It took several hundred million years after the formation of Earth some 4½ billion years ago for the initially fiery globe to cool down, allowing the first oceans and land masses to f… Read More

Endothermy, or warm-bloodedness, is the ability of mammals and birds to produce their own body heat and control their body temperature. A warm-blooded mammal ancestor breathing out hot… Read More

Evolution has long been viewed as a rather random process, with the traits of species shaped by chance mutations and environmental events -- and therefore largely unpredictable.Similar leaf… Read More

The ancient North American city of Cahokia had as its focal point a feature now known as Monks Mound, a giant earthwork surrounded on its north, south, east and west by large rectangular ope… Read More

Maritime archaeologists from Bournemouth University have uncovered the remains of a medieval ship and its cargo dating back to the 13th century off the coast of Dorset. The survival of the v… Read More

An international team of 40 researchers analyzed the genomes—the complete set of DNA—of all living and recently extinct penguin species and combined this with the fossil record t… Read More

The evolution of the brain and nervous system in animals has been wound back more than 400 million years, thanks to the examination of fossil remains of ancient lungfish providing a missing… Read More

A new study describes the formation of the body axis in the immortal freshwater polyp Hydra. It is controlled by the so-called hippo signalling pathway, a molecular biological process that… Read More

Fossils discovered in Scotland represent some of the world's oldest salamanders, according to a new study led by UCL researchers.Artist's impression of Marmorerpeton wakei [Credit: Brennan S… Read More

The mountain fortress of Rabana-Merquly in modern Iraqi Kurdistan was one of the major regional centres of the Parthian Empire, which extended over parts of Iran and Mesopotamia approximatel… Read More

An extended period of turmoil in the prehistoric Maya city of Mayapan, in the Yucatan region of Mexico, was marked by population declines, political rivalries and civil conflict. Between 144… Read More

For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data, published in the journal Current Biology, su… Read More

Some copepods, diminutive crustaceans with an outsized place in the aquatic food web, can evolve fast enough to survive in the face of rapid climate change, according to new research that ad… Read More

Fossil tooth analysis by Southern Cross University geochemist Dr. Renaud Joannes-Boyau has played a central role in an international collaboration that has properly identified the earliest h… Read More

The study of the genomes of our closest relatives, the Neanderthals and Denisovans, has opened up new research paths that can broaden our understanding of the evolutionary history of Homo sa… Read More

ROM (Royal Ontario Museum) revealed new research based on a cache of fossils that contains the brain and nervous system of a half-billion-year-old marine predator from the Burgess Shale call… Read More

Shards of ceramics litter the fields of an ancient city in southeastern Albania, where looters have raided the area's highlands in search of antiquities to sell to international traffickers… Read More

An international team of researchers led by LMU paleontologist Bettina Reichenbacher has managed to classify fossils of one of the most species-rich fish groups into a family tree for the fi… Read More

Uncovering the evolution of any set of living creatures is a complex and highly detailed task for scientists, and theories and approaches that may differ over time may indeed change the foss… Read More

Oregon State University fossil research has revealed an exquisite merger of art and science: a long-stemmed flower of a newly described plant species encased in a 30-million-year-old tomb to… Read More

Located between Australia and New Zealand, the Tasman Sea is an important but so far neglected component of the global ocean conveyor belt. Now a new study has discovered evidence that this… Read More

New research today reveals that wildfires may have been a key contributor to the total collapse of land ecosystems during the Earth's worst mass extinction event over 250 million years ago.D… Read More

According to a new study, the first louse to take up residence on a mammalian host likely started out as a parasite of birds. That host-jumping event tens of millions of years ago began the… Read More

Genetic analyses by an international team involving researchers from the LMU and the State Collection show that the Romans were the first to bring mules to Central Europe. Before horses were… Read More

The sword was found in three pieces by two metal detector enthusiasts, independent of each other, in the Jatta/Gausel area in Stavanger, already renowned for the grave of the so-called Gause… Read More

They say that where there's smoke, there's fire, and Weizmann Institute of Science researchers are working hard to investigate that claim, or at least elucidate what constitutes "smoke." In… Read More

