Free Republic

The hoof, preserved in section as a very thin clay layer, caps the end toe bone in the foot of an adult mummy of the duck-billed dinosaur Edmontosaurus annectens. Photograph courtesy of Tyler Keillor/UChicago Fossil Lab ========================================================= For the first time ever, we’ve been able to prove that some dinosaurs had hooves, thanks to two remarkably well-preserved mummified dinosaurs retrieved from Wyoming’s Badlands. The specimens are the duck-billed dinosaurs Edmontosaurus annectens that, thanks to a "fluke preservation event" are near-perfect 66 million years later. Known as “clay templating,” that process essentially encased the dinosaurs shortly after burial with a mask...

Seventy-three million years ago, Alaska’s ancient rivers flowed with the early ancestors of today’s salmon and pike. Researchers have identified three new species, including Sivulliusalmo alaskensis, the oldest known salmonid. Credit: Shutterstock ================================================================ Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest salmon in Arctic Alaska’s Cretaceous fossil. During the Cretaceous Period, dinosaurs ruled the land, but the waterways of the Arctic were home to creatures that would seem surprisingly familiar today. About 73 million years ago, Alaska’s rivers and streams supported an abundance of ancient fish related to modern salmon, pike, and other northern species. According to a new study published in...

An excavation in eastern Norway has uncovered traces of a dwelling and thousands of artifacts marking a shift some 9,000 years ago from nomadic hunting and gathering to a more sedentary lifestyle featuring fishing and the development of new technologies. At the time, the dwelling sat on high ground near a cove. Archaeologist Silje Hårstad of the Museum of Cultural History told Science Norway that a variety of tools were recovered from the site, including half of a shaft-hole club. "It was round, slightly oval, with a distinct drilled hole in the middle where a shaft was once attached," she...

Image credit: Gary Todd / Public Domain) When researchers digitally reconstructed a crushed skull unearthed in China, they made a surprising discovery, revealing features that could potentially alter the story of our beginnings. Researchers believe the skull, known as Yunxian 2, is approximately one million years old. This finding suggests that the lineages leading to modern humans and their relatives may have existed at least half a million years earlier than previously believed. The “Muddle in the Middle” The stretch of time between one million and 300,000 years ago has presented challenges for scientists studying human evolution. Fossils from this...

This new species, named Zavacephale rinpoche, lived about 108 million years ago (Early Cretaceous period). Young Zavacephale duel for territory along a lakeshore 108 million years ago. Image: Masaya Hattori Arecent discovery in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has provided the most complete and oldest fossil of an iconic dome-headed dinosaur to date. This new species, named Zavacephale rinpoche, lived about 108 million years ago (Early Cretaceous period). Palaeontologists from North Carolina State University announced the findings on September 17, describing it as a “once-in-a-lifetime discovery.” It belongs to the group pachycephalosaurs — dinosaurs known for their unique head adornments, including domes...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: * Fossilized footprints in Saudi Arabia show human traffic on the cusp of a subsequent ice age. * Like carbon dating, scientists use isotopes and context clues to calculate the approximate age of fossils. * These human prints were surrounded by animals but not hunted animals, indicating humans were just thirsty. ======================================================================== A uniquely preserved prehistoric mudhole could hold the oldest-ever human footprints on the Arabian Peninsula, scientists say. The seven footprints, found amidst a clutter of hundreds of prehistoric animal prints, are estimated to be 115,000 years old. Many fossil...

A new study has provided the clearest picture yet of one of Europe’s most debated fossils — a nearly complete human skull discovered in Petralona Cave, northern Greece. The fossil, first unearthed in 1960, has long challenged scientists with questions about both its identity and its age. A skull unlike Neanderthals or modern humans The Petralona skull belongs to the Homo genus but stands apart from known groups. It shows marked differences from Neanderthals and modern humans, leaving researchers uncertain about where it fits in the evolutionary record. Its age has also been a source of dispute for decades, with...

...archaeological evidence at one site called Madjedbebe in the far north of Australia's Northern Territory suggests the area may have been occupied much earlier -- at least 65,000 years ago.Archaeologists recovered human-made artifacts, including stone tools and ocher "crayons," from the Madjedbebe rock shelter and published their findings in a 2017 study. One difficulty in dating the artifacts, however, was the copious amount of sand on the floor of the rock shelter, which can move easily and cause artifacts to fall farther down, making them look older than they are.Although the research team took steps to counteract this issue and...

