ScienceDaily: Fossils & Ruins News

The two-meter skull of an enormous new ichthyosaur species, Earth's first known giant creature, reveals how both the extinct marine reptiles and modern whales became giants.

Analysis of ancient DNA from one of the best-preserved Neolithic tombs in Britain has revealed that most of the people buried there were from five continuous generations of a single extended family. By analysing DNA extracted from the bones and teeth of 35 individuals entombed at Hazleton North long cairn in the Cotswolds-Severn region, the research team was able to detect that 27 of them were close biological relatives. The group lived approximately 5700 years ago.

New research revealing a major migration to the island of Great Britain offers fresh insights into the languages spoken at the time, the ancestry of present-day England and Wales, and even ancient habits of dairy consumption.

An interdisciplinary Danish team of researchers has used new astronomical knowledge to establish an exact time anchor for the arrival of trade flows from the Middle East in Viking-age Scandinavia. The results are published in the leading international journal Nature.

A new study tracks the development of early humans' hunting practices over the last 1.5 million years -- as reflected in the animals they hunted and consumed. The researchers claim that at any given time early humans preferred to hunt the largest animals available in their surroundings, which provided the greatest quantities of food in return for a unit of effort.