A luxurious estate and a rare rural mosque – among the earliest known worldwide (over 1200 years old) were recently discovered in the city of Rahat in the Negev. Large-scale archaeolog… Read More

Archaeologists from The University of Manchester have started a dig at a 5,000-year-old tomb linked to King Arthur, hoping to answer some of the mysteries surrounding the enigmatic site in t… Read More

Georgia State University anthropologist Dr. Jeffrey Glover grew up in metro Atlanta, but speaking to him, it sounds like his heart is in Quintana Roo. This part of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula… Read More

Archaeologically excavated stone tools – some as much as 2.6 million years old – have been hailed as evidence for an early cultural heritage in human evolution. But are these too… Read More

New genetic research from remote islands in the Pacific offers fresh insights into the ancestry and culture of the world's earliest seafarers, including family structure, social customs, and… Read More

A team of specialists and students led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill professor Jodi Magness recently returned to Israel’s Lower Galilee to continue unearthing nearly 1… Read More

In the Stone Age, pendants with potent symbolism were made from animal teeth and bones, adorning clothes or accessories and serving as rattles. Human bones were also used as a raw material f… Read More

Archaeology students from Bournemouth University have found the remains of prehistoric people and animal sacrifices in a recently discovered Iron Age settlement in Dorset.The skeletal remain… Read More

Emiliano Bruner, a paleoneurologist at the Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH), has led a study published in the journal Intelligence on how attention evolved… Read More

New archaeological research into grave goods and skeletal material from the oldest grave field in the Netherlands shows that male-female roles 7,000 years ago were less traditional than was… Read More

Winemaking practices in coastal Italy during the Roman period involved using native grapes for making wine in jars waterproofed with imported tar pitch, according to a study published in the… Read More

A new study of the ancient world of Anatolia—now Turkey—shows how they adapted to climate change but offers a warning for today's climate emergency.Maps of the study region: Thes… Read More

Four children in Mexico were buried in the years after the Spanish Conquest with rituals and grave offerings that suggest that pre-Hispanic customs lived on for some time after the Aztec emp… Read More

Archaeologists in Pompeii have discovered the remains of a pregnant tortoise that had sought refuge in the ruins of a home destroyed by an earthquake in 62 AD, only to be covered by volcanic… Read More

EPFL scientists have produced a series of maps showing historical migration events, including the migration of mountain farmers native to Upper Valais who began to settle in German-speaking… Read More

During the past 10,000 years—the Holocene—human societies became larger and ever more complex. An international team of scientists led by Peter Turchin from the Complexity Scienc… Read More

An exploratory underwater survey was completed in the sunken part of the Neolithic settlement of Agios Petros located in the bay by that name of Kyra-Panagia, north of Alonissos. This is an… Read More

Archaeological discoveries made on the outskirts of Canterbury, Kent (England) confirm the presence of early humans in southern Britain between 560,000 and 620,000 years ago, making it one o… Read More

The second season of the underwater archaeological research on the Antikythera wreck (May 23-June 15, 2022), within the framework of the 2021-2025 five-year project, yielded rich findings. T… Read More

With some 7,000 islands and cays and a 7,000-year history of human habitation, the Caribbean Sea is practically synonymous with maritime travel. The very word "canoe" is derived from the ter… Read More

A Polish archaeologist has unlocked a 100-year-old mystery after identifying over 200 inscriptions addressed to an anonymous god. Aleksandra Kubiak-Schneider had been carrying out research i… Read More

An international team led by The University of Vienna and the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology in collaboration with the National Museum of Korea has successfully sequenced… Read More

A new study from The University of Western Australia has challenged earlier claims that Aboriginal stone artifacts discovered off the Pilbara coast in Western Australia represent Australia&r… Read More

The wreck of one of the most famous ships of the 17th century -- which sank 340 years ago while carrying the future King of England James Stuart -- has been discovered off the coast of Norfo… Read More

The Department of Antiquities, of the Ministry of Transport, Communications and Works, has announced that in May and June 2022 a team headed by Professor Peter M. Fischer from the University… Read More

