Archaeolgists Make Surprising Discovery About Ice Age Hunting Tools
Throughout 26 rock shelters and caves within northern Spain and southwestern France, researchers found 173 bone specimens, including 83 tools and 90 fragments. An analysis using Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) found that 131 of those specimens were whale bones belonging to sperm whales, gray whales, blue whales, fin whales, and right or bowhead whales.'Our study reveals that the bones came from at least five species of large whales, the oldest of which date to approximately 19,000–20,000 years ago,' lead author Jean-Marc Pétillon said in a press release. 'These represent some of the earliest known evidence of humans using whale remains as tools.'
The bones bear little sign of water wear, which means they were likely harvested from animals which had washed up on the shore rather than deep-sea hunting. Many of the tools were dated between 17,500 and 16,000 years ago, though the oldest specimen found dates back 20,000 years. In particular, the bones of sperm whales were found to be particularly popular in fashioning spears and other hunting instruments. Over 40 percent of projectile points and 73 percent of foreshafts analyzed were created from sperm whale bones.'What was more surprising to me, as an archaeologist more accustomed to terrestrial faunas, was that these whale species remained the same despite the great environmental difference between the Late Pleistocene and today,' Pétillon told Popular Science. 'In the same period, continental faunas are very different: the ungulates hunted include reindeer, saiga antelopes, bison, etc., all disappeared from Western Europe today.'Pétillon believes ancient people came from far and wide to scavenge whale bones and other parts when they washed up on shore. With further research, he and his team hope to deduce why tools constructed from whale bone declined so rapidly 16,000 years ago. 'The news of a stranding travels fast first, because it smells a lot [from a] long distance away, so people would concentrate from quite far,' Pétillon told New Scientist. 'So, it might not have been the main driver of people going to the seashore, but when that happened, it probably had an influence on the movement of the people who probably changed their planned pattern of movement to go there.'Archaeolgists Make Surprising Discovery About Ice Age Hunting Tools first appeared on Men's Journal on May 30, 2025
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USA Today
14 hours ago
- USA Today
Dire wolf meet-up: Watch Colossal's female wolf frolic with older brothers
Colossal Biosciences created three dire wolves using genetic engineering. Now that the wolves have gotten older – the two males are approaching one year old – they are being assimilated into a pack. Those cute dire wolves are forming a pack. If you remember, Colossal Biosciences, the company seeking to bring back the woolly mammoth, revealed in April 2025 it had successfully birthed a trio of dire wolf puppies. Using dire wolf DNA extracted from fossils – yes, dire wolves aren't just the stuff of "Game of Thrones" fiction, they existed tens of thousands of years ago – the Colossal researchers created dire wolf genomes. They used those as a guide to editing a gray wolf genome to express dire wolf traits. The resultant fertilized dire wolf eggs were implanted into and born by surrogate dog mothers, resulting in the successful resurrection of an Ice Age-era species. Two male dire wolves, Romulus and Remus, born in October 2024, are approaching their first birthday – each weighed more than 90 pounds at six months old, significantly larger than standard gray wolves, the Dallas, Texas-based biotech company says – while a female, Khaleesi (named after the "Game of Thrones" character), is about six months old. Home delivery: A meteorite crashes into a Georgia home. Turns out it's older than Earth. 'She's completely been accepted into the pack': All in the dire wolf family Recently, the Colossal team thought it was time to introduce the brothers to their sister. "We're working through the socialization and the introduction of Khaleesi into the pack," Colossal CEO and co-founder Ben Lamm told USA TODAY. "They're starting to behave more and more like wolves," he said. "We don't want them to be lap dogs." You can see Khaleesi come into a grassy, fenced six-acre section of Colossal's 2,000-acre ecological preserve where she first gets to meet Romulus, in a video posted Aug. 12 on Colossal's YouTube channel. "At first, she was a little like, 'Whoa, he's right there," said Paige McNickle, manager of animal husbandry at Colossal and manager of the team that takes care of the dire wolves. The older male wolf, Romulus, came up to Khaleesi, and they smelled each other and then she took off on a run and he followed her. "They were playing with each other. Their ears were up the entire time, which is a good, happy, calm, wolf behavior that we were hoping to see," McNickle said. After a bit, Romulus is ushered away and Remus is brought into the area. "They were both excited. Everybody was so good in play, but