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The research found evidence of the "incaprettamento" method of murder at 14 Neolithic sites in Europe.The murder of sacrificial victims by "incaprettamento" — tying their neck to their legs bent behind their back, so that they effectively strangled themselves — seems to have been a tradition across much of Neolithic Europe, with a new study identifying more than a dozen such murders over more than 2,000 years.The study comes after a reassessment of an ancient tomb that was discovered more than 20 years ago at Saint-Paul-Trois-Châteaux near Avignon, in southern France. The tomb mimics a silo, or pit where grain...

Jade Simon, a professor at Laramie County Community College, was a critical part of a paleontologist team that discovered a new species of meat-eating dinosaur that’s best described as a giant 170-pound chicken from hell. A new prehistoric avian dinosaur, similar to this one, has been discovered. A Wyoming paleontologist helped verify it. (Cowboy State Daily Illustration) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When paleontologists found a drumstick from what can best be described as a 68-million-year-old chicken from hell, they needed expert on prehistoric hell chickens to confirm it as a new species. And they found her in Wyoming at Laramie County Community College....

The world’s largest and most powerful particle accelerator is set smash protons together on April 8 to search for invisible particles secretly powering our universe. Theories have suggested there are 17 different particle groups and the European Organization for Nuclear Research, better known as CERN, confirmed the existence of one using its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in 2012. Now, the team has restarted the LHC with hopes of unraveling more mysteries of the universe - specifically dark matter. Scientists began preliminary tests by sending billions of protons around the LHC's ring of superconducting magnets to boost their energy and ensure...

Tails are useful in many ways, but — unlike these vervet monkeys pictured in Lake Mburo National Park in Uganda — humans' closest primate relatives lost the appendages about 25 million years ago. (Photo credit: imageBROKER/Shutterstock via CNN Newsource) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Humans have many wonderful qualities, but we lack something that’s a common feature among most animals with backbones: a tail. Exactly why that is has been something of a mystery. Tails are useful for balance, propulsion, communication and defense against biting insects. However, humans and our closest primate relatives — the great apes — said farewell to tails about 25...

A team of international scientists have discovered 240-million-year-old fossils from the Triassic period in China that one scientist described as a "long and snake-like, mythical Chinese dragon." The 16-foot-long aquatic reptile, called Dinocephalosaurus orientalis, has 32 separate neck vertebrae – an extremely long neck, according to the National Museums of Scotland, which announced the news on Friday. The new fossil has a snake-like appearance and flippers and was found in the Guizhou Province of southern China. Dinocephalosaurus orientalis was first identified in 2003 when its skull was found, but this more complete fossil discovery has "allowed scientists to depict the...

This video delves into the intriguing tale of Andrew Sarkus Mongali Enus, the largest land predator ever unearthed. Its discovery, nearly a century past, during an expedition in Mongolia, unveiled a creature of formidable proportions. Initially pegged as a member of the Mesonychids, a diverse group of mammals spanning small to large sizes, further scrutiny four decades later revealed Andrew Sarkus's true kinship with the Uintatheres, colloquially dubbed "hell pigs." The enigmatic nature of Andrew Sarkus is compounded by its solitary status within the Andrew Sids group, making it a challenge to reconstruct its full anatomical profile. Clad in fur...

In 2022, researchers stumbled upon the footprint site near the northern tip of North Africa while examining boulders at a nearby pocket beach. A team of archaeologists have unveiled the discovery of the oldest human footprints ever recorded in North Africa and the southern Mediterranean. The footprints, dating back an astonishing 90,000 years, were found on a beach in Larache, Morocco, by a multinational team led by Moncef Essedrati, a research professor and laboratory director at the French University of Southern Brittany. "Between tides, I said to my team that we should go north to explore another beach," Essedrati told...

Dr Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland, who led the research team which discovered that a 280-million-year-old lizard fossil is, in part, a forgery. (Image credit: Zixiao Yang) A 280-million-year-old fossil that has baffled researchers for decades has been shown to be, in part, a forgery following new examination of the remnants. The discovery has led the team led by Dr Valentina Rossi of University College Cork, Ireland (UCC) to urge caution in how the fossil is used in future research. Tridentinosaurus antiquus was discovered in the Italian alps in 1931 and was thought to be an important specimen...

The ancient forest displayed traces of early plants, with some believed to have existed during the time of dinosaurs. The region's cartography commenced half a decade ago, dating back to 2019. Researchers have discovered the planet's most ancient forest within a deserted quarry near Cairo, New York. Embedded in rocks dating back 385 million years, these fossils preserve the petrified roots of numerous ancient trees. This discovery signifies a pivotal moment in Earth's timeline. As trees developed these roots, they played a crucial role in extracting carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, sequestering it and triggering a significant transformation in...

