University of Manchester. ...> Full Article

Ancient Seal Belonged To Queen Jezebel (10/30/2007)

Utrecht University Old Testament scholar Dr Marjo Korpel has discovered that a seal found in 1964 and dating from the 9th century BCE belonged to the biblical figure Queen Jezebel. The seal's symbols served as the basis for Korpel's conclusion. ...> Full Article

Volcanic Eruptions And Global Warming Likely Cause Of Great Dying 250 Million Years Ago (10/29/2007)

The greatest mass extinction in Earth's history also may have been one of the slowest, according to a study that casts further doubt on the extinction-by-meteor theory. ...> Full Article

St. Bernard Study Shows Human-directed Evolution At Work (10/28/2007)

The St Bernard dog – named after the 11th century priest Bernard of Menthon – is living proof that evolution does occur, say scientists. ...> Full Article

Extreme dinosaur hunting (10/27/2007)

Canada's high Arctic and the deserts of Africa may seem like worlds apart but remarkably enough, there are similarities. Both played home to dinosaurs and both are extreme climates. ...> Full Article

Filling In The Blanks Of Southeast Asian Prehistory (10/26/2007)

As archaeologists in the last half century have set about reconstructing the prehistory of Southeast Asia, data from one country-centrally located Laos-was conspicuously missing. Little archaeology has occurred in Laos since before World War II, and beginning in the mid-1970s, Laos shut its doors completely to outside researchers. International scholars had to content themselves with information from excavation and survey work mostly from neighboring Thailand. ...> Full Article

Fossil record supports evidence of impending mass extinction (10/25/2007)

Global temperatures predicted for the coming centuries may trigger a new 'mass extinction event', where over 50 per cent of animal and plant species would be wiped out. ...> Full Article

Fossilized Cashew Nuts Reveal Europe Was Important Route Between Africa And South America (10/24/2007)

Cashew nut fossils have been identified in 47-million year old lake sediment in Germany, revealing that the cashew genus Anacardium was once distributed in Europe, remote from its modern "native" distribution in Central and South America. It was previously proposed that Anacardium and its African sister genus, Fegimanra, diverged from their common ancestor when the landmasses of Africa and South America separated. However, groundbreaking new data in the October issue of the International Journal of Plant Sciences indicate that Europe may be an important biogeographic link between Africa and the New World. ...> Full Article

Paleontologist reports discovery of carnivorous dinosaur tracks in Australia (10/21/2007)

The first fossil tracks belonging to large, carnivorous dinosaurs have been discovered in Victoria, Australia. The tracks are especially significant for showing that large dinosaurs were living in a polar environment during the Cretaceous Period, when Australia was still joined to Antarctica and close to the South Pole. ...> Full Article

Scientists find how amber becomes death trap for watery creatures (10/20/2007)

Shiny amber jewelry and a mucky Florida swamp have given scientists a window into an ancient ecosystem that could be anywhere from 15 million to 130 million years old. ...> Full Article

New 150 million-year-old crab species discovered (10/19/2007)

Researchers have discovered a new primitive crab species Cycloprosopon dobrogea in eastern Romania. Previously unexamined, these ancient crabs from the Prosopidae family existed more than 150 million years ago during the Jurassic period. ...> Full Article

Seafood Makes Waves: Humans Leave Home (10/18/2007)

Shellfish allowed humans to relocate to Australia and New Guinea 40,000 years earlier than first thought ...> Full Article

Earliest evidence for reptiles (10/17/2007)

Discovery of fossilised footprints prove reptiles evolved earlier than previously thought. ...> Full Article

Early Apes Walked Upright 15 Million Years Earlier Than Previously Thought, Evolutionary Biologist Argues (10/11/2007)

An extraordinary advance in human origins research reveals evidence of the emergence of the upright human body plan over 15 million years earlier than most experts have believed. More dramatically, the study confirms preliminary evidence that many early hominoid apes were most likely upright bipedal walkers sharing the basic body form of modern humans. ...> Full Article