Latest Pleistocene Stories
Abundant tiny particles of diamond dust exist in sediments dating to 12,900 years ago at six North American sites, adding strong evidence for Earth's impact with a rare swarm of carbon-and-water-rich comets or carbonaceous chondrites, reports a nine-member scientific team.These nanodiamonds, which are produced under high-temperature, high-pressure conditions created by cosmic impacts and have been found in meteorites, are concentrated in similarly aged sediments at Murray Springs, Ariz., Bull...
New research finds competition between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon populations, rather than climate change, was the driving force that caused the Neanderthal extinction. The study was published in the online journal PloS One on December 24th. Forty-thousand years ago Neanderthal populations occupied Europe prior to the arrival of humans. Researchers, who belong to the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, l'Ecole Pratique d'Hautes Etudes, and the University of Kansas, reached...
Extraordinary artifacts from the late Stone Age have been discovered in Russia. The location at Zaraysk, which is southeast of Moscow, has produced both the unique figurines as well as some carvings on mammoth tusks.The discoveries also consist of a cone-shaped item whose purpose; the authors state in the journal Antiquity, "remains a puzzle". Such inventive artifacts have been previously found in the nearby areas of Kostenki and Avdeevo, but this is the first kind of find at...
According to researchers, a wide-hipped Homo erectus fossil found in Ethiopia suggests that females of the pre-human species gave birth to developed babies with large heads.The finding leads some researchers to believe that helpless babies came along late in human evolution."We could look at this pelvis and then, using a series of measurements, we can calculate ... how big the baby's head could be at birth," said Scott Simpson, a paleontologist at Case Western Reserve...
In a new study, researchers have found what they believe to be a new pathway that allowed modern humans to spread beyond their ancestral homeland about 120,000 years ago.Rivers once flowed from the central Saharan watershed all the way to the Mediterranean, the team of researchers from the Universities of Bristol, Southampton, Oxford, Hull and Tripoli in Libya explain in the journal PNAS. These rivers could have made up a "wet corridor" through Libya for ancient human migrations out of Africa...
Experts now believe Neanderthals may have enjoyed a wide range of foods and a much broader menu than had previously been supposed.Cave excavations in Gibraltar showed that they were once occupied by the ancient humans show they ate seal and dolphin when they could get hold of the animals.Evidence even indicates that mussels were warmed to open their shells.The findings contrast the popular view that Neanderthals ate a diet utterly dominated by meat from land animals.Such findings provide more...
In the largest DNA study of the ancient wooly mammoths, Canadian scientists have discovered that the last Siberian wooly mammoths may actually have originated in North America. The study also raises questions about the role climate change may have played in the mammals' demise. They believe the mammoths likely survived through the period when the ice sheets were at their largest, even as other Ice Age mammals were wiped out.The woolly mammoth, also known as Mammuthus primigenius,...
Researchers recently uncovered a fossilized skull of a steppe mammoth in the Auvergne region of France, shedding light on the evolution of such beasts. The find is notably rare because while a handful of mammoth skeletons have been discovered, the skull is rarely intact. Paleontologists Frederic Lacombat and Dick Mol report that the skull belongs to a male steppe mammoth (Mammuthus trogontherii) that stood about 12ft tall and lived about 400,000 years ago, during Middle Pleistocene times.The...
New evidence debunks "˜stupid' Neanderthal mythResearch by UK and American scientists has struck another blow to the theory that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) became extinct because they were less intelligent than our ancestors (Homo sapiens). The research team has shown that early stone tool technologies developed by our species, Homo sapiens, were no more efficient than those used by Neanderthals. Published today (26 August) in the Journal of Human Evolution, their discovery debunks...
Researchers in the US and UK have concluded that tools developed by Homo sapiens were no more sophisticated than those used by the Neanderthals. The team of researchers, whose findings appear in the Journal of Human Evolution, recreated these ancient tools and compared them to each other.Researchers studied wide stone tools called "flakes," which were used by both Neanderthals and early modern humans. Also, they studied the complexity of "blades" "“ a narrower stone tool later...
Latest Pleistocene Reference Libraries
Camelops, an extinct genus of camel, was found in North America in places like Arizona and they first appeared there in the late Pliocene era. There are six known species in this genus. Camelops became extinct at the end of the Pleistocene era, around ten thousand years ago. The Camelops extinction was part of a larger die-off of other large animals including mastodons, horses, and camelids. The Clovis Culture, producing a burst in technology by humans, is thought to have been the cause of...
Miracinonyx, commonly known as the American Cheetah, is an extinct genus of large cats. It was native to North America during the Pleiotocene era(1.8 million to 11,000 years ago). The American cheetah held at least two species in its genus that are similar to modern cheetahs, including Miracinonyx inexpectatus and M. trumani. Similarities distinguished by bone fragments include a short face and nose for better breathing, and elongated legs used for swiftly hunting prey. These similarities are...
During the Pleistocene (3 million - 11,000 years ago), a genus of bear called Arctodus roamed North America. Little is known regarding the early history of these short-faced bears. Considered the most common of the early North American bear, they belong to the group known as running bears. About 800,000 years ago it is evident they became widespread in North America and were most numerous in California Remains have been found as far north as Alaska and south in Mississippi, and a...
