South Africa - Archaeology News

Analysis of fossil tooth brings to light earliest humans from southern Africa

July 14, 2022

Fossil tooth analysis by Southern Cross University geochemist Dr. Renaud Joannes-Boyau has played a central role in an international collaboration that has properly identified the earliest humans. Dr Renaud Joannes-Boyau with a Homo Naledi tooth [Credit: Southern Cross University] The new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, demonstrates that…

Africa, Anthropology, Early Humans, Fossils, Geochemistry, Palaeobiology, South Africa

Prehistoric ‘Swiss Army knife’ indicates early humans communicated

June 9, 2022

Archaeologists have found that a tool, dubbed the “stone Swiss Army knife” of prehistory, was made to look the same in enormous numbers across great distances and multiple biomes in southern Africa. This indicates early humans were sharing information and communicating with one another. Quartz tools from the Sibudu Cave site in South Africa [Credit:…

Africa, Archaeology, Australia, Early Humans, South Africa

Earliest geochemical evidence of plate tectonics found in 3.8-billion-year-old crystal

April 21, 2022

A handful of ancient zircon crystals found in South Africa hold the oldest evidence of subduction, a key element of plate tectonics, according to a new study published in The Green Sandstone Bed, (visible on bottom left), looking into the Stromatolite Valley, in the ancient Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa is the source a few…

Earth Science, Geology, Geomorphology, Palaeontology, South Africa

Ostrich eggshell beads reveal 50,000-year-old social network across Africa

December 20, 2021

Humans are social creatures, but little is known about when, how, and why different populations connected in the past. Answering these questions is crucial for interpreting the biological and cultural diversity that we see in human populations today. DNA is a powerful tool for studying genetic interactions between populations, but it can’t address any cultural…

Africa, Archaeology, Climate Change, Early Humans, South Africa, Tanzania

Ancient human relative, Australopithecus sediba, ‘walked like a human, but climbed like an ape’

November 23, 2021

An international team of scientists from New York University, the University of the Witwatersrand and 15 other institutions announced in the open access journal Australopithecus sediba silhouette showing the newly found vertebrae (colored) alongwith other skeletal remains from the species [Credit: Wits University & NYU] The recovery of new lumbar vertebrae from the lower back…

Africa, Anthropology, Early Humans, Fossils, Human Evolution, South Africa

First partial skull of Homo naledi child sheds light on enigmatic hominids

November 4, 2021

An international team of researchers, led by Professor Lee Berger from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa (Wits University) has revealed the first partial skull of a Homo naledi child that was found in the remote depths of the Rising Star cave in Johannesburg, South Africa. The skull was found inside a tiny…

Anthropology, Early Humans, Fossils, Human Evolution, South Africa

Oldest fossils of methane-cycling microbes expand frontiers of habitability on early Earth

July 14, 2021

A team of international researchers, led by the University of Bologna, has discovered the fossilised remains of methane-cycling microbes that lived in a hydrothermal system beneath the seafloor 3.42 billion years ago. The locality of the study area in the Barberton Greenstone Belt in South Africa [Credit: A. Hofmann] The microfossils are the oldest evidence…

Astrobiology, Earth Science, Fossils, Palaeontology, South Africa

Ancient ostrich eggshell reveals new evidence of extreme climate change thousands of years ago

July 8, 2021

Evidence from an ancient eggshell has revealed important new information about the extreme climate change faced by human early ancestors. Ostrich eggshell in calcrete [Credit: Philip Kiberd] The research shows parts of the interior of South Africa that today are dry and sparsely populated, were once wetland and grassland 250,000 to 350,000 years ago, at…

Africa, Earth Science, Human Evolution, Palaeoclimate, Palaeontology, South Africa

New fossil sheds light on the evolution of how dinosaurs breathed

July 6, 2021

In 2016, scientists from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, came to the ESRF, the European Synchrotron in Grenoble, France, the brightest synchrotron light source, for an exceptional study: to scan the complete skeleton of a small, 200-million-year-old plant-eating dinosaur. The dinosaur specimen is the most complete…

Dinosaurs, Fossils, Palaeontology, South Africa

Oldest plant fossils on the African continent discovered

June 8, 2021

The analysis of very old plant fossils discovered in South Africa and dating from the Lower Devonian period documents the transition from barren continents to the green planet we know today. Cyrille Prestianni, a palaeobotanist at the EDDy Lab at the University of Liège (Belgium), participated in this study, the results of which have just…

Africa, Fossils, Palaeontology, South Africa