Paleontology news

The outline of an ancient Roman city buried beneath cropland near Venice, Italy, has been mapped in detail for the first time with the aid of aerial photography, a new study says.

In its heyday, the city was fronted by what is now known as the Laguna Veneta, and a "brackish smell" likely filled the air, noted study co-author Paolo Mozzi, a geomorphologist at the University of Padua in Italy.

"You can expect a lot of coming and going, a lot of ships arriving through the lagoon from points in the Adriatic, [and] there were merchants running along the Via Annia," a road that crossed the city, Mozzi said.

Summer was hot and muggy, while winter days were often shrouded in fog.

The findings paint a picture of a sophisticated community with the know-how to thrive in a lagoon environment centuries before Venice and its famous canals emerged, the study authors conclude.

Crop Survey

Today the remains of Altinum lie under fields of maize and soy on the Italian mainland.

For their map, described this week in the journal Science, Mozzi and colleagues took advantage of drought conditions in 2007 to take photographs of the fields in visible and near-infrared light.

Plants growing on top of stone structures such as walls and building foundations suffer greater water stress than plants over canals filled in with sediment, Mozzi explained.

"If you look at it from the air, you see the geometry of these plants, which show underground the geometry of the structure."

Modern-day Venice sits on islands in the Laguna Veneta, which is separated by barrier islands from the Adriatic Sea.

Although it's miles away from Altinum, the study authors consider the mainland city to have been an ancestor of Venice.

Scholars believe that Altinum's residents fled their home during barbarian invasions in the fifth to seventh centuries A.D. and colonized the northern lagoon islands.

Records show, for example, that Altinum's bishop left for the island of Torcello in A.D. 639.

A few centuries later, Venice emerged from the dispersed islands in the central lagoon.

"Our point on the connection between Altinum and Venice is the movement of these people from the mainland out to living in the islands," Mozzi said.

"How can they do that? Because they were already very adapted to the lagoon," which became a safe refuge from less water-savvy attackers.

Venice Ancestor

Experts not affiliated with the research agreed that the new map of Altinum is a tremendous advance for understanding the little-known city.

For instance, the survey offers firm evidence that Altinum was a classic Roman port similar to the nearby ancient cities of Ravenna and Aquileia.

However, several experts emphasized that the city's link to Venice is complex.

Rupert Housley, a geographer at Royal Holloway, University of London, is studying how Venice took root at the heart of a lagoon.

The aerial photography alone can't back up the notion that Altinum was particularly well adapted to lagoon living, Housley said.

"Certainly the residents of Altinum may well have contributed to peopling of the islands, probably along with the other coastal towns," he commented via email.

But from the map there appears to be nothing especially unique about Altinum compared with other nearby Roman ports, he noted.

Albert Ammerman, an archaeologist at Colgate University in Hamilton, New York, said Venice arose organically from migrating residents of several coastal cities, including Altinum.

All of those cities' people, he said, "knew how to live in this aquatic environment. They had all the skills and local knowledge, so it wasn't very difficult for them to go out there" and survive.

credited to news.nationalgeographic.com

The mode of reproduction seen in modern sharks is nearly 400 million years old. That is the conclusion drawn by Professor Per Erik Ahlberg, Uppsala University, from his discovery of a so-called "clasper" in a primitive fossil fish earlier this year. The research results are published today in Nature. In February this year, a paper published in Nature by a team of Australian and British researchers showed that placoderms, a group of ancient fishes that died out more than 350 million years ago, gave birth to live young. Beautifully preserved fossil embryos in the body cavity of the placoderm Incisoscutum showed that these fishes, close to the common origin of all jawed vertebrates, had a mode of reproduction similar to modern sharks. Live birth requires internal fertilisation; sharks achieve this by using a "clasper", an extension of the pelvic fin that functions like a penis. The authors looked for a clasper in their placoderm fossils but couldn't find one, so they were forced to argue that it had been made of soft cartilage and had not been preserved.

Shortly afterwards, Per Erik Ahlberg from Uppsala University visited one of the Australian researchers and spotted a perfectly preserved bony clasper in one of their Incisoscutum fossils.

"It was lying in plain view but had been misinterpreted as part of the pelvis and overlooked," he says.

Together with the original authors he is publishing a short paper in this week's Nature that presents this missing piece of the puzzle and completes the picture of placoderm reproduction from mating to birth.

