News by Subject Archaeology

New research by a team of scientists led by the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) has provided new insight on the evolution of bioluminescence.

The elk was the most important animal to the people inhabiting the northern coniferous belt, with its incisors being perhaps the most coveted part of the body. Incisors were turned into pendants, which were attached using strings made of fibre or sinew. The manufacturing techniques of the thousands of elk tooth pendants discovered in the graves of hunter-gatherers who lived approximately 8,200 years ago depict a homogeneous culture and strict rules.

ASU School of Earth and Space Exploration scientist Amanda Clarke and her team have been working to solve the mysterious root cause of the Sunset Crater eruption and any lessons learned to better understand the threats similar volcanoes may pose around the world today. But as to why it erupted, that has remained a mystery, until now. Clarke's group is among the first to show the importance of carbon dioxide in volcanic eruptions.

Homo sapiens emerged in Africa around 300 thousand years ago, where their fossils are found with the earliest cultural and technological expressions of our species. This repertoire, commonly referred to as the "Middle Stone Age", remained widely in use across much of Africa until around 60-30 thousand years ago. New research in Senegal shows this 'first human culture' persisted until 11 thousand years ago - 20 thousand years longer than previously thought.

Researchers have identified a spectacular new genus and species of flower from the mid-Cretaceous period, a male specimen whose sunburst-like reach for the heavens was frozen in time by Burmese amber.

A prehistoric croc measuring more than five meters long -- dubbed the 'swamp king' -- ruled south eastern Queensland waterways only a few million years ago. University of Queensland researchers identified the new species of prehistoric croc -- which they named Paludirex vincenti -- from fossils first unearthed in the 1980s.