Centro Português de Geo-História e Pré-História


	Scientists discover ancient seawater preserved from the last Ice Age Twenty thousand years ago, in the thick of an Ice Age, Earth looked very different. Because water was locked up in glaciers hundreds of feet thick, which stretched down over Chicago and New York City, the ocean was smaller—shorelines extended hundreds of miles farther out, and the remaining water was saltier and colder. Assistant Professor Clara Blattler with a vial of seawater dating to the last Ice Age — about 20,000 years ago... 24 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Using computer simulations to discover where Neanderthals lived Archaeologist Fulco Sherjon has used computer simulations to identify where and how Neanderthals lived in West Europe. What stood out was that they probably had lots of children and lived in smaller groups than was previously thought. Ph.D. defense on 28 May. The Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia some 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Many questions remain about this extinct human species, which lived at the... 23 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Early Modern Humans Cooked and Ate Starchy Food An international team of researchers has found numerous fragments of charred starch plant tissues in 120,000-year-old hearths at the archaeological site of Klasies River, the complex of caves and rock shelters located on the Tsitsikamma coast between Port Elizabeth and Plettenberg Bay in South Africa. This new evidence supports the hypothesis that the duplication of... 23 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	Massive Martian ice discovery opens a window into red planet's history Newly discovered layers of ice buried a mile beneath Mars' north pole are the remnants of ancient polar ice sheets and could be one of the largest water reservoirs on the planet, according to scientists at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona. A vertically exaggerated view of Mars' north polar cap. Researchers with The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Arizona estimate that if melted, the... 21 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Findings in Cova Foradada change map of Iberian Neanderthal cultures Before the Neanderthals disappeared, about 30,000 years ago, the Chatelperronian culture was created, featured by the creation of knives and spear tips. Chatelperrionian was the transition from the Middle to the Upper Paleolithic, and coincided with the moment the Neanderthals were in contact with Homo sapiens sapiens, who were spreading around Europe from the Middle East. So far in the Iberian Peninsula, only remains from... 18 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	A high-heeled dinosaur? A 24-tonne dinosaur may have walked in a 'high-heeled' fashion, according to University of Queensland research. UQ Ph.D. candidate Andréas Jannel and colleagues from UQ's Dinosaur Lab analysed fossils of Australia's only named Jurassic sauropod, Rhoetosaurus brownei, to better understand how such an enormous.... 17 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Chimps Use Tools to Excavate Underground Food, Study Says Naïve chimpanzees are able to spontaneously use tools in order to excavate underground food, according to a new study, published in the journal PLoS ONE. The animals prefer longer tools for excavation and exhibit six different tool use behaviors in the context of excavation: digging, probing, perforating, pounding, shoveling and enlarging. In 2011, a team... 17 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	Nearly a quarter of West Antarctic ice is now unstable In only 25 years, ocean melting has caused ice thinning to spread across West Antarctica so rapidly that a quarter of its glacier ice is now affected, according to a new study.... 16 maio 2019 ScienceDaily
	Quantum physicists shining new light on cave art Leslie Van Gelder, a well-known American-born archaeologist has been working with Dr. Harald Schwefel, and other physicists at Otago University to develop a lamp that mimics the flickering torch light that paleolithic cave artists worked by many thousands of years ago. The lamps will help Leslie and other archaeologists reveal intimate details of these ancient people. Tallow candle burning in stone lamp. The... 16 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Newly discovered fossil footprints in Grand Canyon force paleontologists to rethink ancient desert inhabitants An international team of paleontologists has united to study important fossil footprints recently discovered in a remote location within Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. A large sandstone boulder contains several exceptionally well-preserved trackways of primitive tetrapods (four-footed animals) which inhabited an ancient desert environment. The 280-million-year-old fossil tracks date to almost the beginning of the Permian Period... 15 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, research on teeth shows Neanderthals and modern humans diverged at least 800,000 years ago, substantially earlier than indicated by most DNA-based estimates, according to new research... 15 maio 2019 ScienceDaily
