Scientists found Homo erectus 200,000 years earlier than expected
New fossils from South Africa are reshaping the story of early human evolution. Researchers have described 18 hominin fossils from Drimolen Cave, including an adult Homo erectus skull fragment dated to...
View ArticleArchaeologists may have finally solved a 100-year-old Florida mystery
Ancient pottery from Tampa Bay appears to have been made by migrant craftspeople who brought specialized Mississippian pottery-making knowledge hundreds of miles south. Remarkably, they even...
View ArticleAnimals may have evolved 200 million years earlier than we thought
New research suggests animals could have evolved as early as 800 to 700 million years ago, roughly 200 million years earlier than some previous estimates. If so, the first animals may have lived before...
View Article97-million-year-old fossils reveal the earliest known animal “GPS”
Mysterious 97-million-year-old magnetic fossils may be the oldest evidence of an animal using Earth’s magnetic field like a built-in GPS. Their sophisticated magnetic structure could have helped an...
View ArticleBats may have first evolved in Europe 65 million years ago
A huge genomic and fossil study suggests bats first evolved in Europe around 65 to 60 million years ago before spreading across the globe. The findings also indicate that flight and echolocation...
View ArticleThis 245-million-year-old fossil still has its stomach and intestines
A 245-million-year-old marine reptile fossil preserves an astonishing amount of detail, including its stomach, liver, and intestines. The discovery reveals that Austronaga minuta was highly adapted for...
View Article160-million-year-old proteins show surprising power against superbugs
Scientists resurrected antimicrobial peptides from mammals that lived millions of years ago and found that some were more potent against drug-resistant bacteria than modern human versions. These...
View Article1.7-billion-year-old fossils reveal a crucial clue to the rise of complex life
Scientists studying ancient Australian rocks uncovered more than 12,000 fossils from some of the oldest known eukaryotes on Earth. These early complex cells lived in settings ranging from coastal...
View ArticleThese medieval graves looked like family burials. DNA told a different story
Ancient DNA shows that adults and children buried together in medieval Sweden were often not members of the same immediate family, suggesting that burial choices reflected more than biological kinship....
View ArticleScientists burned their own scrolls to unlock a 2,000-year-old mystery
Scientists discovered that tiny amounts of lead in ancient ink can make writing inside burned papyrus scrolls stand out dramatically in X-ray scans. The technique could help unlock lost Greek and Roman...
View ArticleWhy Viking museums still can’t escape the warrior myth
Scandinavian museums are trying to move beyond the familiar image of Vikings as sword-wielding male warriors, highlighting women, farmers, traders, and a far more complicated society. But the enduring...
View ArticleStonehenge’s 6-ton altar stone may have traveled from Scotland by glacier
Stonehenge’s six-ton Altar Stone may have been carried from Scotland to Dogger Bank by glaciers before prehistoric people transported it hundreds of kilometers to Salisbury Plain. The possible...
View ArticleScientists may have solved a 2,000-year-old Dead Sea Scrolls mystery
Researchers may have solved a long-running mystery surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls by proposing that the Qumran sect really did use its distinctive 364-day calendar. Its perfectly ordered 52-week...
View ArticleA 66-million-year-old tooth reveals T. rex was nearly as warm as a human
Chemical clues preserved inside fossilized T. rex teeth reveal that the dinosaur maintained a body temperature of about 97 degrees Fahrenheit, almost identical to humans. The finding provides direct...
View ArticleScientists discover the first diplodocus ever found outside North America
A 150-million-year-old dinosaur fossil from Spain has been identified as the first confirmed Diplodocus ever found outside North America. The giant sauropod measured about 25 meters long and was...
View ArticleA 240-million-year-old fossil just changed the dinosaur timeline
A newly identified 240-million-year-old animal from Tanzania is forcing scientists to rethink the early dinosaur timeline. Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda belongs to a group previously known only from...
View ArticleThis Australian cave hid 25,000 years of ritual secrets
Microscopic plant remains are revealing how GunaiKurnai ancestors used Cloggs Cave for ritual practices over thousands of years. People deliberately gathered whole grasses, carried them into the dark...
View ArticleUV light reveals possible camouflage on a 125-million-year-old crocodile
A 125-million-year-old crocodile fossil has revealed preserved skin, possible sensory organs, sophisticated respiratory structures, and an unexpected pattern on its tail. Ultraviolet light exposed...
View ArticlePlague was killing entire families thousands of years before the Black Death
Ancient DNA reveals that plague was already killing hunter-gatherers in Siberia 5,500 years ago, long before cities and flea-driven epidemics. The prehistoric strains may have been especially dangerous...
View ArticleOne Mount Etna eruption took weeks. Another happened in hours
Mount Etna’s ancient eruptions followed radically different paths, with some magma lingering near the surface for weeks while other magma raced upward from nearly 30 kilometers deep in just hours....
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