Earth and Environment - Paleontology
The first digital reconstruction of the face of « Little Foot »
Identified as the most complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date 1 , "Little Foot" was buried in sediments whose movement and weight caused fractures and deformations, making analysis of its skull-and more particularly its face-difficult.
A dinosaur with spikes exhibiting unprecedented properties discovered in China
Documented for 200 years, the Iguanodontia group is expanding with the discovery of a brand-new species, the first known to bear spikes with properties never before observed in dinosaurs.
Neandertal women and children were the victims of selective cannibalism at Goyet
The study of an assemblage of Neandertal human bones discovered in the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium) has brought to light selective cannibalistic behaviour primarily targeting female adults and children between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago.
Fossilised vomit reveals the diet of dinosaur predecessors
At the Bromacker fossil site in Germany, an international team including a CNRS scientist 1 has identified the oldest terrestrial fossilised vomit known so far. Dated to around 290 million years ago (Early Permian), several tens of millions of years before dinosaurs appeared, this fossilised vomit, or "regurgitalite," contains numerous partially digested bone fragments, including those of two small reptiles and an amphibian 2 , preserved in a phosphate-poor matrix 3 .
The oldest shell jewellery workshop in Western Europe
The oldest workshop for making shell jewellery has been unearthed at the Palaeolithic site of La Roche-à-Pierrot in Saint-Césaire, Charente-Maritime. Dating back at least 42,000 years and accompanied by red and yellow pigments, this unique assemblage in Western Europe has been linked to the Châtelperronian culture, which marks the transition between the last Neanderthals and the arrival of