Remus is almost more gentle than Romulus," McNickle said. "Romulus is just a little bit bigger, and Remus did really good. We saw lots of play behaviors," she said. "They kept their ears up, they wagged their tails. They followed each other around. They all got to explore the pool together. When they got hot, they went right over and cooled themselves off, especially Khaleesi." The trio then got to play together, although in coming days, she will get extended time with one brother on one day and another on the next day, McNickle said. The play area has a collection of logs, which Khaleesi is small enough to fit under, where she occasionally played hide and seek from her larger brothers. "We want to make sure that … (when) they're playing, they can separate, they can socialize, they can smell each other, but then, you know, if Khaleesi wants to get away – or Romulus or Remus want to get away – we need to make sure that we give them that comfort so they don't feel overwhelmed or feel pressured," Lamm said. "But the great news about it is she's completely been accepted into the pack." Leader of the dire wolf pack That pack will likely be growing. Colossal is planning to engineer two to four more dire wolves over the next year, Lamm said. Rather than let these wolves breed, the researchers want future pups from "a couple different cell lines," he said. "We will actually get more genetic diversity." And wolves of different ages, as they are adopted in the pack, will grow up "in some kind of social hierarchy." As of now, Remus, the smaller of the male wolves, appears to be emerging as the leader, having exhibited Alpha male characteristics. When the dire wolves were first introduced to the world, Remus "kind of became the star," Lamm said. "Remus really has this take-charge attitude. … Romulus has always been bigger and I just thought, natural selection, the biggest and strongest." Recently, Romulus and Remus began receiving larger carcasses for feeding – from rabbits to deer legs and cattle portions, beyond their regular menu of ground meat, meat chunks, and other foods – so they would learn important social skills. Colossal is currently working with Grizzly Systems and Yellowstone National Park's Wolf Project, deploying audiovisual recording devices to understand pack behavior and wolf populations. Artificial intelligence software helps identify "specific wolves in that setting and then begin to understand how we can estimate population size based on how many times we count the same wolf," said Matt James, Colossal's chief animal officer, in another video on the company's YouTube channel. Those devices will eventually be deployed in Colossal's reserve to monitor its growing dire wolf pack. Those tools will make it "so that we can just be observing them in a more passive manner," Lamm said. "This is just the next chapter in their story." Colossal continues other projects amid dire wolf controversy Critics have argued that the pups are not truly dire wolves, but genetically-modified gray wolves. Colossal has countered that their dire wolves share 99.5% of the same genetics as the original dire wolf. Some have also scolded Colossal for tinkering with genetics, but the tech firm insists its work will aid in the conservation and protection of endangered species. Recently, Colossal announced plans to resurrect the long-extinct New Zealand bird species, the moa, at the urging of filmmaker Peter Jackson, who is an investor in Colossal. Colossal first gained attention with its 2021 announced goal of bringing back the woolly mammoth. Earlier this year, the company unveiled its Colossal Woolly Mouse, which was genetically engineered to have characteristics that could eventually be used in creating a next-generation woolly mammoth embryo to be born by a female elephant. In August 2022, the company said it also planned to de-extinct the Australian thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. Another project: the return of the dodo, which was killed off about 350 years ago. Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @ & @mikesnider & msnider@ What's everyone talking about? Sign up for our trending newsletter to get the latest news of the day
Los Angeles Times
a day ago
- Los Angeles Times
The next ‘Big One' on the San Andreas fault might not be the earthquake we expect, researchers say
What could the next mega-earthquake on California's notorious San Andreas fault look like? Would it be a repeat of 1857, when an earthquake estimated at magnitude 7.7 to 7.9 ruptured the fault from Monterey County all the way through Los Angeles County? Would it be more akin to the great 1906 San Francisco earthquake, which began just offshore of the city and ruptured in two directions, toward Humboldt County and Santa Cruz County? Don't bet on an identical sequel. That's the implication of a study published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The report, coauthored by scientists at Caltech in Pasadena, studied a massive earthquake that ruptured in the southeast Asian country of Myanmar on March 28 — on a fault known for being eerily similar to the San Andreas. The earthquake ended up rupturing a much longer section of the fault than scientists expected, given the seismology of the region. The implications of this study are that 'earthquakes never come back exactly the same way,' Solene L. Antoine, a postdoctoral fellow at Caltech and the study's lead author, said in an interview. 