Paleontology
20 articles-
Digging for Our Origins in the Bone Beds of an African Park
In their search for the last common ancestor of chimps and humans, scientists at Gorongosa National Park are expanding the picture of early primate life. -
Portrait of the Human as a Young Hominin
How the world looked when we were Australopithecus. -
What Made Early Humans Smart
Walking upright made our ancestors easy prey. It also made them get smart. -
What Color Really Evolved For
The finding that melanosomes are so common inside animals’ bodies may overhaul our very understanding of the function of melanin, the pigment responsible for color in feathers and other external features.Photograph by Aline Dassel / Pixabay What color were the dinosaurs? If you have a picture in your head, fresh studies suggest you may need […] -
Redefining Dinosaurs: Paleontologists are Shaking the Dinosaur Family Tree to its Roots.
A radical reconfiguration of the long-standing dinosaur family tree challenges an orthodoxy built on roughly a century and a half of research. -
Why We Love Dinosaurs
If museums of natural history are temples to science, dinosaurs are their shrines. -
World’s Oldest Fossils Now Appear to Be Squished Rocks
Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine’s Abstractions blog.In August 2016, a research team claimed to have unearthed evidence of life in a remote outcrop of 3.7-billion-year-old rocks in Greenland. This bold claim not only pushed back the origin of life by at least 220 million years, it also added to a growing body of evidence that challenged the standard story of […] -
Dr. Kirk Johnson
Sant Director, National Museum of Natural History -
How We Learned That Neanderthals Bird-Hunted in Winter
A stocky male figure walks along a beach in what is now Gibraltar, on the southwestern tip of Europe, his pronounced brow shading his eyes. Pigeons watch over him on the cliffs overlooking the plain. Ducks float in the ocean off in the distance, and crows weave in and out of smoke from fires in […] -
Paving Over the Fossil Record
Why isn’t India doing more to protect its rare evolutionary record?
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Strange Worms Are Taking Their Place on Your Family Tree
The Cambrian explosion of animal life now seems more like a whimper.
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Spark of Science: Childhood Discovery
Kirk Johnson’s mom gave him 5 minutes at a rest stop. It was enough to find an arrowhead.
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The Rise and Fall of the Living Fossil
The idea that some species are relics that have stopped evolving is finally going extinct.
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Future of Fossils: Print Your Own Dinosaur at Home?
A 3D printout of the Plateosaurus vertebra placed next to the (mislabeled) field jacket that contains the original fossilRene Schilling et al. / Radiology In 1898, the American Museum of Natural History was presented with a golden opportunity along with a challenge almost as significant. Paleontologist Walter Granger had returned from a trip to the […]
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Ingenious: Ian Tattersall
The meaning of home in human evolution. -
Reading the Book of Life in Prehistoric Dung
“Paleoscatologist” Karen Chin has uncovered the humble origin of life after dinosaurs. -
T. Rex Might be the Thing with Feathers
Behind every famous dinosaur are unsung heroes. -
Handy Genetic Switch Helps You Grow Hands—or Paws, or Fins
When an enormous four-finned fish surfaced in a South African fisherman’s catch in 1938, scientists were fascinated by its resemblance to fossilized creatures that had died out millions of years ago. The fish, called a coelacanth, turned out to be the first descendant of those organisms ever spotted by humans. The two living species identified […]
