Fossils & Ruins News
October 18, 2025
Top Headlines
Oct. 16, 2025 Long before humans built cities or wrote words, our ancestors may have faced a hidden threat that shaped who we became. Scientists studying ancient teeth found that early humans, great apes, and even Neanderthals were exposed to lead millions of ...
Oct. 11, 2025 Researchers have unearthed South America’s first amber deposits containing ancient insects in an Ecuadorian quarry, offering a rare 112-million-year-old glimpse into life on the supercontinent ...
Oct. 7, 2025 Ancient humans crossing the Bering Strait into the Americas carried more than tools and determination—they also carried a genetic legacy from Denisovans, an extinct human relative. A new study reveals that a mysterious gene called MUC19, inherited ...
Sep. 19, 2025 From the wreck of the royal Danish-Norwegian flagship Gribshunden, archaeologists have uncovered a rare glimpse into the naval power of the late Middle Ages. This warship, lost in 1495, carried an arsenal of small guns designed for close-range ...
Aug. 30, 2025 Scientists have finally uncovered direct genetic evidence of Yersinia pestis — the bacterium behind the Plague of Justinian — in a mass grave in Jerash, Jordan. This long-sought discovery resolves a centuries-old debate, confirming that the ...
Aug. 16, 2025 Chemical evidence from a stalagmite in Mexico has revealed that the Classic Maya civilization’s decline coincided with repeated severe wet-season droughts, including one that lasted 13 years. These ...
Aug. 13, 2025 Advanced computer modeling suggests that by 2080, waves driven by sea level rise could flood Ahu Tongariki and up to 51 cultural treasures on Rapa Nui. The findings emphasize the urgent need for protective measures to preserve the island’s ...
Aug. 9, 2025 Over 300 million years ago, Illinois teemed with life in tropical swamps and seas, now preserved at the famous Mazon Creek fossil site. Researchers from the University of Missouri and geologist ...
July 11, 2025 Scientists have uncovered DNA from 214 ancient pathogens in prehistoric humans, including the oldest known evidence of plague. The findings show zoonotic diseases began spreading around 6,500 years ...
July 3, 2025 When Siberian volcanoes kicked off the Great Dying, the real climate villain turned out to be the rainforests themselves: once they collapsed, Earth’s biggest carbon sponge vanished, CO₂ ...
June 3, 2025 Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could be triggered with very little ocean warming above present-day, leading to a devastating four meters of global sea level rise to play out over hundreds ...
June 3, 2025 A new study has finally confirmed the theory that the cause of extraordinary global tremors in September -- October 2023 was indeed two mega tsunamis in Greenland that became trapped standing waves. Using a brand-new type of satellite altimetry, the ...
Latest Headlines
updated 2:19pm EDT
Oct. 12, 2025 Researchers in Italy discovered 400,000-year-old evidence that ancient humans butchered elephants for food and tools. At the Casal Lumbroso site near Rome, they found hundreds of bones and stone ...
Oct. 12, 2025 New research along Turkey’s Ayvalık coast reveals a once-submerged land bridge that may have helped early humans cross from Anatolia into Europe. Archaeologists uncovered 138 Paleolithic tools ...
Oct. 11, 2025 Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia discovered over 170 ancient rock engravings that may be among the earliest monumental artworks in the region. Created between 12,800 and 11,400 years ago, the massive ...
Oct. 8, 2025 Researchers confirmed that Rapa Nui’s moai statues could “walk” upright using a rocking motion, aided by rope and just a few people. Experiments with replicas and 3D models revealed design ...
Oct. 6, 2025 A sweeping new geoarchaeological study has revealed how Egypt’s famed Karnak Temple complex rose from an island amid Nile floods to become one of the ancient world’s most enduring sacred centers. ...
Oct. 5, 2025 Researchers in Alberta uncovered a fossil fish that rewrites the evolutionary history of otophysans, which today dominate freshwater ecosystems. The ...
Oct. 3, 2025 A strange Jurassic lizard discovered on Scotland’s Isle of Skye is shaking up what we know about snake evolution. Named Breugnathair elgolensis, the “false snake of Elgol” combined hook-like, ...
Sep. 29, 2025 Scientists have named a new ichthyosaur, Eurhinosaurus mistelgauensis, from fossils found in Mistelgau, Germany. The marine reptile had a dramatic overbite similar to swordfish and unique skeletal ...
Sep. 28, 2025 Ancient copper smelters may have accidentally set the stage for the Iron Age. At a 3,000-year-old workshop in Georgia, researchers discovered that metalworkers were using iron oxide not to smelt iron ...
Sep. 27, 2025 Scientists reclassified a long-misunderstood fossil from Brazil as a new genus, Franscinella riograndensis. Using advanced microscopy, they discovered spores preserved in situ—a rare find that ...
Earlier Headlines
Sep. 23, 2025 A 95-million-year-old crocodyliform fossil, affectionately nicknamed Elton, was discovered in Montana by student Harrison Allen. Unlike most crocs, it lived on land and ate a varied diet. The find ...
