Fossil and Archaeology News

A bronze matryoshka doll: The metal in the metal in the metal

Friday, February 10, 2012 00:00 MST

Just like in the Russian wooden toy, a hull of 12 copper atoms encases a single tin atom. This hull is, in turn, enveloped by 20 further tin atoms. Professor Faessler's work group at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen was the first to generate these spatial structures built up in three layers as isolated metal clusters in alloys. With their large surfaces these structures can serve as highly efficient catalysts.

Fossil cricket reveals Jurassic love song

Thursday, February 09, 2012 00:00 MST

The love song of an extinct cricket that lived 165 million years ago has been brought back to life by scientists at the University of Bristol. The song ? possibly the most ancient known musical song documented to date ? was reconstructed from microscopic wing features on a fossil discovered in North East China. It allows us to listen to one of the sounds that would have been heard by dinosaurs and other creatures roaming Jurassic forests at night.

A battle of the vampires, 20 million years ago?

Wednesday, February 08, 2012 00:00 MST

They are tiny, ugly, disease-carrying little blood-suckers that most people have never seen or heard of, but a new discovery in a one-of-a-kind fossil shows that "bat flies" have been doing their noxious business with bats for at least 20 million years.

New species of ancient crocodile discovered

Thursday, February 02, 2012 00:00 MST

A University of Missouri researcher has identified a new species of prehistoric crocodile. The extinct creature, nicknamed "Shieldcroc" due to a thick-skinned shield on its head, is an ancestor of today's crocodiles.

Center ensures access to archaeological data that otherwise may be lost

Monday, January 30, 2012 00:00 MST

The ASU Center for Digital Antiquity contains the world's largest repository of worldwide archaeology data. A new grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation enables the center to expand content, thereby preserving archaeological records, some of which have been lost because of degradation, software obsolescence and inadequate documentation. It is an especially tragic loss with archaeological data, representing a loss of irreplaceable information about our heritage. "You can't dig a site twice," says professor Keith Kintigh.

With a little help from our ancient friends

Sunday, January 29, 2012 00:00 MST

The social networks of the Hadza, a group of hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, show evidence that many elements of social network structure may have been present at an early point in human history; that early humans may have formed ties with both kin and non-kin, based in part on their tendency to cooperate; and that social networks may have contributed to the emergence of cooperation.

More than 7,500-year-old fish traps found in Russia

Saturday, January 28, 2012 00:00 MST

A team of international archeologists, led by the Spanish National Research Council, has documented a series of more than 7,500-year-old fish seines and traps near Moscow. The equipment found, among the oldest in Europe, displays a great technical complexity. The survey will allow us to understand the role of fishing among the European settlements by early Holocene (10,000 years ago), especially in those areas where inhabitants did not practice agriculture until nearly the Iron Age.

Ancient dinosaur nursery oldest nesting site yet found

Friday, January 27, 2012 00:00 MST

An excavation at a site in South Africa has unearthed the 190-million-year-old dinosaur nesting site of the prosauropod dinosaur Massospondylus -- revealing significant clues about the evolution of complex reproductive behavior in early dinosaurs.

Dog skull dates back 33,000 years

Thursday, January 26, 2012 00:00 MST

A 33,000-year-old dog skull unearthed in a Siberian mountain cave presents some of the oldest known evidence of dog domestication and indicates that modern dogs may be descended from multiple ancestors, with advancing glaciers thwarting early domestication efforts.

Winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx dressed for flight

Wednesday, January 25, 2012 00:00 MST

The iconic, winged dinosaur Archaeopteryx was dressed for flight, an international team of researchers led by Brown University has concluded. The group identified the color of the raven-sized creature's fossilized wing feather, determining it was black. The color and the structures that supplied the pigment suggest that Archaeopteryx's feathers were rigid and durable, which would have helped it to fly. Results appear in Nature Communications.

Scientists discover unusual 'tulip' creature

Tuesday, January 24, 2012 00:00 MST

A bizarre creature that lived in the ocean more than 500 million years ago has emerged from the famous Middle Cambrian Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rockies. Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a dinner knife (approximately 20 centimeters or eight inches) and has a unique filter feeding system.

Ancient popcorn discovered in Peru

Sunday, January 22, 2012 00:00 MST

People living along the coast of Peru were eating popcorn 1,000 years earlier than previously reported and before ceramic pottery was used there, according to a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences co-authored by Dolores Piperno, curator of New World archaeology at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and emeritus staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute.

The fermented cereal beverage of the Sumerians may not have been beer

Thursday, January 19, 2012 00:00 MST

4000-year-old cuneiform writings from Mesopotamia tell us little about the brewing techniques used at the time.

Evolution is written all over your face

Saturday, January 14, 2012 00:00 MST

Why are the faces of primates so dramatically different from one another? UCLA biologists serving as "evolutionary detectives" studied the faces of 129 adult male primates from Central and South America, and offer answers. These faces evolved over at least 24 million years.

Study shows early primate had a transitional lemur-like grooming claw

Friday, January 13, 2012 00:00 MST

Celebrities are channeling a distant relative with what Harper's Bazaar describes as the latest trend in nail fashion for 2012: Claws. But this may not be the first time primates traded their nails for claws.