The bones of saber-tooth cats and extinct dire wolves from downtown Los Angeles still bear the marks of injuries sustained in battle more than 11,500 years ago, researchers say.
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Mastodon Site in San Diego Said to Be Earliest Sign of Humans in America, Riling Skeptics
A new study claims that humans were hunting in California 130,000 years ago, but skeptics abound.
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N. America’s Oldest Bison Fossil Found, Revealing ‘Mother of All Bison’
A fossil bone found in Yukon reveals that all North American bison descended from a single female that crossed into the Americas less than 200,000 years ago.
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World’s Oldest Bed Bugs Found in Oregon Cave Where Ancient Americans Slept
Archaeologists have found the remains of bed bugs dating back 11,000 years — the oldest ever — in an Oregon cave thought to be among the earliest known sites of human habitation in the West.
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Clovis Culture, Ice Age Fauna Weren’t Wiped Out by Cosmic Impact, Study Finds
A new study may finally put to rest one of the most vexing theories about America’s natural history: that the giant fauna of the Ice Age — and the culture of humans who hunted them — were wiped out by a cosmic impact.
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Bones in Yukon Cave Show Humans in North America 24,000 Years Ago, Study Says
A close look at bones found in a Yukon cave may confirm a controversial finding made decades ago: that humans arrived in North America 10,000 years earlier than many experts believe.
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Ice Age Cave Dwellers in Oregon Lived Among Extinct ‘Stout-Legged’ Horses, Fossils Show
Some of the earliest known inhabitants of the Pacific Northwest lived alongside a now-extinct species of ‘stout-legged’ horse, scientists say.
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‘Unusual’ Mammoth Fossil Discovered on California Island
Scientists have discovered the remains of an “unusual” mammoth that lived alongside some of the earliest known human inhabitants of Southern California.
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Ice Age Fire Pits in Alaska Reveal Earliest Evidence of Salmon Cooking
Fire pits in Alaska, dated to at least 11,800 years old, have revealed the earliest evidence of salmon cooking in the New World.
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12,000-Year-Old Camp Found in Utah May Have Experts “Adjusting Their Theories”
An Ice Age hunting camp being excavated west of Salt Lake City is the first archaeological find of its kind, for several reasons, researchers say.
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Woolly Mammoths Survived on Alaska Island Until Just 5,600 Years Ago, New Study Shows
On a remote Alaskan island, a population of woolly mammoths managed to persist until just 5,600 years ago, according to new research.
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Ice Age Hunting Camp, Replete With Bird Bones and Tobacco, Found in Utah Desert
In the dead-flat desert of northwestern Utah, archaeologists have uncovered a scene from a distant, and more verdant, time. Just a few centimeters below the sun-baked surface, researchers have discovered…
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Ancient Seafarers’ Tool Sites, Up to 12,000 Years Old, Discovered on California Island
Archaeologists have turned up evidence of some of the oldest human activity in coastal Southern California, just off the coast of Ventura County.
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Nearly 20 Stone-Tool Sites, Dating Back Up To 12,000 Years, Discovered In Nevada
An hour and half from Las Vegas, archaeologists have discovered 19 sites scattered with stone points, biface blades, and other artifacts that date back as much as 12,000 years.
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Top 5 Fossil Finds in the American West in 2015
Enormous arthropods and dinosaurs that looked like ostriches are among the fossil finds that captured your imagination this year. Check out the five most-read paleontology stories of 2015, and learn all about the year’s top discoveries from around the ancient West.
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Cave Discovered in South Dakota Contains Thousands of Ice Age Fossils
Once protected by thickets of poison ivy and riddled with rattlesnakes, a cave discovered in South Dakota’s Wind Cave National Park has, for the scientists exploring it, certainly lived up…
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