All articles tagged with #iceage
A remarkably well-preserved Pacific mastodon molar, estimated to be at least 10,000 years old, was found in a San Mateo County creek and donated to Stanford for carbon dating and 3-D scanning to illuminate Ice Age biodiversity and support future conservation efforts.
A study analyzing ancient DNA from 521 woolly mammoths across Eurasia and North America (about 50,000 years) found that roughly 70% of mammoths at human-accumulation sites were female, compared with about 34% female at natural settings. This suggests prehistoric hunters may have selectively targeted female-led herds, possibly because these groups moved more predictably or females and juveniles were easier to pin down. The research, spanning multiple sites including a major Polish site with over 100 mammoths, was published in Current Biology and adds detail to how Ice Age humans hunted mammoths and how such hunting could have influenced mammoth populations and extinction timelines.
At Lingjing in central China, researchers uncovered deliberately crafted stone cores used to butcher game, showing planning and complex tool design by Homo juluensis. New uranium-thorium dating of calcite crystals inside a deer bone pushes the site's age to about 146,000 years, roughly 20,000 years older than previous estimates. This places sophisticated East Asian technology in a harsh ice-age context and suggests creativity and cognitive planning were already present under severe conditions, challenging the view that such innovation only arose in warmer times.
Scientists sequencing the woolly rhino genome from preserved muscle found in a 14,400-year-old wolf pup’s stomach reveal the rhino population remained viable in northern Siberia until near the end of the Ice Age, with extinction likely driven rapidly by climate warming rather than human hunting.
The discovery of a 17,000-year-old blue-eyed baby boy's remains in Italy's Grotta delle Mura cave offers insights into the genetic diversity and social structure of ice age hunter-gatherers. DNA analysis reveals the child had blue eyes, dark skin, and curly hair, and belonged to the Villabruna cluster. The infant likely suffered from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, possibly contributing to his early death. The findings highlight the challenges of limited genetic diversity and health risks in isolated prehistoric communities.
Researchers have confirmed that a woolly rhino discovered in Siberia in 2020 had a fatty hump on its neck, resolving a long-standing mystery about ancient cave drawings depicting such a feature. The specimen, found in Yakutia and dated to approximately 32,000 years ago, was in good condition and showed a 13-centimeter hump, providing the first physical evidence of this characteristic in woolly rhinos. This discovery supports the idea that the hump served as an energy reserve during harsh winters.