Sep. 20, 2025 A newly discovered fossil in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert has revealed the oldest and most complete pachycephalosaur ever found, offering a rare glimpse into the early evolution of these dome-headed ...
Sep. 22, 2025 More than a century after its discovery, a mysterious fossil from South Wales has finally been confirmed as belonging to a new species of predatory dinosaur. Using cutting-edge digital scanning, ...
Sep. 11, 2025 Dating dinosaur eggs has always been tricky because traditional methods rely on surrounding rocks or minerals that may have shifted over time. Now, for the first time, scientists have directly dated ...
Sep. 11, 2025 Archaeologists studying the vast Zvejnieki cemetery in Latvia have uncovered surprising truths about Stone Age life. Stone tools, long thought to symbolize male hunters, were actually buried just as ...
Sep. 5, 2025 Two tiny pterosaurs, preserved for 150 million years, have revealed a surprising cause of death: violent storms. Researchers at the University of Leicester discovered both hatchlings, nicknamed Lucky ...
Sep. 7, 2025 Sauropod tooth scratches reveal that some dinosaurs migrated seasonally, others ate a wide variety of plants, and climate strongly shaped their diets. Tanzania’s sand-blasted vegetation left ...
Sep. 5, 2025 Scientists have uncovered microbial DNA preserved in mammoth remains dating back more than one million years, revealing the oldest host-associated microbial DNA ever recovered. By sequencing nearly ...
Sep. 24, 2025 Æthelstan, crowned in 925, was the first true king of England but remains overshadowed by Alfred the Great and later rulers. A new biography highlights his military triumphs, legal innovations, and ...
Sep. 1, 2025 Fossilized bones in Brazil reveal that deadly infections plagued sauropods 80 million years ago. Researchers uncovered unhealed lesions consistent with osteomyelitis, pointing to pathogens spread ...
Aug. 30, 2025 Spicomellus afer, a newly analyzed Jurassic ankylosaur from Morocco, is overturning scientists’ understanding of dinosaur evolution. Unlike any other known creature, it carried a collar of ...
Aug. 29, 2025 Seventy million years ago, southern Patagonia was home to dinosaurs, turtles, and mammals—but also to a fierce crocodile-like predator. A newly discovered fossil, astonishingly well-preserved, ...
Aug. 24, 2025 Scientists have discovered that a gene called MUC19, inherited from Denisovans through ancient interbreeding, may have played a vital role in helping Indigenous ancestors adapt as they migrated into ...
Aug. 21, 2025 Scientists have uncovered the world s earliest fossil showing both Neanderthal and Homo sapiens features: a five-year-old child from Israel s Skhul Cave dating back 140,000 years. This discovery ...
Aug. 27, 2025 Fossils unearthed in Ethiopia are reshaping our view of human evolution. Instead of a straight march from ape-like ancestors to modern humans, researchers now see a tangled, branching tree with ...
Aug. 21, 2025 In the deserts of Ethiopia, scientists uncovered fossils showing that early members of our genus Homo lived side by side with a newly identified species of Australopithecus nearly three million years ...
Aug. 13, 2025 An extraordinary fossil find along Victoria’s Surf Coast has revealed Janjucetus dullardi, a sharp-toothed, dolphin-sized predator that lived 26 million years ago. With large eyes, slicing teeth, ...
Sep. 10, 2025 A groundbreaking discovery on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi reveals that early hominins crossed treacherous seas over a million years ago, leaving behind stone tools that reshape our ...
Aug. 5, 2025 Tyrannosaurus rex might be the most famous meat-eater of all time, but it turns out it wasn’t the only way to be a terrifying giant. New research shows that while T. rex evolved a skull designed ...
Aug. 4, 2025 A new long-necked marine reptile, Plesionectes longicollum, has been identified from a decades-old fossil found in Germany’s Posidonia Shale. The remarkably preserved specimen rewrites part of the ...