"It provides a pedigree of nearly 400 million years for the "advanced" and seemingly specialised reproductive biology of modern sharks," says Per Ahlberg.

credited to esciencenews.com

After nearly 30 years in the field, archaeologist Leonardo López Luján may be on the verge of the discovery of a lifetime: the only known tomb of an Aztec king.

The animal was found wearing wooden earflaps mounted with turquoise mosaic, a collar of greenstone beads, and golden bells around its four feet.

But López Luján, a senior researcher at the Templo Mayor Museum in Mexico City, remains cool and cautious.

The skeleton could be that of a dog or a Mexican wolf—a question López Luján's team hopes to clear up with DNA testing.

"It would be very important if it turns out to be a dog, as it would tell us that we are close to arriving at a funeral context," he said.

The skeleton "could represent the dog that accompanied the deceased to the other side and helped them to cross a river called Chicnahuapan, one of the dangers before arriving at the ninth and deepest level of the underworld," López Luján said.

Many ancient Mesoamerican cultures, including the Aztec, believed that dogs escorted their masters to the afterlife, he added, and archaeologists have discovered many dog skeletons alongside Mesoamerican human remains.

Unlooted Tomb?

The Templo Mayor canine skeleton was found next to a stone box that contained the remains of a golden eagle, flint sacrificial knives, crustacean shells, and balls of copal resin—tree sap thought to have been used in various substances, such as incense, medicine, and glue.

Recent excavations also uncovered unbroken plaster seals made of lime and sand.

The existence of multiple seals suggests that the tomb, if it's there, could be a collective crypt containing the king and his successors, López Luján said. "Each time they buried a newly deceased [dignitary], they sealed the entrance with a plaster seal," he speculated.

That the seals are unbroken suggests that the potential tomb has not been looted.

If there is a royal tomb behind the seals, López Luján would expect to find the ruler's ashes in stone or ceramic containers as well as the remains of servants, accompanied by personal objects and more offerings from the funeral rites.

The tomb, López Luján says, would not be as large as that of Tutankhamun in Egypt or the Maya funeral chambers of Copán in Honduras, "because the Mexicas [Aztecs] never build arches or vaults. It might be a very small room full of offerings."

Slow Going

Despite rising expectations, the archaeologist said he and his team must be patient.

Only by working slowly and methodically will the team be able to reconstruct the funerary customs and other artifacts that could shed light on the Aztec economy, political system, and religion as it existed before the arrival of the Spanish in the 1500s.

And now the workers must grapple with yet more challenges: the weather and a high water table.

"We have to go very slow," he said, "because now we are in the rainy season."

credited to news.nationalgeographic.com

An ancient fossil crocodile coated in armadillo-like body armor was unveiled yesterday at an environmental museum in Brazil. Dubbed Armadillosuchus arrudai, the newly described species of crocodile roamed the arid interior of Brazil about 90 million years ago, during the late Cretaceous period, scientists said.

Body armor has never been "found in any other fossil or living crocodile species," Ismar de Souza Carvalho, a paleontologist at the Federal University in Rio de Janeiro, said via email.

And "the strangeness did not stop there," Thiago Marinho, a paleontologist with the Federal University, added in an email. "This crocodyliform could [chew] like mammals do, like we do."

Most modern crocs simply use their powerful jaws to clamp down on their prey. But the fossil crocodile could move its lower jaw forward and backward, using its teeth to tear into dried meat, roots, pine branches, and mollusks, Marinho said.

Hot, Dry Climate

Paleontologists found the creature in 2005 in the Bauru region of São Paolo state, an area thought to have been hot and dry about 90 million years ago, noted de Souza Carvalho.

"Rainfall was seasonal, with flash-flood rivers. This is also uncommon to the living crocodiles and alligators that generally live in permanent waters," he said.

Armadillosuchus' arms and hands were likely capable of digging into the soil like those of armadillos.

"This could be a strategy to avoid dehydration in the arid environment—excavating holes in the soil—or to avoid other large crocodyliforms of that time," de Souza Carvalho said.