	Tooth fossils fill 6-million-year-old gap in primate evolution Researchers have used fossilized teeth found near Lake Turkana in northwest Kenya to identify a new monkey species -- a discovery that helps fill a 6-million-year gap in primate evolution. UNLV geoscientist Terry Spell and former master's student Dawn Reynoso are part of a research team that discovered primitive monkey teeth in Kenya. The fossils were determined to belong to a previously undiscovered species -- filling a... 14 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Dolphin ancestor's hearing was more like hoofed mammals than today's sea creatures Vanderbilt University paleontologists are looking into the evolutionary origins of the whistles and squeaks that dolphins and porpoises make - part of the rare echolocation ability that allows them to effectively navigate their dark environment. Artist's rendering of a specimen resembling Olympicetus avitus. This member of the toothed whale family was in a branch that died out before modern dolphins and porpoises appeared... 14 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Traces of crawling in Italian cave give clues to ancient humans' social behaviour Evidence of crawling in an Italian cave system sheds new light on how late Stone Age humans behaved as a group, especially when exploring new grounds, says a study published in eLife. In the cave of Bàsura, a preliminary survey of fossil traces is carried out on glossy sheets as a reference for more detailed analyses. The cave of Bàsura at Toirano and its human and animal fossil traces have been known since... 14 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	First birds: Archaeopteryx gets company Archaeopteryx's throne is tottering. Since the discovery of the first fossil of the primal bird in 1861, it had been considered the only bird from the Jurassic geological period. Today's birds are thought to be direct descendants of carnivorous dinosaurs, with Archaeopteryx representing the oldest known flying representative of this lineage. The illustration shows the wing of Alcmonavis poeschli as it was found in the limestone slab... 14 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	99-Million-Year-Old Ammonite Found in Burmese Amber An international team of paleontologists has found a piece of amber containing the beautifully preserved ammonite, several marine and land organisms that lived 99 million years ago (Cretaceous period). The ammonite-bearing piece of amber was obtained from a mine located near Noije Bum Village, Tanaing Town, northern Myanmar. It is 33 mm long, 9.5 mm... 14 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	New data platform illuminates history of humans' environmental impact The human environmental footprint is not only deep, but old. Ancient traces of this footprint can be found in animal bones, shells, scales and antlers at archaeological sites. Together, these specimens tell the millennia-long story of how humans have hunted, domesticated and transported animals, altered landscapes and responded to environmental changes such as shifting temperatures and sea levels. These deer antlers were found at an... 13 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Researchers Find ‘World’s Oldest Wetland Tree’ Bald cypress trees (Taxodium distichum) over 2,000 years old grow in the forested wetlands along Black River south of Raleigh, North Carolina. One of the trees is at least 2,624-years old, making the bald cypress the oldest-known wetland tree species, the oldest living trees in eastern North America, and the fifth oldest known non-clonal tree... 13 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	Remains of rare prehistoric crocodile found in Denmark The white cliffs of Stevns Klint are at the centre of yet another mesmerising palaeontological find following a discovery at the UNESCO Heritage site. Thoracosaurus teeth and armour plates with rendering of the prehistoric sea crocodile. Inside a block of chalk, the locally-based amateur geologist Peter Bennicke discovered the remains of a crocodile that existed some 66 million years ago. The find includes two... 11 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	French village offers reward to decipher mysterious stone inscription Lapped by the waves of the Atlantic and visible at only low tide, a mysterious rock inscription believed to be centuries old and so far undeciphered lurks outside a French village in Brittany. The mysterious inscription composed of indecipherable words on a rock in the Brittany village of Plougastel-Daoulas. The town hall in Plougastel-Daoulas in the Finistere region of Brittany in northwest France... 11 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Huge growth in use of quartz for tools shows sophistication of ancient communities A growth in the use of crystal quartz to make tools thousands of years ago shows the sophistication of ancient communities, according to new research. Image shows the piezoelectric properties of a piece of quartz and its ability to generate an electric charge, as a toolmaker hits it. The mineral was chosen because of its powerful symbolism, even though it involved painstaking work and other materials... 