A new study combining archaeological, historical and bioarchaeological data provides new insights into the early Islamic period in modern-day Syria. The research team was planning to focus o… Read More

The Wallacean islands have always been separated from Asia and Oceania by deep-sea waters. Yet, these tropical islands were a corridor for modern humans migrating into the Pleistocene Austra… Read More

Archaeologists had low expectations when excavations started at 35 Spaska Street in Kyiv in 2007. Two earlier archaeological surveys had been carried out here, with meager results. But now a… Read More

An international team led by researchers at McMaster University, working in collaboration with the University of Paris Cite, has identified and reconstructed the first ancient genome of E. c… Read More

A joint study by researchers from Tel Aviv University and the Hebrew University unraveled the earliest evidence for domestication of a fruit tree. The researchers analyzed remnants of charco… Read More

Extreme dry conditions contributed to the decline of the ancient South Arabian kingdom of Himyar. Researchers from the University of Basel have reported these findings in the journal Science… Read More

An analysis of ancient DNA from a 100,000-year-old polar bear has revealed that extensive hybridization between polar bears and brown bears occurred during the last warm interglacial period… Read More

An Egyptian-German archaeological mission has recently unearthed the foundations of the Temple of the Sun and blocks dating back to Khufu's reign at the open-air museum of Matariya, in Cairo… Read More

Fair complexion, brown hair and brown, widely spaced eyes, a prominent chin, a petite figure, adorned with bronze and gold jewellery and a magnificent amber necklace: this is how the woman b… Read More

Archaeologists from Stockholm University's Archaeological Research Laboratory have located a unique Viking Age shipyard site at Birka on Bjorko in Lake Malaren. The discovery challenges prev… Read More

Archaeology is not just the study of past human activity. It also looks at the animals that inhabited ancient landscapes. During excavations on the National Highways A14 Cambridge to Hunting… Read More

The Black Death, the biggest pandemic of our history, was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis and lasted in Europe between the years 1346 and 1353. Despite the pandemic's immense demogra… Read More

A fossilized lower jaw has led an international team of palaeontologists, headed by Bastien Mennecart from the Natural History Museum Basel, to discover a new species of predator that once l… Read More

The structure of how DNA is stored in archaea makes a significant difference to how quickly it evolves, according to a new study by Indiana University researchers.Credit: wallpaperflareThe s… Read More

The human middle ear—which houses three tiny, vibrating bones—is key to transporting sound vibrations into the inner ear, where they become nerve impulses that allow us to hear.T… Read More

Studying two highly divergent phyla of worms that contain numerous parasites that cause human and livestock diseases, the research group of Qi Zhou from the University of Vienna and Zhejiang… Read More

In a new study, researchers led by the University of Iowa announced the discovery of two new species of crocodiles that roamed east Africa between 18 million and 15 million years ago before… Read More

Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigacion sobre la Evolucion Humana (CENIEH) form part of a team of Chinese, Spanish, and French scientists that has just published a study of what m… Read More

While wildfires over recent years have raged across much of the western United States and pose significant hazards to wildlife and local populations, wildfires have been a long-standing part… Read More

Around 13,200 years ago, a roving male mastodon died in a bloody mating-season battle with a rival in what today is northeast Indiana, nearly 100 miles from his home territory, according to… Read More

The Earth is a dynamic planet that has undergone major changes over the many millions of years of its history. In order to recognize and understand these changes and to derive forecasts for… Read More

Archaeologists have found that a tool, dubbed the "stone Swiss Army knife" of prehistory, was made to look the same in enormous numbers across great distances and multiple biomes in southern… Read More

Research led by palaeontologists at the University of Southampton has identified the remains of one of Europe's largest ever land-based hunters: a dinosaur that measured over 10m long and li… Read More

The Evolutionary Morphology Laboratory led by Shigeru Kuratani at the RIKEN Cluster for Pioneering Research (CPR) in Japan, along with collaborators, has found evidence that the mysterious a… Read More

To reach the only place in the world where cave paintings of prehistoric marine life have been found, archaeologists have to dive to the bottom of the Mediterranean off southern France.Cosqu… Read More