The team described the fossils in the February 2009 issue of the Journal of South American Earth Sciences. The fossils and life-like reconstructions went on display Tuesday at the Museu do Meio Ambiente do Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janiero.

credited to nationalgeographic.com

Prehistoric communities in one part of Peru’s Andes Mountains may have gone from maize to amazingly complex. Bioarchaeologist Brian Finucane’s analyses of human skeletons excavated in this region indicate that people living there 2,800 years ago regularly ate maize. This is the earliest evidence for maize as a staple food in the rugged terrain of highland Peru, he says.

Maize agriculture stimulated ancient population growth in the Andes and allowed a complex society, the Wari, to develop, Finucane contends in the August Current Anthropology. Wari society included a central government and other elements of modern states. It lasted from around 1,300 to 950 years ago and predated other Andes civilizations, including the Inca.

Scientists disagree about when and how civilizations formed in the Andes. One theory holds that complex societies, which perhaps fell short of states with centralized bureaucracies, first appeared at least 3,600 years ago in fishing villages along Peru’s coast and then spread inland. Based on remains of various wild and domesticated plants found at inland sites, other researchers suspect that agriculture had an especially big impact on the establishment of highland societies, beginning roughly 2,500 years ago. Questions also remain about whether prehistoric Andean civilizations depended primarily on maize or on a suite of crops including potatoes and beans.

Previous work has shown that prehistoric societies in the lowland areas of Central and North America depended on maize to grow large enough in numbers to develop state institutions, a pattern that Finucane sees paralleled in the Andes Mountains.

“These new findings indicate that intensive maize agriculture was the economic foundation for the development of the Wari state,” says Finucane, currently a law student at Yale University.

The new data convincingly demonstrate that highland residents relied on maize shortly before the rise of the Wari state, comments archaeologist Daniel Sandweiss of the University of Maine in Orono. A warmer, wetter climate during the Wari period and the spread of terraced cultivation areas may also have spurred maize farming, he suggests.

Not directly addressed by Finucane’s findings is whether ancient fishing villages provided the basis for later Andean civilizations, such as the Wari, says Sandweiss, a proponent of that hypothesis.

Finucane analyzed the chemical composition of bones from 103 individuals excavated by other researchers at six prehistoric sites in Peru’s Ayacucho Valley, one of several Andean regions where early civilizations arose. Ratios of certain chemical isotopes that collect in bone reflect the types of foods that an individual consistently consumed over at least the last decade of life.

Radiocarbon measurements of human bones at each site yielded age estimates that ranged from 2,800 years to 900 years. This time span encompasses three eras of Ayacucho prehistory: the Formative period of small farming villages, the Huarpa period of expanded settlements and irrigated fields, and the Wari period of centralized bureaucracy and state government.

Chemical signatures of substantial maize consumption appeared in the bones of individuals from every Ayacucho site, including three from Formative period sites, Finucane says.

Only a relatively small part of the Andean valley contains soil suitable for maize cultivation. Competition for cropland, he speculates, may account for evidence of considerable warfare during the Huarpa and Wari periods.

Finucane “makes a strong case” for maize as a key food in the Ayacucho Valley by about 1,800 years ago, but not 2,800 years ago as argued in his new paper, remarks Yale University anthropologist Richard Burger, who was not involved in the study. Only one skeleton in Finucane’s sample can be definitively dated to the Formative period, and signs of maize consumption in that specimen remain preliminary, in Burger’s view.

Finucane’s proposal is not out of the question, though. Another recent study of bone isotopes suggests that maize was regularly eaten at highland Andes sites in Argentina beginning around 4,000 years ago, says anthropologist Robert Tykot of the University of South Florida in Tampa. Tykot co-authored that investigation.

Chemical analyses are needed of other human skeletons that have been found at Formative period sites, Burger adds. Investigations of prehistoric diets in Andes valleys located at higher altitudes than Ayacucho will offer additional insights.

credited to sciencenews.org

It has been 400 years since English explorer Henry Hudson mapped the northeast coast of North America, leaving a wake of rivers and towns named in his honor, yet what happened to the famed explorer remains a mystery.

Hudson was never heard from again after a mutiny by his crew during a later voyage through northern Canada. That he died in the area in 1611 is a certainty, and he may have even been killed in cold blood, according to new research.

"The full story of Hudson's saga reveals one of the darker chapters of the European age of discovery," said Mancall, who explores the 1610 voyage in his new book "Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson" (Basic Books; 2009).

