Dogs Were Domesticated in Siberia Over 23,000 Years Ago, Study Posits
And at least 15,000 years ago – as the first humans walked to the Americas – they brought their dogs along
Evolution
Evolution is the theory that a species changes over generations, driven by a process of natural selection. While the existence of evolution is not in doubt, its mechanisms and the forces that drive its mechanisms are still hotly argued. At the simplest level, a mutation can be fatal, benign, or confer an advantage. Say the genetic change enables a creature to thrive in a wider temperature range.
Theoretically, the advantaged creature will procreate more than its regular brethren and the mutated gene will spread in the population over time. But even the consequences of evolution are debatable. Humans like to think that evolution made us the smartest animals, but first if all we can't actually know we're the smartest. We haven't learned to communicate with other candidates. Secondly, some posit that our smarts will kill us all.Then there's the microscopic parasitic jellyfish that evolved backwards, from complex to simple, losing even its genes to breathe, and it is magnificently successful.
Israelis Crack 2-million-year-old Mystery About Stone Tools
Chopping tools were the real original Swiss army knife of the archaic human set, says Prof. Ran Barkai, but nobody knew what they were used for – until now
‘A Rare Treat’: Paleontologists Detect 50-million-year-old Fossil Bug Penis
Yes it was very small, but the insect found in Colorado is so extraordinarily preserved that we can still see the stripes on his little legs too
Archaeologists Find Oldest Picture in the World. It’s a Pig
Early modern human art turns out to abound in Southeast Asia. The artists painting the Sulawesi cave wall over 45,500 years ago may have been depicting a whole social interaction between warty pigs
Sharing Scraps With Wolves May Have Created Man's Best Friend
Dogs are thought to have evolved from wolves scavenging our garbage, but now a paper posits that humans hunting megafauna would have had scraps to spare for their proto-pets
Ghostly Genes, Gal Gadot and Stone Balls: Best Archaeology Stories of 2020
On human evolution: cooking before fire, storing perishables before electricity, counterfeiting before money, enigmatic footprints in Saudi Arabia, moon gods and shamans and so much more
A 350,000-year-old Turning Point in Human Evolution Found in Israel
Analysis of a single rock used to abrade materials, probably hides, indicates sophistication in tool use much deeper in time than had previously been thought
Making Hand Axes of Bone Over a Million Years Ago Also Had Spiritual Motive, Archaeologist Posits
Whispers of cosmological meaning can be discerned in the way early humans interacted with prey, argues Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Ran Barkai
Early Humans in Today’s Israel Used Ash as Their ‘Freezer’
Archaeological analysis of 300,000-year-old stone tools from Qesem Cave shows hominins treated food and animal hides with wood ash from their fires in order to preserve them for a rainy day
Humans Reached Portugal 5,000 Years Earlier Than Thought
We may have overlapped with Neanderthals for thousands of years in the coastal caves of Western Europe, though that isn’t where our Neanderthal genes came from
Footprints Show Humans Reached Saudi Arabia Almost 120,000 Years Ago – or Did They?
The fossil evidence doesn't show any other Homo species around at the time but there's very little of that fossil evidence and Neanderthals were in Israel then
Forget Everything You Know About Bird Ovaries
Lady birds have one ovary but their dinosaur ancestors had the usual two: Extraordinary fossil bird from 120 million years ago sheds light on the evolutionary change
People Reached the Americas at Least 30,000 Years Ago, Archaeologists Say
In an abrupt paradigm shift, people reached the New World at the height of the Ice Age, not only afterward, even establishing a ‘school of rock’ in a big cave in Mexico
Israel's Desert Was a Lush Bridge Out of Africa 1.8 Million Years Ago, Scientists Prove
It was known the Negev was wetter in the past, but evidence of long-gone lakes hadn’t been dated: Now it’s clear that when hominins exited Africa at least 1.8 million years ago, the conditions were gorgeous
Hand Axe Made 1.4 Million Years Ago Shows Unexpected Sophistication
The 3-D symmetry and sharpened tip of the rare bone-based artifact shows advances only observed in sites half a million years later
How the Consumption and Extinction of Giant Animals Changed Human Evolution
Some think Homo erectus and its ilk dined chiefly on plants like latter-day hunter-gatherers. Israeli archaeologists argue that if they did, it wasn’t by choice
When Giant Bipedal Crocodiles Walked the Earth
Once thought to have been made by giant pterosaurs trotting on two legs, prints in Jinju are revisited and spring a surprise
A Tooth Changes Everything We Know About Humans Reaching Europe
Remains of a modern human 45,000 years old found in the Balkans show our ancestors coexisted with Neanderthals in Europe for around 8,000 years
Human Figure Detected on 14,000-year-old Burial Slab in Israel
The Natufians were the first to bury their dead in cemeteries, albeit in shallow graves, and mysterious slabs were placed in and above some graves. One found in Raqefet Cave bore an enigmatic engraving that may hint at elaborate ritual
Israeli Archaeologists Solve Mystery of Prehistoric Stone Balls
Shaped stone spheres were part of early humanity’s toolkit for over two million years, but what exactly they were used for has remained an enigma. Until now
Paleontological Surprise: Monkeys Sailed From Africa to Americas Not Once but Twice
There were two early monkey lineages in South America, not one. One lineage became the adorable platyrrhini and one went extinct
Oldest Human Genetic Data Gleaned From 1.8-million-year-old Tooth
Sequencing from a second tooth ‘only’ 800,000 years old provided researchers with key information on the position of the enigmatic Homo antecessor in our evolutionary tree
Earliest Animal With Head and Tail Discovered in Australia, Says New Paper
Worm-like Ikaria wariootia from 550 million years ago could be the missing link between the mysterious proto-animals of the Ediacaran era and animal life as we know it
Homo Erectus Was Sexually Dimorphic, New Evidence Shows
Experts explain to Haaretz how mere fragments of two skulls discovered in Ethiopia can be distinguished as male and female, and did it really use both crude and clever tools at the same time?
Israelis Find the Secret to Killing Deadly Algae Blooms
Toxic blankets of cyanobacteria and dinoflagellates are choking the world's seas and lakes. One company, BlueGreen Water Technologies, has a solution and it’s affordable and environmental to boot