Truth is often stranger than fiction, and some people will never accept the truth no matter how much evidence you show them. In this article, I am going to discuss two brand new discoveries that are radically shaking up how scientists view human history. Many of the experts are having a really tough time explaining these new discoveries, because they seem to directly contradict long established narratives that have been taught as “truth” to young students for decades. Unfortunately, we live at a time when narratives have become more important than facts, and scientific authorities have shown that they will...

The researchers found their watery prize while drilling sediment core samples out of the underwater limestone deposits that make up the Maldives archipelago in South Asia. After hauling each core onto their research vessel, the team sliced up the rock like a tube of cookie dough and put the pieces into a hydraulic press that squeezed any remnant moisture out of the pores. When the researchers tested the composition of these fresh-pressed water samples aboard their ship, they were surprised to find that the water was extremely salty — far saltier than the Indian Ocean is today. They did more...

A newly described fossil suggests that the ancestor of humans and apes arose in Europe, not in Africa...In the new study, the researchers analyzed a newly identified ape fossil from the 8.7 million-year-old site of Çorakyerler in central Anatolia. They dubbed the species Anadoluvius turkae. "Anadolu" is the modern Turkish word for Anatolia, and "turk" refers to Turkey.The fossil suggests that A. turkae likely weighed about 110 to 130 pounds (50 to 60 kilograms), or about the weight of a large male chimpanzee.Based on the fossils of other animals found alongside it — such as giraffes, warthogs, rhinos, antelope, zebras,...

Prof. Begun said: "Our findings further suggest that hominines [bonobos, chimpanzees, and gorillas] not only evolved in western and central Europe - but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa."....This migration, he added, was "probably a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests."

Researchers have discovered that an ancient gold disc found in southern Denmark includes the earliest written reference to the Norse god Odin, revealing that he was worshiped up to 150 years earlier than previously thought, according to a report. The piece of jewelry — which dates to the 400s AD — was uncovered in Vindelev in central Denmark in 2020 amidst a treasure trove that included Roman coins. For years it was publicly displayed at a museum near the site before academics had the opportunity to study it, according to NBC News. A runic inscription with a reference to Odin,...

An asteroid shower thought to have struck the moon and Earth 800 million years ago may have helped trigger Earth's greatest ice ages, a new study finds... ...to learn more about ancient impacts on Earth, scientists investigated the moon, since craters are preserved well in the vacuum of space on the lunar surface. They investigated 59 lunar craters, each about 12 miles (20 km) wide or larger using the Japanese lunar orbiter spacecraft Kaguya. The researchers analyzed when these craters formed by examining the rings of rock ejected from the impacts which created them. Small meteoroids rain down on the...

Implications of Polonium Radiohalos in Nested Plutons of the Tuolumne Intrusive Suite, Yosemite, California by Dr. Andrew Snelling and Dallel Gates April 8, 2009 Abstract The formation of granite plutons has conventionally been thought to be a slow process requiring millions of years from generation to cooling. Even though new mechanisms for rapid emplacement of plutons have now been proposed, radioisotope dating still dominates and dictates long timescales for pluton formation. However, a new challenge to those long timescales has arisen from radiohalos. Polonium radiohalos found in biotite flakes of granites in Yosemite National Park place severe time constraints on...

A groundbreaking study from the University of Copenhagen has presented a fresh perspective on Earth’s formation, suggesting it occurred in a few million years, far quicker than the previously believed 100 million years. The research indicates that Earth was formed through the fast accumulation of small pebbles, and water’s existence is a byproduct of this formation process. This theory provides a promising outlook for the potential of habitable planets beyond our Solar System, given that water is a critical ingredient for life. Earth formed in a few million years, much quicker than previously thought, through the rapid absorption of pebbles,...

Five billion years ago, the universe was Earth-less. It remained that way till a vast number of asteroids smashed together and compacted into a giant rocky orb. But that raises a question: The Earth's surface is 70% water, so where'd the liquid come from? A long-standing theory is that a water-rich class of asteroids, called carbonaceous or C-type asteroids, could've pelted the Earth during its creation and brought along water. There's a caveat though, and the C-type asteroids may be only half the story....

In November 2021, the Parker Solar Probe skimmed within a more-than-hair-singeing 8.5 million kilometers (5.3 million miles) of the Sun, a feat enabling it to detect the fine structure of the solar wind as it gusted tons of charged particles out into the Solar System through a hole in the Sun's corona, or atmosphere.The probe's readings give us the closest look yet at how the fast solar wind is generated, suggesting that a specific type of magnetic reconnection is what drives this powerful force of nature, according to a team of physicists led by Stuart Bale of the University of...

If the claims are true, the behavior by Homo naledi—a baffling, small-brained member of the human family tree—would pre-date the earliest known burials by at least 100,000 years. An extinct human species that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago may have deliberately buried its dead and carved meaningful symbols deep in a South African cave—advanced behaviors generally deemed unique to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens. If confirmed, the burials would be the earliest yet known by at least 100,000 years. The claims, made today in two research papers uploaded to the preprint server bioRxiv, were also announced by paleoanthropologist...