From the 15th to the 19th centuries, more than 12 million Africans were enslaved and sent to the Americas and Europe. Combining dental records with a map of strontium ratios across sub-Saharan Africa is allowing researchers to pinpoint some slaves' birthplaces.Joseph Swain/Wikimedia CommonsA little-known element is offering new insights into the transatlantic slave trade....
Credit: PixabayAncient fossils of the world's very first dinosaurs may be buried in places almost impossible to investigate, according to new research from University College London and the UK's Natural History Museum.Oldest Dinosaur Fossils and Their Evolutionary SignificanceThe oldest dinosaur fossils currently on record date back around 230 million years. These specimens, recovered from...
Men standing on a massive pile of buffalo skulls, Michigan Carbon Works, Rougeville MI, 1892. (Burton Historical Collection, Detroit Public Library)Human activity has driven unprecedented species extinction, but history offers earlier examples of ecological devastation. The 19th-century extermination of North America's bison is a stark case of human impact, captured in a haunting photograph of...
Credit: PixabayAround 900,000 years ago, stone tool technology took a major leap forward in Spain. Anthropologist Diego Lombao from the University of Santiago de Compostela and his team discovered the earliest known European example of advanced stone tool techniques at El Barranc de la Boella in northeastern Spain.This technological advance predates the evolutionary split...
The Step Pyramid of Djoser may have been built using a hydraulic system, according to a new studyCharles J. Sharp/CC BY-SA 3.0The ingenuity of ancient Egyptian engineers might have been even more advanced than previously thought. A new study proposes that an unexplained ancient structure could have been part of a water purification system,...
Credit: RMS TitanicThe first expedition to the Titanic since last year's Titan submersible disaster, which resulted in the loss of five lives, is currently underway. The mission aims to conduct the most detailed imaging survey yet of the historic wreck to study the impact of the sea environment on the ship.When the RMS Titanic...
Credit: BETH ZAIKENFour thousand years ago, the last woolly mammoth on an island off the coast of modern-day Siberia died. This isolation could have led to fatal inbreeding and population declines, contributing to the species' extinction.However, a new study reveals that while the Wrangel Island mammoths were indeed inbred, this alone did not...
The Royal Canadian Geographical Society (RCGS) has located the wreck of the ship used for Sir Ernest Shackleton's final Antarctic expedition off the coast of Labrador. The vessel, named the Quest, sank in May 1962, the same ship on which Sir Ernest Shackleton passed away in 1922.
Researchers claim that Homo naledi, a small-brained human relative, buried its dead and made art long before our own species did.MARK THIESSEN/NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICThree papers that were presented at a meeting today and put online laid out an astounding situation. It is suggested that approximately 240,000 years ago, a large network of limestone caves in South...
According to the team, the oldest known fossil skin samples resemble the skin of modern crocodiles. DepositphotosScientists have found the oldest skin fossils, which are from a time long before dinosaurs existed. These samples, discovered in a cave in Oklahoma, show that reptile scales have barely changed in 286 million years.Most fossils in museums...