'It came as a surprise that you could get such a long rupture,' said Jean-Philippe Avouac, a coauthor of the study and a professor of geology and mechanical and civil engineering at Caltech. March's Mandalay earthquake devastated Myanmar, killing at least 3,791 people and an additional 63 people in Thailand. High-rise buildings were damaged as far away as Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam and homes were damaged in the Ruili area of China. Damage was estimated at $1.9 billion, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. It was the most powerful earthquake in Myanmar in at least 79 years. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake ruptured an astonishing 317 miles of the Sagaing fault, a finding based on Antoine's analysis of satellite data showing earth movement after the quake. That's the longest seismic rupture ever documented on a continent. By comparison, California's 1906 earthquake ruptured 296 miles of the San Andreas fault; and the 1857 earthquake, 225 miles. Longer seismic ruptures have been found only on subduction megathrusts deep underneath the ocean. What's clear from the study is that while California's next 'Big One' may share some characteristics of previously documented devastating quakes, it's unlikely to be an exact replay. As the recent experience in Myanmar shows, even well-documented faults can behave in surprising ways. The next step is to develop a model simulating earthquakes over many millennia for the San Andreas fault, which the authors plan to do in the future. But the San Andreas fault 'is far more complex,' Avouac said. 'It's not going to come soon, because it's quite a heavy calculation.' Still, such simulations would provide a model of 'all possible scenarios so that we have a better view of the range of possible ruptures that could happen.' For instance, maybe the San Andreas fault will rupture in smaller, separate earthquakes, Avouac said. Or it could be a much larger earthquake — rupturing the fault not just from Monterey to Los Angeles counties, but perhaps all the way into San Bernardino, Riverside and Imperial counties, which would possibly exceed magnitude 8. Such a quake would be the largest simultaneous disaster in modern California history, with huge swaths of the state wracked by powerful seismic shaking all at once. By comparison, the 1994 Northridge earthquake's footprint was relatively constrained, severely affecting only a portion of Los Angeles County, especially the San Fernando Valley — related to its relatively smaller magnitude of 6.7. But while modeling previous activity on the San Andreas fault will provide a glimpse into the wide range of possible outcomes, it will not pinpoint precisely when the next great quake will strike. 'We can't just expect the exact same thing to happen,' Antoine said. 'It is a matter of just showing what scenarios are possible, the diversity of scenarios and seeing what are the consequences of each of those scenarios.' Sometimes, Avouac said, 'it's quiet for a long time, nothing happens ... stress is building up, the fault is locked for a long time, nothing happens, and then, boom, you have a large earthquake.' 'And then you have other periods during which you have a lot of [seismic] activity, but these earthquakes are all smaller,' Avouac said. But 'smaller' earthquakes, in the minds of researchers, are still big to the layperson. In the study's simulations, there are periods where earthquakes around magnitude 7.7 are common. In other periods, earthquakes max out at magnitude 7.5 or so, but are more frequent. The entire length of the Sagaing fault — including areas that didn't rupture in the March earthquake — is 750 miles, north to south, from the Himalayas to the Andaman Sea, and helps accommodate the northward push of the Indian tectonic plate. The fact that 317 miles of the Sagaing fault ruptured in March was surprising to scientists. Only about 170 miles had been quiet seismically for more than a century, having last ruptured in 1839. Scientists call these 'seismic gaps' — particular areas of a fault that haven't recently ruptured. Generally, scientists would've expected only this long-dormant 170-mile piece of the Sagaing fault to rupture, Avouac said, but not more recently ruptured sections. That includes a 100-mile stretch that ruptured in large earthquakes in 1929 and 1930, and a 50-mile stretch that went off in a pair of quakes in 1946 and 1956. Instead, even those fault segments ruptured in the big March earthquake. So what gives? A possible explanation is the Sagaing fault's extraordinary smoothness. 