For the ancient Mayans, corn was the vital plant par excellence. The Popol Vuh, their sacred text, told that the gods created humans out of its dough, after first attempting to make them fro… Read More

Inca children who were chosen to be ritually sacrificed were drugged so that they remained calm before their death, a new study of ancient hair and fingernail samples has confirmed.Credit: C… Read More

A stone monument with an ancient Greek inscription in the collections of National Museums Scotland was recently discovered to be a previously unknown, unpublished Athenian ephebic list. Prin… Read More

The first successfully sequenced human genome from an individual who died in Pompeii, Italy, after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE is presented this week in a study published in Scie… Read More

A well-preserved 2100-year-old, Hellenistic Hasmonean period agricultural farmstead containing finds that may have been abandoned in haste was uncovered at Horbat Assad next to Nahal Abel in… Read More

Nestled in the picturesque Northumberland countryside, Vindolanda with its fort and settlement is a treasure trove of everyday life during the Roman occupation of Britain and beyond. What ma… Read More

Results of the latest excavation season in Berenike, Egypt, have been announced. Among their highlights is a tomb with coral walls and floors and intact burials with rich grave goods excavat… Read More

Proteins extracted from fragments of prehistoric eggshell found in the Australian sands confirm that the continent’s earliest humans consumed the eggs of a two-metre tall bird that dis… Read More

Montale in northern Italy can have been one of the earliest centers in Europe for production of wool during the Bronze Age. Production may also have been on an industrial scale.Map of Italy… Read More

A cave in southern Spain was used by ancient humans as a canvas for artwork and as a burial place for over 50,000 years, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by… Read More

The Egyptian archaeological mission working in the cemetery of the sacred animals (Bubasteion) in Saqqara uncovered an enormous cache of coffins with mummies and funerary objects dating back… Read More

A team of German and Kurdish archaeologists has uncovered a 3400-year-old Mittani Empire-era city once located on the Tigris River. The settlement emerged from the waters of the Mosul reserv… Read More

For decades, paleontologists have debated whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded, like modern mammals and birds, or cold-blooded, like modern reptiles. Knowing whether dinosaurs were warm- or c… Read More

While calcifying organisms like oysters and corals have difficulty forming their shells and skeletons in more acidic seawater, diatoms have been considered less susceptible to the effects of… Read More

Unusually well-preserved reef corals from the Geological and Paleontological Collection at Leipzig University hold a great secret: They allow us to travel far into the past and reconstruct c… Read More

An international team of scientists from UCL (University College London), the Swedish Museum of Natural History, Natural History Museum (London) and the University of Florence have found a r… Read More

What links a finger bone and some fossil teeth found in a cave in the remote Altai Mountains of Siberia to a single tooth found in a cave in the limestone landscapes of tropical Laos? The an… Read More

A study carried out in the area around the Pego-Oliva Marshland Natural Park, between Valencia and Alicante, reveals how the rise in sea level impacted the human groups that inhabited this a… Read More

Archaeological excavations led by Wyoming's state archaeologist and involving University of Wyoming researchers have confirmed that an ancient mine in eastern Wyoming was used by humans to p… Read More

From the Middle Bronze Age, Egypt played a crucial role in the appearance of calcite-alabaster artifacts in Israel, and the development of the local gypsum-alabaster industry. The absence of… Read More

More than 20 years ago, Dr. Heiko Prumers from the German Archaeological Institute and Prof. Dr. Carla Jaimes Betancourt from the University of Bonn, at that time a student in La Paz, began… Read More

A partial skull that was discovered last summer by two kayakers in Minnesota will be returned to Native American officials after investigations determined it was about 8,000 years old.The sk… Read More

A unique compound bow from the Bronze Age nearly 2 meters tall was reconstructed from authentic materials by SUSU specialists as part of an international team. This weapon had the greatest a… Read More

One day more than 3000 years ago, someone lost a shoe at the place we today call Langfonne in the Jotunheimen mountains. The shoe is 28 cm long, which roughly corresponds to a modern size 36… Read More