All Articles Tagged As: south america

Ancient humans left evidence from the party that ended 4,000 years ago (7/24/2009)

MU researchers extract starch grains from gourd and squash artifacts, and learn about ancient feast ...> Full Article

At 2,500 pounds and 43 feet, prehistoric snake is the largest on record (2/6/2009)

Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas and reticulated pythons seem a bit cuter and more cuddly. Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip -- and that's a conservative estimate. A report describing the find appears in this week's Nature. ...> Full Article

Earthquakes, El Ninos fatal to earliest civilization in Americas (1/21/2009)

First came the earthquakes, then the torrential rains. But the relentless march of sand across once fertile fields and bays, a process set in motion by the quakes and flooding, is probably what did in America's earliest civilization. ...> Full Article

Discovery helps solve mystery of South American trophy heads (1/15/2009)

A recent study using specimens from Chicago's Field Museum establishes that Nazca trophy heads came from people who lived in the same place and were part of the same culture as those who collected them. ...> Full Article

New study finds first inhabitants of Caribbean brought drug heirlooms with them (10/21/2008)

A new study led by North Carolina State University's Dr. Scott Fitzpatrick is the first to show physical evidence that the people who colonized the Caribbean from South America brought with them heirloom drug paraphernalia that had been passed down from generation to generation as the colonists traveled through the islands. ...> Full Article

Meat-eating dinosaur from Argentina had bird-like breathing system (10/4/2008)

The remains of a 30-foot-long predatory dinosaur discovered along the banks of Argentina's Rio Colorado is helping to unravel how birds evolved their unusual breathing system. ...> Full Article

'Pristine' Amazonian region hosted large, urban civilization, study finds (8/29/2008)

Size and scale of the settlements in the southern Amazon in North Central Brazil means that what many scientists have considered virgin tropical forests are in fact heavily influenced by historic human activity ...> Full Article

Rock art marks transformations in traditional Peruvian societies (8/7/2008)

Site contains over 4000 carved blocks scattered over several dozen hectares ...> Full Article

Archaeologists explore Peruvian mystery (5/24/2008)

Archaeologists have been investigating the enigmatic desert drawings for several years ...> Full Article

Seaweed Fragments Found in Chile Suggests Humans May Have Migrated Along Pacific Coast (5/12/2008)

Based on 14,000-year-old seaweed fragments found at a Chilean archaeological site, researchers suggest that the first humans in the Americas may have migrated along the Pacific coast. ...> Full Article

Unlocking the Maya Code (4/6/2008)

By studying monumental Maya stone sculptures from the fifth through eighth centuries in Mexico and Central America, anthropologist looks for clues to how civilizations put their own spin on the past for religious, political or other reasons ...> Full Article

Archaeologist Finds Oldest Known Gold Artifacts in the Americas (4/5/2008)

Researcher uncovers the earliest gold jewelry dating back 4,000 years ...> Full Article

Primitive Mouse-Like Creature May Be Ancestral Mother Of Australia's Unusual Pouched Mammals (3/30/2008)

They are separated by a vast ocean and by millions of years, but tiny prehistoric bones found on an Australian farm have been directly linked to a strange and secretive little animal that lives today in the southern rainforests of South America. ...> Full Article

Corn's deep roots (3/29/2008)

Earliest signs of maize as staple food found after spreading south from Mexican homeland ...> Full Article

Archaeologist 'Strikes Gold' With Finds Of Ancient Nasca Iron Ore Mine In Peru (1/30/2008)

A Purdue University archaeologist discovered an intact ancient iron ore mine in South America that shows how civilizations before the Inca Empire were mining this valuable ore. ...> Full Article

Andean Highlands in Chile yield ancient South American armored mammal fossil (12/15/2007)

A paleontological dig in Chile at an altitude of more than 14,000 feet in the Andes has yielded fossils of an 18-million-year-old armored mammal. It appears to be one of the most primitive members of a family of extinct mammals known as "glyptodonts," a group closely related to the modern-day armadillo. ...> Full Article

Ancient Maya Marketplace Located, Challenges Views On Goods Distribution (12/12/2007)

Coaxing answers from 1500-year-old clues hidden in soil clumps, a team of archaeologists and environmental scientists identified a marketplace in an ancient Maya city, calling into question archaeologists' widely held belief that people of the era relied on rulers to tax and re-distribute goods, rather than trading them with one another. ...> Full Article