10 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	The bird that came back from the dead New research has shown that the last surviving flightless species of bird, a type of rail, in the Indian Ocean had previously gone extinct but rose from the dead thanks to a rare process called 'iterative evolution'. White-throated rail. The research, from the University of Portsmouth and Natural History Museum, found that on two occasions, separated by tens of thousands of years, a rail species was able to... 9 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Abrupt climate change drove early South American population decline Abrupt climate change some 8,000 years ago led to a dramatic decline in early South American populations, suggests new UCL research. Patagonia landscape. The study, published in Scientific Reports, is the first to demonstrate how widespread the decline was and the scale at which population decline took place 8,000 to 6,000 years ago. "Archaeologists working in South America have broadly known that some... 9 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Australopithecus sediba Not Likely Humans’ Ancestor The fossil record for the ancient hominin A. sediba is younger than that of Homo, a “highly unlikely” scenario for a direct lineage.... 9 maio 2019 Kerry Grens, The Scientist
	Sphinx Room at Domus Aurea re-emerges A beautifully decorated room has been discovered at Emperor Nero's famed Domus Aurea (Golden House) in Rome and brought back to light after 2,000 years. The room is decorated with panthers, centaurs and a delightful sphinx. Experts chanced upon the fresh marvel in the fabled palace while they were doing restoration work on the vault of a neighbouring part of the structure. View inside the Hall of the Spinx... 9 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Paper Wasps are Capable of Logical Thinking, Suggests New Study A team of researchers from the University of Michigan has found evidence of transitive inference — a form of logical reasoning that involves using known relationships to infer unknown relationships (if A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A is greater than C) — in two species of paper wasps... 9 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	Tiny Jurassic Dinosaur Had Membranous Wings A previously unknown species of bird-like dinosaur with pterosaur-like wings has been discovered by a team of paleontologists working with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment at the Chinese Academy of Science. The discovery, reported in the May 9 issue of the journal Nature, sheds... 9 maio 2019 SCINEWS
	Australia's first astronomers From creative spirits to celestial rivers, there's an intimate link between knowledge of the southern sky and Aboriginal culture... 9 maio 2019 Ray Norris, BBC Earth
	Ancient rock art discovered in the plains of India In the evening breeze on a stony hilltop a day's drive south of Mumbai, Sudhir Risbud tramped from one rock carving to another, pointing out the hull of a boat, birds, a shark, human figures and two life-size tigers. Amateur archaeologist Sudhir Risbud examines a petroglyph of an elephant "They're male," he said with a smile, noting that the carver had taken pains to make the genitalia too... 8 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Possible migration route of Homo erectus from Africa discovered In the Eastern Desert in Sudan, Polish archaeologists have found 500,000 years old traces of the presence of Homo erectus. According to the discoverers, it is a proof of existence of an unknown migration route of this species beyond the continent. The African variety of Homo erectus (upright man) - the ancestor of modern man (Homo sapiens) - appeared in Africa about 1.8 million years ago, from where it quickly... 8 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Cannibalism was profitable for Homo antecessor Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH), have just published a study in the Journal of Human Evolution in which they analyze the cannibalistic behaviour of the populations at Atapuerca one million years ago, whose results make it clear that anthropophagy was a profitable strategy for Homo antecessor. A very large number of studies have demonstrated that animals adapt... 7 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Freshwater mussel shells were material of choice for prehistoric craftsmen A new study suggests that 6000-years-ago people across Europe shared a cultural tradition of using freshwater mussel shells to craft ornaments. Prehistoric shell ornaments made with freshwater mother-of-pearl. An international team of researchers, including academics from the University of York, extracted ancient proteins from prehistoric shell... 7 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Exploring 3D technology in pottery studies: ‘It is the future’ In the depots of the Faculty of Archaeology, many artifacts, accumulated after decades of fieldwork across Europe and the Middle East, are stored. A new project, the Leiden Inventory Depot (LID), aims to unlock this wealth of information to the outside world. Credit: Leiden UniversityThe 3-D scanning of objects takes a central role in this endeavor. Our master's student Vasiliki Lagari is contributing to the creation of the first 3-D... 6 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Oxygen linked with the boom and bust of early animal evolution Extreme fluctuations in atmospheric oxygen levels corresponded with evolutionary surges and extinctions in animal biodiversity during the Cambrian explosion, finds new study led by UCL and the University of Leeds. Fossilized trilobite Aldonaia from the Cambrian Period. The Cambrian explosion was a crucial period of rapid evolution in complex animals that began roughly 540... 