Before the fatal voyage that took his life, Henry Hudson found great success as a navigator the way many men did during the Age of Exploration — by accident.

Hired by the Dutch East India Company to find a new passage to spice-rich Asia by way of the Arctic Ocean, Hudson was ultimately forced by impassable ice to seek another route south. Sailing into what would eventually be named the Hudson River in 1609, he did not find the Northwest Passage he was looking for, but did manage to stake the first loose claim to the territory — including the island of Manhattan — on behalf of The Netherlands.

The value of the land he'd claimed for a foreign power wasn't lost on the rulers of his home country. Upon his return, England's royal council forbid Hudson from ever sailing under another flag, and he was sent back to the New World in 1610 aboard the English ship Discovery.

Hudson's objective was, once again, to find a northern passage to Asia, but he would never return from that trip. The Discovery docked back in London in 1611 without having reached Asia, without the captain aboard and with just eight crew, all of whom were now subject to death by hanging for the murder.

Some facts about the 1610-1611 voyage of the Discovery are certain.

Discovery plied the Canadian bay that also took Hudson's name in the summer of 1610, the captain believing that he'd possibly found the elusive northern passage to the Pacific. The ship was forced to ground itself for the winter, however, with Hudson ordering a return to the route the next spring, despite his crew's wish to return to England. When the ship took to the water again for its return trip in June 1611, Hudson was not aboard.

On trial for Hudson's murder later that year, the remaining crew admitted to cutting the captain and a group of individuals still loyal to him loose on a small lifeboat, according to court documents.

None of the men was convicted of the murder or even punished for the mutiny, and historians generally believe their claims, too. But some physical evidence points to a more violent end for the captain, Mancall believes.

Mancall highlighted evidence that was found and documented after the ship docked in London: blood stains, most damningly, along with letters from another sailor mentioning the growing personal rift between captain and crew. A number of Hudson's possessions were also missing.

Since Hudson's body was never found, however, it will never be known for sure whether the captain was murdered or given a more subtle death sentence, set adrift in the harsh environment of northern Canada.

It was Hudson's steely nature to press on and meet his objective that led to his demise, whatever that may have been, historians agree.

"Hudson was one of the most intrepid and important explorers of his age," said Mancall. "He was not a man who easily gave up."

credited to msnbc.msn.com

Australian palaeontologists say they have discovered three new dinosaur species after examining fossils dug up in Queensland.

Writing in the journal PLOS One, they describe one of the creatures as a fearsome predator with three large slashing claws on each hand.

The other two were herbivores: one a tall giraffe-like creature, the other of stocky build like a hippopotamus.

The fossils date back nearly 100m years to the middle of the Cretaceous period.

They were found in rocks known as the Winton Formation.

Beyond velociraptor

Queensland Museum palaeontologist, Scott Hucknell, said the carnivore, Australovenator wintonensis, was even bigger and more terrifying than velociraptor made famous in the Jurassic Park movies.

"The cheetah of his time, Banjo was light and agile. He could run down most prey with ease over open ground," he told reporters.

The dinosaurs have been named after characters in Australia's famous song, Waltzing Matilda.

The carnivore has been named named after Banjo Patterson, who composed Waltzing Matilda in Winton in 1885, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper explained.

Clancy, Witonotitan wattsi, was a tall slender animal, while Matilda, Diamantinasaurus matildae, was more stocky and hippo-like.

These two plant-eating, four-legged sauropod species are new types of titanosaurs - the largest animals ever to walk the earth.

Banjo and Matilda - possibly predator and his prey - were found buried together in a 98m year old billabong, or stagnant pond.

Breakthrough

The find was published in the public access journal Public Library of Science One, and was announced by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh at the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History in Winton.

She said the discoveries were a major breakthrough in the scientific understanding of prehistoric life in Australia.

Museum Victoria palaeontologist, John Long, said the finds were "amazing".

The newspaper quoted him saying that the finds put Australia back on the international map of big dinosaur discoveries for the first time since 1981, when the discovery of Muttaburrasaurus, a large four-legged herbivore that could rear up on two legs, was announced.

The new species will be part of the Australian Age of Dinosaurs Museum of Natural History under construction in Winton. This aims to house the world's largest collection of Australian dinosaur fossils when it is completed in 2015.

credited to news.bbc.co.uk