Venus’ Outer Shell is Shaping Planet’s Surface, Study Suggests
Earth has a hot core that heats the surrounding mantle, which carries that heat up to the planet’s lithosphere. The heat is then lost to space, cooling the uppermost region…
3-Million-Year-Old Oldowan Tools and Cut-Marked Bones Unearthed in Kenya
Oldowan tools, consisting of stones with one to a few flakes removed, are the oldest widespread and temporally persistent hominin tools. The oldest of these were previously known from around…
Neanderthal Diet Included Crab Meat, Archaeologists Say
Archaeologists have unearthed a rich assemblage of human-accumulated terrestrial and marine faunal remains, including those of several crab species, in Gruta da Figueira Brava, a cave in Portugal that was…
Archaeologists Uncover Upper Paleolithic Proto-Writing System
In at least 400 European caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet and Altamira, Upper Paleolithic humans drew, painted and engraved non-figurative signs from at least 42,000 years ago and figurative images…
15,700-Year-Old Projectile Points Found in Idaho
Archaeologists have unearthed an assemblage of 14 stemmed projectile points at the Cooper’s Ferry site, located on a terrace of the lower Salmon River of western Idaho, the United States.…
320,000-Year-Old Cutmarked Bones Provide Evidence for Exploitation of Bear Skins
Researchers from the University of Tübingen and elsewhere have unearthed the cutmarked bones of cave bears at the Middle Pleistocene site of Schöningen in Lower Saxony, Germany. Bear skins have…
Planetary Scientists Find Evidence for Active Mantle Plume on Mars
Elysium Planitia, a flat-smooth plain just north of the Martian equator, is underlain by an 4,000-km-diameter active mantle plume, according to new research by scientists from the Lunar and Planetary…
Chicxulub-Like Asteroid Caused Megatsunami on Early Mars
The Chicxulub-like asteroid crash landed in shallow ocean waters in the Martian region of Chryse Planitia 3.4 billion years ago (Hesperian period) and left a crater about 110 km wide,…
Ancient Gold Coins Reveal Long-Lost Roman Emperor: Sponsian
In 1713, a collection of eight gold coins of five different design types, one of which featured the unknown Roman emperor Sponsian, was found in Transylvania, Romania. The coins were…
2,000-Year-Old Inscribed Bronze Hand Rewrites History of Basque Language
Archaeologists in Spain have found a hand-shaped bronze object engraved with words in a Vasconic language, a precursor to the modern Basque language. The Hand of Irulegi. Image credit: SC…