6 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	The fossilization process of the dinosaur remains The site or bone bed at La Cantalera-1 is located in Teruel (Spain) and regarded as hugely important by the scientific community as it is one of the sites on the Iberian Peninsula with the greatest diversity of vertebrates of the Lower Cretaceous. Remains of dinosaurs, mammals, crocodiles, pterosaurs, lizards, tortoises, amphibians and fish dating back to approximately 130 million years ago have been discovered. Two palaeohistological... 6 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	New 3-foot-tall relative of Tyrannosaurus rex A new relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex -- much smaller than the huge, ferocious dinosaur made famous in countless books and films, including, yes, "Jurassic Park" -- has been discovered and named by a Virginia Tech paleontologist and an international team of scientists... 6 maio 2019 ScienceDaily
	Hubble spots a stunning spiral galaxy Few of the universe's residents are as iconic as the spiral galaxy. These limelight-hogging celestial objects combine whirling, pinwheeling arms with scatterings of sparkling stars, glowing bursts of gas, and dark, weaving lanes of cosmic dust, creating truly awesome scenes -- especially when viewed through a telescope such as the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. In fact, this image from Hubble frames a perfect spiral specimen: the... 5 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Explosive volcanic eruptions at least 3-8 times more frequent during peak of Late Paleozoic Ice Age A University of Oklahoma-led study recently found that explosive volcanic eruptions were at least 3-8 times more frequent during the peak of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (~360 to 260 million years ago). Aerosols produced by explosive volcanism helped keep large ice sheets stable, even when CO2 levels increased, by blocking sunlight. But the volcanic emissions also may have started a cascade of effects on the climate system that resulted... 2 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Running may have made dinosaurs' wings flap before they evolved to fly Before they evolved the ability to fly, two-legged dinosaurs may have begun to flap their wings as a passive effect of running along the ground, according to new research by Jing-Shan Zhao of Tsinghua University, Beijing, and his colleagues. Caudipteryx robot for testing passive flapping flight. The findings, published in PLOS Computational Biology, provide new insights into the origin of avian flight... 2 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Ice Age fossils found in Mexican underwater cave The remains of long-extinct predators dating back to the last Ice Age have been unearthed by underwater cave explorers in Mexico. Diver with Protocyon jaw and vertebra. Among the discoveries was the skull of a short-faced bear known as Arctotherium wingei, a formidable Ice Age predator which weighed around 150 kilograms. The fossilised remains of... 2 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Blue whale fossil found in Italy is largest skeleton ever discovered Researchers digging around in southern Italy’s Lake San Giuliana recently found something awesome: the largest-ever fossilized whale skeleton. The whale, when it was swimming around, was staggeringly big for the time. Measuring in at 85 feet in length, the whale would have weighed somewhere between 130 and 150 tons. That puts it officially in the books as the largest extinct animal ever found. New whale fossils from Italy and Peru... 2 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	First examples of Iberian prehistoric 'imitation amber' beads at gravesites Prehistoric Iberians created "imitation amber" by repeatedly coating bead cores with tree resins, according to a study published May 1, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Carlos Odriozola from Universidad de Sevilla, Spain, and colleagues... 1 maio 2019 ScienceDaily
	First hominins on the Tibetan Plateau were Denisovans Denisovans - an extinct sister group of Neanderthals - were discovered in 2010, when a research team led by Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) sequenced the genome of a fossil finger bone found at Denisova Cave in Russia and showed that it belonged to a hominin group that was genetically distinct from Neanderthals. The Xiahe mandible, only represented by its right half, was found in 1980... 1 maio 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Flowering plants, new teeth and no dinosaurs: New study sheds light on the rise of mammals A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences identified three factors critical in the rise of mammal communities since they first emerged during the Age of Dinosaurs: the rise of flowering plants, also known as angiosperms; the evolution of tribosphenic molars in mammals; and the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs, which reduced competition between mammals and other vertebrates in terrestrial... 30 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Human ancestors were 'grounded:' New analysis shows African apes adapted to living on the ground, a finding that indicates human evolved from an ancestor not limited to tree or other elevated habitats. The analysis adds a new chapter to evolution, shedding additional light on what preceded human bipedalism... 30 abril 2019 ScienceDaily
