Paleontology

The available bones of Yuxisaurus kopchicki together with its skeleton reconstruction

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An article published in the journal “eLife” reports the identification of a new species of armored dinosaurs that lived between 192 and 174 million years ago, at the beginning of the Jurassic period, in today’s China. A team of researchers named it Yuxisaurus kopchicki and assigned it to the group of thyreophorans (Thyreophora), which includes the many armored dinosaurs such as the famous stegosaurs and ankylosaurs. The new species is the first of this group to be described thanks to early Jurassic fossils discovered in Asia. This confirms this group’s quick spread and diversification.

The vertebra found in the Ubeidiya site

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An article published in the journal “Scientific Reports” reports the attribution of a vertebra to the genus Homo with an estimated age of about 1.5 million years in the archaeological site of Ubeidiya, in today’s Israel. A team of researchers examined the fossil vertebra and compared it with other Eurasian hominin fossils from the Pleistocene period. The paleobiological differences led them to conclude that there were several migratory waves from Africa that correspond to the different stone working techniques discovered in archaeological studies.

Sediment from Denisova Cave (Photo courtesy Mike Morley)

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An article published in the journal “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences” reports the discovery of DNA of ancient hominins and animals dating back to the Pleistocene period in sediments taken from 13 prehistoric sites on different continents. A team of researchers including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and geoarchaeologists collected and analyzed sediments and found that even microscopic fragments of bone and feces offer concentrations of DNA belonging to various species. That’s another step forward in the recovery of very ancient genetic material that can offer valuable information on populations of Neanderthals and other hominins whose presence can be linked to archaeological artifacts and ecological traces.

Bone fragments from Denisova Cave (Photo courtesy Samantha Brown)

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An article published in the journal “Nature Ecology and Evolution” reports the identification of new fossil bones belonging to the Denisovans, the hominin species still mysterious from various points of view. A team of researchers led by Katerina Douka conducted a very sophisticated analysis of nearly 3,800 bone fragments too small to be identified by normal methods and found five that belonged to humans, four containing enough DNA fragments to establish that three belonged to Denisovans and one to a Neanderthal. The bones were found in a layer of Denisova Cave dating to as early as 200,000 years ago, making them some of the oldest human fossils from which it was possible to extract DNA. They’re important fossils also because they were discovered in the same sediments as animal remains and stone tools that offer information about that people’s life.

A silhouette of Australopithecus sediba showing the available bones with the vertebrae and their 3D reconstruction

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An article published in the journal “eLife” reports a study of Australopithecus sediba’s spine. A team of researchers created 3D reproductions of fossil vertebrae discovered in 2015 during excavations at the Malapa site, where the first bones attributed to this hominin species were discovered. This allowed obtaining an almost complete lower spine of the specimen cataloged as MH2 whose characteristics confirm the conclusions of previous studies that indicated that these australopithecines used their arms to climb trees like apes but used their legs in bipedal walking like the later species of the genus Homo.