Sentences with phrase «early fossil finds»

This timeline highlights key discoveries about our closest relatives, from early fossil finds to the publication of the draft nuclear genome sequence.

Not exact matches

The fossils could represent the earliest known examples of H. sapiens ever found (if confirmed by further research), and they serve as evidence that members of our species lived beyond sub-Saharan Africa.

Early geologists KNEW that the fossils were created by a Global flood that is the only logical explanation for Sea shells found all over the world even on mountaintops.

Although earlier fossils may be found over the coming years, this is our best understanding of when and approximately where we originated.

Also, «For one thing, birds are found earlier in the fossil record than the dinosaurs they are supposed to have descended from,» Ruben said.

He adds that other recent finds suggest that water birds such as penguins did the same thing: Earlier this year, researchers reported finding a 61 - million - year - old fossil of a 1.5 - meter - tall penguin in what is today New Zealand.

ANCIENT MOUTHFUL Researchers who discovered and analyzed a nearly complete set of 2 - million - year - old fossil teeth from a lower jaw suspect that the East African find comes from an early member of the human genus, Homo habilis.

One problem early paleontologists faced was that they were limited to merely looking at a fossil and finding a living animal to compare it with visually.

Tim White, a paleoanthropologist not connected to the project, says the findings were published too early, with too much left unknown — including the age of the fossils and whether concrete evidence for the intentional placement of the dead exists.

Bone tumors are exceptionally rare finds in the evolutionary fossil and archaeological records of human prehistory, with the earliest known instances, before now, dating to 1,000 to 4,000 years ago.

Peter Hochuli and Susanne Feist - Burkhardt from Paleontological Institute and Museum, University of Zürich, studied two drilling cores from Weiach and Leuggern, northern Switzerland, and found pollen grains that resemble fossil pollen from the earliest known flowering plants.

Farmer's hunch was that early life on Mars, if it existed at all, followed a path similar to that of life on Earth and thus could be found in the same places and detected by the same means that paleontologists use to discover Earth fossils.

But the fossils from the Cerutti Mastodon site (as the site was named in recognition of field paleontologist Richard Cerutti who discovered the site and led the excavation), were found embedded in fine - grained sediments that had been deposited much earlier, during a period long before humans were thought to have arrived on the continent.

The evidence we found at this site indicates that some hominin species was living in North America 115,000 years earlier than previously thought,» said Judy Gradwohl, president and CEO of the San Diego Natural History Museum, whose paleontology team discovered the fossils, managed the excavation, and incorporated the specimens into the Museum's research collection.

The skeleton, along with others of the species found so far only at Malapa, are responsible for setting off a new golden age of early hominin fossil discovery in South Africa.

The first Neandertal fossils were discovered in 1829 in Engis, Belgium, and in 1848 at Forbes» Quarry, Gibraltar, but were not recognized as an early human species until after the 1856 discovery of «Neandertal 1» — a 40,000 - year - old specimen, including a skullcap and various bones, found at the Kleine Feldhofer Grotte in the Neander Valley near Düsseldorf, Germany.

But the tantalizing discoveries of 100,000 - year - old stone tools found in the mountains of Oman and decidedly human fossils in the Israeli Levant dating to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago forced anthropologists to consider the possibility of earlier migrations.

Interest in the Capitanian began in the early 1990s, when paleontologists found evidence for fossil extinctions in rock formations in China.

Among the fossils studied was this claw of an unidentified theropod, found in Canada in the early 20th century.

«The more of these fossils we find, the more we will be able to understand how the nervous system — and how early animals — evolved,» said Ortega - Hernández.

Two 9.7 - million - year - old fossil teeth found in Germany probably belong to a primitive primate and something like a deer, not an early human ancestor as has been reported

Paleontologists can sometimes return to the site where a specimen was removed and find other fossils missed by the earlier excavation.

Flo is «one of the most complete fossils found anywhere until you get to true burials, like in Neanderthals and early modern humans,» says Jungers, who has been closely involved in Homo floresiensis research.

Various specimens of Africa's earliest coelacanth have been found in a 360 million year - old fossil estuary near Grahamstown, in South Africa's Eastern Cape.

«Africa's earliest known coelacanth found in Eastern Cape: More than 30 complete specimens of the new fossil species, Serenichthys kowiensis, were collected.»

Together with a reassessment of known fossils, published in Nature this week by Spoor and colleagues, the find is stimulating new efforts to sort out the mixed bag of early Homo remains and to and to work out which forms emerged first.

