ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

In a crisis, the bigger your social network, the better Posted: 05 Feb 2015 09:31 AM PST Researchers examined social networks in the late pre-Hispanic Southwest and found that communities that were more connected with their neighbors had a better chance of being able to successfully manage a crisis than did communities with fewer outside connections.

Methane seepage from Arctic seabed occurring for millions of years Posted: 05 Feb 2015 07:19 AM PST Natural seepage of methane offshore the Arctic archipelago Svalbard has been occurring periodically for at least 2.7 million years. Major events of methane emissions happened at least twice during this period, according to a new study.

15-million-year-old mollusk protein found Posted: 05 Feb 2015 05:37 AM PST Scientists have found 'beautifully preserved' 15-million-year-old thin protein sheets in fossil shells from southern Maryland. The team collected samples from Calvert Cliffs, along the shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay, a popular fossil collecting area. They found fossilized shells of a snail-like mollusk called Ecphora that lived in the mid-Miocene era.

Neanderthals disappeared from the Iberian Peninsula before than from the rest of Europe Posted: 05 Feb 2015 05:35 AM PST Until a few months ago different scientific articles dated the disappearance of the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) from Europe at around 40,000 years ago. However, a new study shows that these hominids could have disappeared before then in the Iberian Peninsula, closer to 45,000 years ago.

Malocclusion and dental crowding arose 12,000 years ago with earliest farmers Posted: 04 Feb 2015 11:46 AM PST Hunter-gatherers had almost no malocclusion and dental crowding, and the condition first became common among the world's earliest farmers some 12,000 years ago in Southwest Asia.