	Oldest human footprint found in the Americas confirmed in Chile A 15,600-year-old footprint discovered in southern Chile is believed to be the oldest ever found in the Americas, according to researchers. An ancient footprint is pictured in Osorno, Chile after its discovery in 2010 [Credit: Universidad Austral de Chile, Laboratorio de Sitio Pilauco]The footprint was first discovered in 2010 by a student at the Universidad Austral of Chile. Scientists then worked for years to rule out the... 27 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	See beautiful fossils from top Cambrian sites around the world For most of the nearly 3.5 billion years of documented life on Earth, creatures were simple, dominated by organisms such as bacteria, algae and fungi. Then, beginning about 541 million years ago, life quickly diversified into an array of new, complex forms... 27 abril 2019 ScienceNews
	Neanderthals may have trapped golden eagles 130,000 years ago The golden eagle has been hunted and revered by human cultures for thousands of years. Yet this may not have been a uniquely human devotion—Neanderthals, too, may have targeted these impressive birds of prey some 130,000 years ago, according to new research... 26 abril 2019 Michael Price, Science
	African populations crossbred with other extinct humans A new international study led by David Comas, principal investigator at UPF and at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE: CSIC-UPF), demonstrates for the first time using artificial intelligence that African populations hybridized with other extinct humans. The study is published in the journal Genome Biology. From the study of the DNA of present-day African populations, an international team of scientists has found that... 26 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Mysterious eruption came from Campi Flegrei caldera The caldera-forming eruption of Campi Flegrei (Italy) 40,000 years ago is the largest known eruption in Europe during the last 200,000 years, but little is known about other large eruptions at the volcano prior to a more recent caldera-forming event 15,000 years ago... 25 abril 2019 Geological Society of America
	Archaeologists uncover part of ancient Angkor temple Archaeologists with the Apsara Authority have uncovered the upper portion of the submerged northern foundation of the Ak Yum temple after the water level at West Baray lake receded due to hot weather. Credit: Apsara Authority spokesman Long Kosal yesterday said that archaeologists from the Department of Conservation of the Monuments began excavating the northern part of Ak Yum temple at the end of March, while the... 25 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Mysterious volcanic ash layer blanketing Mediterranean 29,000 years ago traced to volcano in Naples, Italy Since the late 1970s scientists have identified the same pre-historic volcanic ash layer in sediment cores extracted from sites ranging across 150,000 square kilometres of the central Mediterranean. This widespread ash layer, dated at 29,000 years ago, blanketed the region and clearly indicated a large volcanic eruption. Whilst the region is well known for its many active volcanoes, such as Mount Vesuvius which famously destroyed... 25 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	The giant galaxy around the giant black hole On April 10, 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) unveiled the first-ever image of a black hole's event horizon, the area beyond which light cannot escape the immense gravity of the black hole. That giant black hole, with a mass of 6.5 billion Suns, is located in the elliptical galaxy Messier 87 (M87). EHT is an international collaboration whose support in the U.S. includes the National Science Foundation. The galaxy M87, imaged... 24 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Human settlements in Amazonia much older than previously thought Humans settled in southwestern Amazonia and even experimented with agriculture much earlier than previously thought, according to an international team of researchers. Excavations at the site of La Chacra [Credit: José Capriles, PSU]"We have long been aware that complex societies emerged in Llanos de Moxos in southwestern Amazonia, Bolivia, around 2,500 years ago, but our new evidence suggests that humans first settled in the region... 24 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Modern analysis of ancient hearths reveals Neanderthal settlement patterns Ancient fire remains provide evidence of Neanderthal group mobility and settlement patterns and indicate specific occupation episodes, according to a new study published in PLOS ONE by Lucia Leierer and colleagues from Universidad de La Laguna, Spain. Field photos of selected combustion structures from the combustion structure assemblage [Credit: Leierer et al, 2019]Most palaeolithic household activities are thought to have taken... 