News by Subject Archaeology

Ancient sediments from caves have already proven to preserve DNA for thousands of years. The amount of recovered sequences from environmental sediments, however, is generally low, which difficults the analyses to be performed with these sequences. A study led by Ron Pinhasi and Pere Gelabert of the University of Vienna and published in Current Biology successfully retrieved three mammalian environmental genomes from a single soil sample of 25,000 years bp obtained from the cave of Satsurblia in the Caucasus (Georgia).

Evidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors.

The average body size of humans has fluctuated significantly over the last million years and is strongly linked to temperature. Colder, harsher climates drove the evolution of larger body sizes, while warmer climates led to smaller bodies. Brain size also changed dramatically but did not evolve in tandem with body size.

New iguanodon-like dinosaur identified from jawbone fossil from Spain was likely a 6-8m long herbivore, closely related to species found in modern-day China and Niger.

Five Simon Fraser University scholars are among international scientists sounding an alarm over the "pervasive social and ecological consequences" of the destruction and suppression of the knowledge systems of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

The UPV/EHU's Vertebrate Palaeontology research group has described two new species of palaeotheriidae mammals that inhabited the subtropical landscape of Zambrana (Álava) about 37 million years ago. Their atypical dental features could point to a difference in environmental conditions between the Iberian and Central European areas.

In 2016, researchers from the University of Liège (Belgium) proposed a new definition of the geological boundary between the Devonian and Carboniferous periods (359 million years). This new definition has been tested by hundreds of researchers around the world and the results are now compiled in a special issue of the journal Palaeodiversity & Palaeoenvironments.

Proteins from frozen canine faeces have been successfully extracted for the first time to reveal more about the diets of Arctic sled dogs.