Tuesday, September 23, 2025
Saturday, September 20, 2025
Monday, September 22, 2025
Thursday, September 11, 2025
- These Dinosaur Eggs Survived 85 Million Years. What They Reveal Is Wild
- Secrets Unearthed: Women and Children Buried With Stone Tools
Friday, September 5, 2025
Sunday, September 7, 2025
Friday, September 5, 2025
Wednesday, September 24, 2025
Monday, September 1, 2025
Saturday, August 30, 2025
Friday, August 29, 2025
Sunday, August 24, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Wednesday, August 27, 2025
Thursday, August 21, 2025
Wednesday, August 13, 2025
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
Tuesday, August 5, 2025
Monday, August 4, 2025
Friday, August 1, 2025
Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Monday, August 25, 2025
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Thursday, August 14, 2025
Saturday, August 9, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Monday, September 15, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Friday, July 18, 2025
Thursday, July 17, 2025
Saturday, July 19, 2025
Wednesday, July 16, 2025
Thursday, July 24, 2025
Monday, August 25, 2025
Saturday, July 12, 2025
- Inside the Maya King’s Tomb That Rewrites Mesoamerican History
- Tiny Fossil With Razor Teeth Found by Student — Rewrites Mammal History
Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
- This Team Tried to Cross 140 Miles of Treacherous Ocean Like Stone-Age Humans—and It Worked
- Farming Without Famine: Ancient Andean Innovation Rewrites Agricultural Origins
Wednesday, June 25, 2025
Monday, June 23, 2025
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Friday, August 29, 2025
Tuesday, June 17, 2025
Friday, June 13, 2025
Tuesday, June 10, 2025
- What a Dinosaur Ate 100 Million Years ago—Preserved in a Fossilized Time Capsule
- 2,000 Miles Through Rivers and Ice: Mapping Neanderthals’ Hidden Superhighways Across Eurasia
Monday, June 9, 2025
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Saturday, June 7, 2025
Friday, June 6, 2025
Monday, June 2, 2025
- Geological Time Capsule Highlights Great Barrier Reef's Resilience
- Researchers Recreate Ancient Egyptian Blues
Thursday, May 29, 2025
- Long Shot Science Leads to Revised Age for Land-Animal Ancestor
- Birds Nested in Arctic Alongside Dinosaurs
- Leprosy Existed in America Long Before Arrival of Europeans
- Anthropologists Spotlight Human Toll of Glacier Loss
- Rock Record Illuminates Oxygen History
- Dinosaurs Could Hold Key to Cancer Discoveries
- Does Planting Trees Really Help Cool the Planet?
Wednesday, May 28, 2025
- New Method Provides the Key to Accessing Proteins in Ancient Human Remains
- A Sweeping Study of 7,000 Years of Monuments in South Arabia
- Bed Bugs Are Most Likely the First Human Pest, New Research Shows
- New Velvet Worm Species a First for the Arid Karoo
- Europe's Most Complete Stegosaurian Skull Unearthed in Teruel, Spain
- Chemists Recreate How RNA Might Have Reproduced for First Time
Tuesday, May 27, 2025
Monday, May 26, 2025
- Megalodon: The Broad Diet of the Megatooth Shark
- A Root Development Gene That's Older Than Root Development
Friday, May 23, 2025
- Mystery of 'very Odd' Elasmosaur Finally Solved: Fiercely Predatory Marine Reptile Is New Species
- Earliest Use of Psychoactive and Medicinal Plant 'harmal' Identified in Iron Age Arabia
- Different Phases of Evolution During Ice Age
Thursday, May 22, 2025
- Ancient DNA Used to Map Evolution of Fever-Causing Bacteria
- Scientists Have Figured out How Extinct Giant Ground Sloths Got So Big and Where It All Went Wrong
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Thursday, May 22, 2025
- 'Selfish' Genes Called Introners Proven to Be a Major Source of Genetic Complexity
- Climate Change Poses Severe Threat to Bowhead Whale Habitat
Wednesday, May 21, 2025
- Enormous Boulder Washed Inland a Sign of Pacific Tsunami History
- Toothache from Eating Something Cold? Blame These Ancient Fish
Tuesday, May 20, 2025
- On the Origin (and Fate) of Plants That Never Bloom
- Asian Elephants Have Larger Brains Than Their African Relatives
- 'Sharkitecture:' A Nanoscale Look Inside a Blacktip Shark's Skeleton
- Research Team Traces Evolutionary History of Bacterial Circadian Clock on Ancient Earth
Monday, May 19, 2025
Friday, May 16, 2025
- Ancient Ocean Sediments Link Changes in Currents to Cooling of Northern Hemisphere 3.6 Million Years Ago
- Light-to-Electricity Nanodevice Reveals How Earth's Oldest Surviving Cyanobacteria Worked
- Very Different Mammals Follow the Same Rules of Behavior
Thursday, May 15, 2025
- Asians Made Humanity's Longest Prehistoric Migration and Shaped the Genetic Landscape in the Americas
- Scientists Use Fossils to Assess the Health of Florida's Largest Remaining Seagrass Bed: Surprisingly, It's Doing Well!
- Digital Reconstruction Reveals 80 Steps of Prehistoric Life
Wednesday, May 14, 2025
- Tiny Gas Bubbles Reveal Secrets of Hawaiian Volcanoes
- Dexterity and Climbing Ability: How Ancient Human Relatives Used Their Hands
- Fossil Tracks Show Reptiles Appeared on Earth Up to 40 Million Years Earlier
- Europe's Forest Plants Thrive Best in Light-Rich, Semi-Open Woodlands -- Kept Open by Large Herbivores
- Australia's Oldest Prehistoric Tree Frog Hops 22 Million Years Back in Time
- UV Light and CT Scans Helped Scientists Unlock Hidden Details in a Beautifully-Preserved Fossil Archaeopteryx