24 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Fossil crab reveals a new branch in the tree of life A new fossil from the dinosaur era challenges the understanding of evolution. In a paper published in Science Advances, an international team, including researchers from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama, announced their discovery of a new fossil crab species, Callichimaera perplexa in Boyacá, Colombia, and in Wyoming in the United States. Life reconstruction of Callichimaera perplexa: The strangest crab... 24 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	What the vibrant pigments of bird feathers can teach us about how evolution works A University of Arizona-led research team has shown that evolution is driven by species interaction within a community. House finch colours itself with 24 carotenoid compounds derived from diverse dietary sources, such as saguaro pollen [Credit: Alex Badyaev/tenbestphotos.com]All living things exist within communities, where they depend on resources or services provided by other species. As community members change, so do the... 24 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	A Neanderthal tooth discovered in Serbia reveals human migration history In 2015, our Serbian-Canadian archaeological research team was working at a cave site named Pešturina, in Eastern Serbia, where we had found thousands of stone tools and animal bones. One day, an excited Serbian undergrad brought us a fossil they had uncovered: a small molar tooth, which we immediately recognized as human. A 3D recreation of a recently discovered Neanderthal tooth [Credit: Joshua Lindal]A single tooth may not seem... 23 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	The population history of the last hunter-gatherers of the Iberian Peninsula The scientific journal Nature Communications is publishing a new study today about the demographic dynamics of the last populations of hunter-gatherers that inhabited the Iberian Peninsula between 18.000 to 8.000 years ago. Distribution of archaeological sites with radiocarbon dates analyzed in this study. The colours represent the different regional subsets analyzed [Credit: IPHES]This period, known as the Pleistocene-Holocene... 23 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Scientists Reconstruct Face of Neolithic Dog The face of a 4,000-year-old dog has been brought back to life by a team of researchers and forensic artists. In 1901, archaeologists found the 4,000-year-old remains of at least 24 dogs in Cuween Hill chambered cairn on Orkney, off the northern coast of Scotland. Now, a team of scientists at Edinburgh University’s Royal... 22 abril 2019 SCINEWS
	Pleistocene mammal teeth reveal the climate of the past The seasons, as we know them, did not always exist. This is the result of a new paleo-environmental study that analysed fossil teeth to reveal the eating habits of a diverse group of herbivores that lived during the Pleistocene, the period that was characterised by an increase in climactic seasonality following a long glaciation that took place 900,000 years ago. Credit: Flavia Strani... 19 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Liquid blood found inside 42,000 year old foal boosts hopes of bringing extinct species back to life Semyon Grigoryev, head of the Mammoth Museum in Yakutsk, said today: ‘The autopsy shows beautifully preserved internal organs. Credit: North-Eastern Federal University‘Samples of liquid blood were taken from heart vessels - it was preserved in the liquid state for 42,000 years thanks to favourable burial conditions and permafrost. ‘The muscle tissues preserved their natural reddish colour. We can now claim that this is the best... 18 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Argentinian researchers discover an extraordinary 220 million year old animal cemetery in San Juan It is a surprising accumulation of fossils that would belong to dinosaurs, giant crocodiles and mammalian ancestors. In this "bed of bones", there are skulls and dismembered parts of, at least, seven or eight individuals, although there could be many more. The fossilised dinosaur remains discovered in western Argentina are believed to be 220 million years old [Credit: CTyS-UNLaM Agency] Dr. Ricardo Martínez, a researcher at the... 18 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Daily grind: The biography of a stone axe Tom Breukel analysed some 250 stone axes from the Caribbean and reconstructed their biographies, thus increasing our knowledge of production and trade in the period around the arrival of Columbus. His Ph.D. defence is on 18 April. Credit: Tom BreukelBreukel researched how the stone axes – a collective term in archaeology that also includes adzes and chisels – were produced, traded, and used in the Dominican Republic and the Windward... 18 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Africa’s largest mammalian carnivore had canines ‘the size of bananas’ When paleontologists dug up the bones of Africa’s largest carnivore in the early 1980s, they had no idea what they had found. So many other fossils littered the dig site, at Meswa Bridge in western Kenya, that the giant bones were just one more item to be cataloged. So, they stuck them in a drawer in the Nairobi National Museum, where they remained for nearly 4 decades... 18 abril 2019 Munyaradzi Makoni, Science
	New Dinosaur Species Uncovered in Mongolia Paleontologists in Mongolia have discovered a new species of hadrosauroid dinosaur that roamed what is now the Gobi Desert approximately 90 million years ago. Members of the dinosaur family Hadrosauridae, also known as duck-billed dinosaurs, were widespread and ecologically important large herbivores during the Late Cretaceous epoch, but little is known about their early evolution... 18 abril 2019 SCINEWS
