EurekAlert! - Archaeology

Public Release: 6-Feb-2012

Advances in Complex Systems
Research: Neanderthal demise due to many influences, including cultural changes
Although many anthropologists believe that modern humans ancestors "wiped out" Neanderthals, it's more likely that Neanderthals were integrated into the human gene pool thousands of years ago during the Upper Pleistocene era as cultural and climatic forces brought the two groups together.

Public Release: 1-Feb-2012

Nature Geoscience
First plants caused ice ages
New research reveals how the arrival of the first plants 470 million years ago triggered a series of ice ages. The research reveals the effects that the first land plants had on the climate during the Ordovician Period, which ended 444 million years ago. During this period the climate gradually cooled, leading to a series of 'ice ages'. This global cooling was caused by a dramatic reduction in atmospheric carbon, which this research now suggests was triggered by the arrival of plants.

Public Release: 29-Jan-2012

Nature Climate Change
Warming in the Tasman Sea a global warming hot spot
Oceanographers have identified a series of ocean hotspots around the world generated by strengthening wind systems that have driven oceanic currents, including the East Australian Current, polewards beyond their known boundaries.

CSIRO

Public Release: 27-Jan-2012

Geology
What really happened prior to 'Snowball Earth'?
In a study published in the journal Geology, Dr. Peter Swart if the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science suggests that the large changes in the carbon isotopic composition of carbonates which occurred prior to the major climatic event more than 500 million years ago, known as "Snowball Earth," are unrelated to worldwide glacial events.

Public Release: 26-Jan-2012

American Journal of Human Genetics
Following genetic footprints out of Africa
A new study, using genetic analysis to look for clues about human migration over sixty thousand years ago, suggests that the first modern humans settled in Arabia on their way from the Horn of Africa to the rest of the world.

Leverhulme Trust, DeLaszlo Foundation, Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology

Public Release: 26-Jan-2012

American Journal of Human Genetics
Following the first steps out of Africa
A new study uses genetic analysis to look for clues about the migration of the first modern humans who moved out of Africa more than 60,000 years ago. The research, published Jan. 26 by Cell Press in the American Journal of Human Genetics provides intriguing insight into the earliest stages of human migration and suggests that modern humans settled in Arabia on their way from the Horn of Africa to the rest of the world.

Public Release: 25-Jan-2012
More than 7,500-year-old fish traps found in Russia
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.

Public Release: 25-Jan-2012

Nature
With a little help from our ancient friends
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.

NIH/National Institute on Aging, Science of Generosity Initiative of the University of Notre Dame

Public Release: 24-Jan-2012

Nature Communications
'Speed gene' in modern racehorses originated from British mare 300 years ago, scientists say
Scientists have traced the origin of the "speed gene" in thoroughbred racehorses back to a single British mare that lived in the United Kingdom around 300 years ago, according to findings published in the scientific journal Nature Communications. The origin of the speed gene was revealed by analyzing DNA from hundreds of horses, including DNA extracted from the skeletal remains of 12 celebrated thoroughbred stallions born between 1764 and 1930.

Science Foundation Ireland, Horserace Betting Levy Board, Leverhulme Trust, Cambridge Overseas Trust

Public Release: 23-Jan-2012

PLoS ONE
Dog skull dates back 33,000 years
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.

Russian Foundation for Basic Sciences, National Science Foundation, Social Sciences, Humanities Research Council

Public Release: 23-Jan-2012

Geophysical Research Letters
Waiting for Death Valley's Big Bang
In California's Death Valley, death is looking just a bit closer. Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thought -- and that conditions for a sequel may exist today.

Columbia Climate Center

Public Release: 23-Jan-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Science
Ancient dinosaur nursery -- the oldest nesting site ever found
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.

Public Release: 18-Jan-2012

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition
Ancient popcorn discovered in Peru
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.

Public Release: 17-Jan-2012

Cuneiform Digital Library Journal
The fermented cereal beverage of the Sumerians may not have been beer
4000-year-old cuneiform writings from Mesopotamia tell us little about the brewing techniques used at the time.

