pleistocene extinctions
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Neanderthals Likely Killed and Butchered Cave Lions, Speared Skeleton Suggests
Marks on the ribcage of a 48,000-year-old cave lion skeleton suggest the animal was killed by Neanderthals, making it the first evidence that our nearest human cousins hunted the Ice Age predators. A team of paleoanthropologists and archaeologists recently scrutinized the remains of four lions: the aforementioned skeleton, which was excavated in 1985 in Siegsdorf,…
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Ancient Elephants Quickly Shrank Into Dwarfs on the Island of Sicily, DNA Suggests
Tens of thousands of years ago, so-called dwarf elephants inhabited the island of Sicily off the coast of Italy. Apparently, it didn’t take long for these elephants to shrink after their arrival on the island. New research suggests that the 9 tonne behemoths that originally came to Sicily slimmed down quickly, losing as much as…