	NASA planet hunter finds its first Earth-size world NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has found its first Earth-size planet, Space.com reports. The planet, called HD 21749c, orbits a star about 53 light-years from Earth... 17 abril 2019 Alex Fox, Science
	Italian team to partially restore Persepolis A team of Italian archaeologists and restorers is scheduled to partially rehabilitate some ruined monuments and bas-relief carvings in Persepolis, which was once the ceremonial capital of the mighty Achaemenid Empire. Ruins of the Gate of All Nations, Persepolis [Credit: Alborzagros/WikiCommons]The team is associated with the foundation “Archaeology Without Borders”, which supports archaeological education and training in developing... 17 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Fish that outlived dinosaurs reveals secrets of ancient skull evolution A new study into one of the world's oldest types of fish, Coelacanth, provides fresh insights into the development of the skull and brain of vertebrates and the evolution of lobe-finned fishes and land animals, as published in Nature. Coelacanth off waters near South Africa [Credit: Laurent Ballista, Gombessa expeditions, Andromede Oceanology Ltd]Coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae) is so rare it was thought to have gone extinct with... 17 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Volcanic Eruptions Caused End-Permian Extinction, New Evidence Confirms An international team of paleontologists from China and the United States has found high levels of mercury in the end-Permian marine sediments at nearly a dozen sites around the world, which provides persuasive evidence that volcanic eruptions were to blame for the mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, about 252 million years... 17 abril 2019 SCINEWS
	34,000-Year-Old Figurative Cave Paintings Found in Croatia A team of archaeologists from the United States and Europe has revealed the first example of Paleolithic figurative cave art found in the Balkan region. “The importance of this discovery is remarkable and sheds a new light on the understanding of Paleolithic art in the territory of Croatia and the Balkan Peninsula, as well as... 16 abril 2019 SCINEWS
	New species of early human found in the Philippines An international team of researchers have uncovered the remains of a new species of human in the Philippines, proving the region played a key role in hominin evolutionary history. The new species, Homo luzonensis is named after Luzon Island, where the more than 50,000 year old fossils were found during excavations at Callao Cave. A toe from a member of the species Homo luzonensis recently discovered in the Philippines... 10 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Woolly mammoths and Neanderthals may have shared genetic traits A new study suggests that the genetic profiles of two extinct mammals with African ancestry - woolly mammoths and Neanderthals - shared molecular characteristics of adaptation to cold environments... 8 abril 2019 ScienceDaily
	Ancient, four-legged whale with otter-like features found along the coast of Peru Cetaceans, the group including whales and dolphins, originated in south Asia more than 50 million years ago from a small, four-legged, hoofed ancestor. Now, researchers reporting the discovery of an ancient four-legged whale--found in 42.6-million-year-old marine sediments along the coast of Peru--have new insight into whales' evolution and their dispersal to other parts of the world. The findings are reported in the journal Current... 4 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	Jurassic crocodile discovery sheds light on reptiles' family tree A newly identified species of 150 million-year-old marine crocodile has given insights into how a group of ancient animals evolved. Artist's impression of 150 million-year-old cricosaurus bambergensis [Credit: Joschua Knüppe]The ancestor of today's crocodiles belonged to a group of animals that developed a tail fin and paddle-like limbs for life in the sea, resembling dolphins more than crocodiles. These slender animals, which fed... 4 abril 2019 Archaeology News Network
	66-Million-Year-Old Fossil Site Preserves Animals Killed within Minutes of Chicxulub Impact At a site dubbed Tanis in North Dakota’s Hell Creek Formation, paleontologists have unearthed an assemblage of exquisitely-preserved fossilized organisms — fish stacked one atop another and mixed in with burned tree trunks, conifer branches, mammals, mosasaur bones, insects, the partial carcass of a Triceratops, marine microorganisms called dinoflagellates and snail-like marine cephalopods called ammonites... 3 abril 2019 SCINEWS
	Ancient ‘Snowball Earth’ thawed out in a flash More than half a billion years ago, our planet was a giant snowball hurtling through space. Glaciers blanketed the globe all the way to the equator in one of the mysterious “Snowball Earth” events geologists think occurred at least twice in Earth’s ancient past... 2 abril 2019 Lucas Joel, Science
	Pacific Mastodon: New Species of Ancient Elephant Relative Identified A new species of mastodon that lived during the Pleistocene period has been identified from fossil found in California and Idaho. Mastodons are any species of extinct proboscideans in the genus Mammut. Often confused with mammoths, they are another, more distant, relative of living elephants. These animals were widespread across North America and Central America... 2 abril 2019 SCINEWS