Archaeology & Fossils news

HIV's ancestors 'plagued first mammals'

Sep 18, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (4) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The retroviruses which gave rise to HIV have been battling it out with mammal immune systems since mammals first evolved around 100 million years ago - about 85 million years earlier than ...

Early modern humans use fire to engineer tools from stone

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Aug 13, 2009 | 4.2 / 5 (12) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Evidence that early modern humans living on the coast of the far southern tip of Africa 72,000 years ago employed pyrotechnology - the controlled use of fire - to increase the quality and ...

Reptiles stood upright after mass extinction

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Sep 15, 2009 | 4 / 5 (8) | 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Reptiles changed their walking posture from sprawling to upright immediately after the end-Permian mass extinction, the biggest crisis in the history of life that occurred some 250 million ...

Hand axes in Europe nearly a million years old: study

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Sep 02, 2009 | 4 / 5 (7) | 6

Early humans used two-sided stone axes in Europe up to 900,000 years ago, far earlier than previously thought, according to a study released Wednesday.

'You will give birth in pain': Neanderthals too

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Apr 21, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (11) | 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers from the University of California at Davis (USA) and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig (Germany) present a virtual reconstruction of a female Neanderthal ...

Prehistoric Cold Case Hints of Interspecies Homicide

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Jul 20, 2009 | 4.6 / 5 (7) | 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- The wound that ultimately killed a Neandertal man between 50,000 and 75,000 years was most likely caused by a thrown spear, the kind modern humans used but Neandertals did not, according to ...

Europe's first farmers replaced their Stone Age hunter-gatherer forerunners

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Sep 03, 2009 | 4.1 / 5 (10) | 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- DNA study suggests that further waves of prehistoric immigration are waiting to be discovered. Central and northern Europe's first farmers were immigrants with barely any ancestral ties to the modern population, ...

Climate Change Triggered Dwarfism in Soil-Dwelling Creatures of the Past

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Oct 06, 2009 | 3.3 / 5 (9) | 3

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ancient soil-inhabiting creatures decreased in body size by nearly half in response to a period of boosted carbon dioxide levels and higher temperatures, scientists have discovered.

Earliest animals lived in a lake environment, research shows

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Jul 27, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (7) | 3

Evidence for life on Earth stretches back billions of years, with simple single-celled organisms like bacteria dominating the record. When multi-celled animal life appeared on the planet after 3 billion years ...

Scientists find evidence of iridescence in 40 million-year-old feather fossil

Iridescence found in 40-million-year-old fossil bird feather

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Aug 26, 2009 | 4.5 / 5 (8) | 3

Known for their wide variety of vibrant plumage, birds have evolved various chemical and physical mechanisms to produce these beautiful colors over millions of years. A team of paleontologists and ornithologists ...

Italian group claims to debunk Shroud of Turin (AP)

Italian group claims to debunk Shroud of Turin (Update)

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Oct 05, 2009 | 4.8 / 5 (12) | 0

(AP) -- Scientists have reproduced the Shroud of Turin - revered as the cloth that covered Jesus in the tomb - and say the experiment proves the relic was man-made, a group of Italian debunkers claimed Monday.

Early whales gave birth on land, fossil find reveals (Video)

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Feb 04, 2009 | 4.3 / 5 (11) | 2

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two newly described fossil whales---a pregnant female and a male of the same species--reveal how primitive whales gave birth and provide new insights into how whales made the transition from ...

Giant dinosaur footprints site discovered in April

Dino footprints enter record books

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Oct 06, 2009 | 4.4 / 5 (8) | 3

French researchers on Tuesday said they had uncovered the biggest dinosaur footprints in the world, left by giant sauropods that may have weighed 40 tonnes or more.

Fossil fragments reveal 500-million-year-old monster predator

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

Mar 19, 2009 | 4.7 / 5 (21) | 7

Hurdia victoria was originally described in 1912 as a crustacean-like animal. Now, researchers from Uppsala University and colleagues reveal it to be just one part of a complex and remarkable new animal that h ...