An unusual fossil find is giving scientists new ideas about how some of the earliest animals on Earth came to dominate the world's oceans.

He subsequently found an extraordinary cache of mammalian fossils, including bats and rodents, from the early Miocene period, 20 million years ago.

Unhatched dinosaur embryos are also very rare fossils, but Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and a group of Argentine palaeontologists had earlier found bones in some of the thousands of eggs they uncovered in Patagonia.

He found that, although the bite forces were very large — around 1400 N, similar to that of a tiger — the incisors would have been able to withstand almost three times that force, based on earlier estimates by co-authors, Dr Andres Rinderknecht, of The Museo Nacional de Historia Natural, Montevideo, and Dr Ernesto Blanco, of Facultad de Ciencias, Instituto de Fısica, Montevideo, who first described the fossil in 2008.

The old hypothesis hinged upon the fact that many of the early mammal fossils that had been found were from small, insect - eating animals — there didn't seem to be much in the way of diversity.

The researchers found that some of the evidence for rising dino diversity in the Cretaceous period came from sampling bias; more fossils of different species are available from the period than from earlier periods — a factor that could be due to chance.

A perfectly preserved amber fossil from Myanmar has been found that provides evidence of the earliest grass specimen ever discovered — about 100 million years old — and even then it was topped by a fungus similar to ergot, which for eons has been intertwined with animals and humans.

The team compared the fossil's feather layout to the distribution of feathers on other fossils, including both dinosaurs and early birds, and found a surprising amount of variation between species.

For her PhD, Viglietti studied the fossil - rich sediments present in the Karoo, deposited during the tectonic events that created the Gondwanides, and found that the vertebrate animals in the area started to either go extinct or become less common much earlier than what was previously thought.

A large international research team, led by Israel Hershkovitz from Tel Aviv University and including Rolf Quam from Binghamton University, State University of New York, has discovered the earliest modern human fossil ever found outside of Africa.

Earlier this year, researchers working at another site in the Afar region found the oldest known Homo fossils: Dated to 2.8 million years old, the fragmentary jaw and teeth, not yet formally assigned to H. habilis, suggest Homo emerged 400,000 years earlier than currently tEarlier this year, researchers working at another site in the Afar region found the oldest known Homo fossils: Dated to 2.8 million years old, the fragmentary jaw and teeth, not yet formally assigned to H. habilis, suggest Homo emerged 400,000 years earlier than currently tearlier than currently thought.

According to Schopf, the fossils he found in Western Australia indicate that Earth's earliest inhabitants resembled cyanobacteria, single - celled organisms that turn sunlight into energy.

FOSSILS found in Morocco suggest our species began to appear as early as 350,000 years ago — adding as much as 150,000 years to Homo sapiens history.

David Frayer, KU professor emeritus of anthropology, is lead author on a recent study published in the Journal of Evolution that found striations on teeth of a Homo habilis fossil 1.8 million years old moved from left to right, indicating the earliest evidence in the fossil record for right - handedness.

By examining striations on teeth of a Homo habilis fossil, a new discovery led by a University of Kansas researcher has found the earliest evidence for right - handedness in the fossil record dating back 1.8 million years.

Fossils found in Morocco suggest the Homo sapiens lineage became distinct as early as 350,000 years ago — adding as much as 150,000 years to our species» history.

Gard found similar fossils deeper down in the sediment cores, indicating that the Arctic ice partially cleared at various times from about 128 000 to 71 000 years ago — a period covering the latest interglacial and the early part of the latest ice age.

Many ichthyosaur fossils were found in England during the early 19th century, but it was not until 1821 that the first ichthyosaur species was described — called Ichthyosaurus communis.

A fossilised bee's nest found near a revolutionary early human fossil can tell us more about the habitat the hominin lived in and how it got preserved

New fossils found in China show that flying fish were evading predators millions of years earlier than we thought

Finds such as the newly discovered Birgeria species and the fossils of other vertebrates now show that so - called apex predators (animals at the very top of the food chain) already lived early after the mass extinction.

The researchers, from North Carolina State (NC State) University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, both in Raleigh, say the newly analyzed fossil — parts of a skull, spine, and upper forelimb found in central North Carolina — represents one of the earliest examples of crocodylomorphs, a group of crocodilelike animals who ruled Earth in the Late Triassic.

An analysis of an ancient skull from China suggests it is eerily similar to the earliest known fossils of our species — found in Morocco, some 10,000 kilometres to the west.

Their survival depends on putting down roots deep enough to sup on what little water collects in scattered depressions and crevices — the same spots where the fossils of our earliest ancestors have been found.