'And people have observed that when the fault is very smooth, the rupture ... tends to propagate at a velocity' so fast that it results in an 'extremely elongated rupture,' Avouac said. The study also published the results of a computer model simulation looking at how earthquakes might rupture along sections of the entire 750-mile long Sagaing fault. The code, developed by study coauthor Kyungjae Im of Caltech, suggests that over a hypothetical 1,400-year period, there would be no repeatable patterns. In other words, earthquakes didn't seem to re-occur like clockwork, rupturing the same stretch of fault in a repeatable, predictable pattern. 'There is complexity here. And this is because each time you have an earthquake, it redistributes the stress on the fault, which is going to influence the next earthquake,' Avouac said. 'There's a self-induced complexity in the process, and that leads to a bit of randomness.' There is one certainty, which is bound to disappoint anyone who shares the hope that a 'Big One' simply won't ever strike California again. 'There will be an earthquake at some point,' Antoine said. 'If there is stress building up on the fault, the fault won't hold forever.' Further research and observations are essential to refine models of future possible earthquakes, including from the Sentinel satellites, which are operated by the European Space Agency, the authors said. The other coauthors of the study are Rajani Shrestha and Chris Milliner of Caltech; Chris Rollins of Earth Sciences New Zealand; Kang Wang of the Washington-based EarthScope Consortium; and Kejie Chen of the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, China.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Bones in Norway Cave Reveal Chilling Fate of Ice Age Animals
For 75,000 years, the remnants of a diverse ecosystem of Ice Age animals have lain hidden in the shelter of Arne Qvam Cave in Norway. Scientists have only just begun to grasp the full scope of its contents, which are the oldest evidence we have describing the diversity of animals that flourished in one of the glacial period's warmer stints. This rare and remarkably extensive archive of ancient Arctic fauna covers a wide spectrum of vertebrates, from small mammals like the collared lemmings (Dicrostonyx torquatus) and voles (Alexandromys oeconomus) that scurried across the tundra, marine and freshwater fish, and more than 20 bird species, to the landscape's largest marine mammals, like whales, walruses, and even a polar bear. Related link: "We have very little evidence of what Arctic life was like in this period because of the lack of preserved remains over 10,000 years old," says evolutionary biologist Sanne Boessenkool of the University of Oslo. This find fills a "significant void in our understanding of biodiversity and the environment during a period of dramatic climate change," Boessenkool and team write in their paper describing the finds. The cave was concealed within a mountain until the 1990s, when a tunnel built for mining exposed the secret chamber. Even then, large excavations were not carried out until 2021 and 2022, when the animal remains emerged from the lower layers of sedimentary rock. The collared lemmings were a particularly exciting find: this species is now extinct in Europe, and until now, the only signs they had ever lived there were from Scandinavia. The remains of freshwater fish suggest there were lakes and rivers in the tundra environment, while bowhead whales and walruses would have required sea ice. This probably wasn't present year-round, however, because the harbour porpoises also found in the cave avoid waters that have frozen over. These animals were living in a period of global cooling. The entire ecosystem seems to have depended on melting glaciers that provided fresh water and exposed the ocean; once the landscape froze over once again, the biodiversity disappeared, suggesting the mix of animals were unable to migrate or adapt to the colder, drier environment. "This highlights how cold adapted species struggle to adapt to major climatic events. This has a direct link to the challenges they are facing in the Arctic today as the climate warms at a rapid pace," lead author and Bournemouth University zooarchaeologist Sam Walker says. "The habitats these animals in the region live in today are much more fractured than 75,000 years ago, so it is even harder for animal populations to move and adapt." While many of these kinds of animals can still be found in the Arctic today, they no longer live in the cave's vicinity. When the researchers compared the bones' mitochondrial DNA with those of extant populations, they found none of the ancient lineages had survived when the glaciers froze up again. But, as Boessenkool points out, "this was a shift to a colder [climate], not a period of warming that we are facing today. "And these are cold-adapted species – so if they struggled to cope with colder periods in the past, it will be even harder for these species to adapt to a warming climate," she says. This research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Related News The DNA of Great White Sharks Defies Explanation. Here's Why. Meet The 'Genital King' Tarantula And Its Record-Breaking Sexual Organ Giant Stick Insect Found Hiding in Rainforest May Be Australia's Heaviest Solve the daily Crossword
