The early settlement of the Americas is hugely contested area of archaeology.
The fossil deposits at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles have well-preserved remains of many prehistoric animals that got stuck in natural asphalt seeps over the past 60,000 years.
Cullen Townsend, courtesy of NHMLAC
Emily Lindsey, University of California, Los Angeles; Lisa N. Martinez, University of California, Los Angeles et Regan E. Dunn, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences
New findings from the La Brea Tar Pits in southern California suggest human-caused wildfires in the region, along with a warming climate, led to the loss of most of the area’s large mammals.
Soaring wetland emissions of methane mirror those which accompanied previous abrupt changes in Earth’s climate.
I. Noyan Yilmaz/Shutterstock
New research dating and reading the rocks of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia reveals a fascinating story about how complex life emerged on our planet.
Is the sun setting on the Atlantic ocean current system? While not impossible, it is certainly not imminent, and overly sensationalist headlines do little to further the cause of tackling the climate crisis.
(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
Recent headlines around the supposed impending collapse of the Atlantic currents remind us of the importance of avoiding sensationalism in facing global warming.
Recent heat waves underscore Earth’s new climate state.
Sean Gladwell via Getty Images
Long before thermometers, nature left its own temperature records. A climate scientist explains how ongoing global warming compares with ancient temperatures.
Water and sediment pour off the melting margin of the Greenland ice sheet.
Jason Edwards/Photodisc via Getty Images
A forensic technique more often used at modern crime scenes identified blood residue from large extinct animals on spearpoints and stone tools used by people who lived in the Carolinas millennia ago.
Unravelling the mystery of how life in Antarctica survived past ice ages involved sampling some of the oldest museum records. When combined with a dating database, a familiar story is revealed.
During the Ice Age, hunter-gatherer societies built sedentary settlements.
(Shutterstock)
When, how, where and why did complex hierarchical societies evolve? Understanding how we got to this point in time may help us address global challenges, like climate change.
DNA from ancient eastern moa bones is unlocking the secrets of their survival during the last ice age, and providing lessons for today’s threatened species.
Wolverine numbers are declining globally due to heavy trapping and predator killing by humans, habitat loss, climate change and various other factors.
(Shutterstock)
The key to protecting wolverines around the world is to reduce trapping, minimize predator control pressures, and to protect and connect large blocks of intact habitat they need to survive.
The Earth viewed from the Apollo 8 lunar mission on Dec. 24, 1968.
NASA
Biologists have used ancient DNA, preserved in fossil bones for millennia, to study the evolution of large species, but now they can employ it to study small animals like lizards and frogs.
Genetic material found in permafrost sediments from the Yukon contains rich information about ancient ecosystems.
(Julius Csotonyi/Government of Yukon)