Newly discovered Grand Canyon fossils capture a rare moment in Earth’s history when early animals flourished in a perfect evolutionary setting. Credit: Stock ============================================================================== Exceptionally preserved Cambrian fossils uncovered in the Grand Canyon show how evolution accelerated in resource-rich waters. An extraordinary cache of remarkably well-preserved ancient animals, dating back over 500 million years, has been unearthed in the Grand Canyon, one of the most renowned geological landmarks in the world. This groundbreaking discovery, the first of its kind in the Grand Canyon, features microscopic fossils of rock-grazing mollusks, filter-feeding crustaceans, worm-like creatures with spiked teeth, and even remnants of...

[Video : Lead Actors: Reggie McGuire, Hannah Bradley. Secular museum docent (Reggie McGuire) presents his best case for evolution at the natural history museum, but little does he know that Christina (Hannah Bradley) has a few questions at the end of his talk that turn the tables…... Length: 67 Minutes [McGuire, beginning at 3:41 mark of vid] I encourage you to visit the exhibits that will help you visualize what we've discussed today. These exhibits should be marked in the maps that we provided for you. First, we have a wonderful exhibit that shows that apes and humans share about...

Who killed Tagliente Man, a Cro-Magnon who lived in Italy 17,000 years ago? New analysis reveals evidence of violent intragroup conflict and targeted violence. Using archaeology and skeletal analysis, the video pieces together a story of prehistoric humans. Scientists JUST Unearthed a 17,000-Year-Old CRO-MAGNON Mystery | 18:00Mysterious Origins | 51.3K subscribers | 1,163 views | July 22, 2025 | Premiered 6 hours ago

In a recent discussion on The Discovery Institute’s ID the Future podcast, geologist Casey Luskin explained that the original “98-99%” figure was derived from a single protein-to-protein comparison before the chimp genome was sequenced. Since then, we’ve gained a great deal more precision. According to Luskin, humans and chimps have about 35 million single base-pair genetic differences and five million insertion-deletion differences. Humans also have 689 unique genes not found in chimps. And while there are different ways of quantifying the differences, almost none of these ways yield the famous “98-99%” number. For example, in 2018, Queen Mary University of...

Moa were nine species of giant flightless endemic birds that belonged to six genera grouped into three different families. They evolved into a wide variety of sizes to become the largest terrestrial herbivores in prehistoric New Zealand.

One hundred years ago, a public high school teacher stood trial in Dayton, Tennessee, for teaching human evolution. His nation is still feeling the reverberations today. The law books record it as State of Tennessee v. John T. Scopes. History remembers it as the “ Monkey Trial.” The case ballooned into a national spectacle, complete with a courthouse showdown between a renowned, agnostic defense attorney and a famous fundamentalist Christian politician who defended the Bible on the witness stand.

There is no single answer to this puzzle. Dinosaurs dominated the planet for around 179 million years and during that time, evolved into an enormous array of different shapes and sizes. Some were tiny, like the diminutive Albinykus, which weighed under a kilogram (2.2lbs) and was probably less than 2ft (60cm) long. Others were among the biggest animals to have ever lived on land, such as the titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, which may have weighed up to 72 tonnes. They ran on two legs, or plodded on four. And along with these diverse body shapes, they would have produced an equally...

Early humans of Homo juluensis had a large head shape, with measurements notably larger than those of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Scientists have announced the discovery of a new human species, Homo juluensis, following extensive research published in Nature Communications. Professor Christopher J. Bae from the University of Hawaii and Xiujie Wu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences led the study, which sheds light on the diversity of ancient human populations in East Asia.

The human ability to walk and run efficiently on two feet arose around 2 million years ago with our Homo erectus ancestors. But our earlier relatives, the australopithecines, were also bipedal around 4 million years ago. Given the long arms and different body proportions of species like Australopithecus afarensis, though, researchers have assumed that australopithecines were less capable of walking on two legs than modern humans. In a study published online Dec. 18 in the journal Current Biology, a team of researchers modeled the skeletal and muscular anatomy of Lucy to determine her maximum running speed, the energetic costs associated...

In 2018, a female Neanderthal was discovered in the Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan. Now, archaeologists from The University of Cambridge have unveiled the reconstructed face of the 75,000-year-old woman, based on the assembly of hundreds of individual bone fragments recovered during excavations. “Neanderthals have had a bad press ever since the first ones were found over 150 years ago,” said Professor Graeme Barker from Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, who led the excavation at the cave where the woman’s remains were discovered. Neanderthals are believed to have become extinct around 40,000 years ago, and discoveries of their remains...

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...