Public Release: 12-Jan-2012

Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Scientists confirm tobacco use by ancient Mayans
Archaeologists examining late period Mayan containers have identified nicotine traces from a codex-style flask, revealing the first physical evidence of tobacco use by ancient Mayans. The study published in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry reveals the flask is marked with Mayan hieroglyphics reading, "y-otoot 'u-may," ("the home of its/his/her tobacco,") making it only the second case to confirm that the text on the exterior of a Mayan vessel corresponds to its ancient use.

Public Release: 11-Jan-2012

Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry
Scientists discover the first physical evidence of tobacco in a Mayan container
Scientists have discovered the first physical evidence of tobacco in a Mayan container. Their discovery represents new evidence on the ancient use of tobacco in the Mayan culture and a new method to understand the ancient roots of tobacco use in the Americas.

Public Release: 5-Jan-2012

Geology
Earth's massive extinction: The story gets worse
Scientists have uncovered a lot about the Earth�s greatest extinction event that took place 250 million years ago when rapid climate change wiped out nearly all marine species and a majority of those on land. Now, they have discovered a new culprit likely involved in the annihilation: an influx of mercury into the eco‑system.

Natural Resources Canada

Public Release: 4-Jan-2012

Archaeological Institute of America
In ancient Pompeii, trash and tombs went hand in hand
Trash and tombs went hand in hand in ancient Pompeii. That's according to UC research that provides new insights into daily life of that city before the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79.

University of Cincinnati/Louise Taft Semple

Public Release: 3-Jan-2012

American Journal of Physical Anthropology
Scientists crack medieval bone code
Michigan State University researchers are the first to confirm the existence of brucellosis, an infectious disease still prevalent today, in ancient skeletal remains.

Public Release: 27-Dec-2011
Irikaitz archaeological site -- host to a 25,000-year-old pendant
The recent discovery of a pendant at the Irikaitz archaeological site in Zestoa has given rise to intense debate: it may be as old as 25,000 years, which would make it the oldest found to date at open-air excavations throughout the whole of the Iberian Peninsula.

Public Release: 22-Dec-2011

Science
Science's breakthrough of the year: HIV treatment as prevention
The journal Science and its publisher, AAAS, the nonprofit science society, have lauded an eye-opening HIV study, known as HPTN 052, as the most important scientific breakthrough of 2011. Additionally, Science has identified nine other groundbreaking scientific accomplishments from the past year and compiled them into a top 10 list.

Public Release: 20-Dec-2011

Yearbook of Physical Anthropology
Skeletons point to Columbus voyage for syphilis origins
Skeletal evidence that reputedly showed signs of syphilis in Europe and other parts of the Old World before Christopher Columbus made his voyage in 1492 does not hold up when subjected to standardized analyses for diagnosis and dating, according to an appraisal in the current Yearbook of Physical Anthropology. This is the first time that all 54 previously published cases have been evaluated systematically, and bolsters the case that syphilis came from the New World.

Public Release: 14-Dec-2011

PLoS ONE
Controversy over Triceratops identity continues
Despite their extinction millions of years ago, Triceratops continue to incite controversy. In the latest chapter, researchers present further evidence that three genera thought at one time or another to be distinct -- Triceratops, Torosaurus, and Nedoceratops -- actually represent different individuals that all belong to the Triceratops genus.

Public Release: 13-Dec-2011

Biology Letters
Endangered orangutans offer a new evolutionary model for early humans
Studying how the orangutans cope with a harsh environment may offer a glimpse into what early human ancestors faced, says Professor Nathaniel Dominy.

Conservation, Food & Health Foundation, George Washington University, Packard Foundation, Leakey Foundation, National Geographic Society, National Science Foundation

Public Release: 12-Dec-2011

PLoS ONE
The disappearance of the elephant caused the rise of modern man
Dr. Ran Barkai and his colleagues at Tel Aviv University connected evidence about diet with other cultural and anatomical clues to conclude that the disappearance of the elephants led to the emergence of Homo sapiens in the Middle East much earlier than first suspected. The findings set the stage for a new, revolutionary understanding of human history.


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