How DNA in dirt is shaking up the study of human origins Researchers are pulling clues from genetic material in ice age soils and rewriting chapters of human history.

Using "fossil" DNA to study the past
#Biology #Paleontology #History #PaleoEcology

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

This fall and winter we conducted paleoenvironmental coring in Menorca & Eivissa lagoons with @revellespalaeo.bsky.social & @palaeopete.bsky.social . Now to the lab to uncover 8,000 years of landscape & climate history 🌿🏺🔬

Projects: PID2023-148651NB-I00 & RYC2022-038153-I. #Paleoecology #ArqueoUIB

Scientists stunned to find signs of ancient life in a place no one expected While exploring ancient seabeds in Morocco, scientists discovered strange wrinkle-like textures in deep-water sediments that shouldn’t have been there. These structures are usually made by sunlight-lo...

Source: ScienceDaily
search.app/ZF6yq

Ancient life #Paleoecology

Original post on mastodon.social

#Paleoecology of #Doggerland
A study of DNA preserved in the sediments of a river system in the now-inundated Doggerland landmass in #NorthSea finds evidence suggesting the presence of temperate tree species in Doggerland around 16,000 years ago, earlier than they appeared in surrounding […]

Who can help? #Pond #paleoecology

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon A new, comprehensive study shows that Europe’s landscapes over the past more than 20 million years have predominantly been a mosaic of grasslands, scrub and woodlands of varying density. A light...

Dense, dark forests in Europe are a modern phenomenon - Europe’s landscapes for 23 Myr were mostly tree- & flower-rich mosaics shaped by large herbivores, not dense #forests, see our new synthesis www.eurekalert.org/news-release... #forests #woodlands #paleoecology #nature #trees #refiorestation

Redirecting

Interesting article, in a way that seems to me simultaneously kind of obvious, and perspective changing.

Revisiting Europe's temperate forests: Palaeoecological evidence for an herbivory-driven woodland-grassland mosaic biome
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2026.111749

⛰️Drawn to the landscapes where human evolution unfolded in Eastern Africa? Develop your #PhD with #ICArEHB through the #FCT #PhD #Fellowships 2026.
🔗 More info: www.icarehb.com/fct-phd-fell...

#Geoarchaeology #HumanEvolution #Paleoecology #ScienceCareers #PhDLife

🦴 Passionate about fossil mammals and human evolution in Africa? Develop your #PhD with #ICArEHB through the #FCT #PhD #Fellowships 2026.
🔗 More info: www.icarehb.com/fct-phd-fell...
#Archaeology #Paleoecology #HumanEvolution #ScienceCareers #PhDLife

200,000-Year-Old Teeth Reveal Hidden Climate Stress in Grey Wolves Learn how warming winters are making life harder for grey wolves, a struggle that the species has faced at least once before.

200,000-Year-Old Teeth Reveal Hidden Climate Stress in Grey Wolves #Science #Biology #Zoology #ClimateChange #WolfConservation #Paleoecology

www.discovermagazine.com/200-000-year-old-teeth-r...

It Shouldn’t Exist: Scientists Find Signs of Ancient Life in the Most Unlikely Place Deep-sea sediment layers show rare microbial wrinkle structures that formed in environments far beyond the reach of sunlight. Dr. Rowan Martindale, a paleoecologist and geobiologist at the University ...

Source: SciTechDaily
search.app/nRxGY

Ancient life #Paleoecology

Scientists sequence a woolly rhino genome from a 14,400-year-old wolf’s stomach https://arstechni.ca #megafaunalextinction #paleogenomics #paleoecology #woollyrhino #Megafauna #Science #science #siberia

VegVault logo

printscreen of the paper on the webpage of Nature Scientific Data https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-025-06176-1

1/🧵 Paper out! 🎉🌿🔒
VegVault is now published in Nature Scientific Data: a global database linking palaeo + modern vegetation with traits + climate/soil drivers.
🌐website: bit.ly/VegVault
📜paper: doi.org/10.1038/s415...

#VegVault #Ecology #Paleoecology #Vegetation #FunctionalTraits

Deciding where to go this afternoon at #TIBS2026 is tough with five exciting parallel sessions happening: #Species-Area Relationships, #Paleoecology and Change Through Time, #Niches and Co-occurrence, Bird Abundance Change, and Geodiversity.
#biogeography #macroecology #Science #Aarhus

🌍 Ancient faunas from Kenya’s Lomekwi site shed light on early human environments. #ICArEHB’s René Bobe co-authors this new study: doi.org/10.1016/j.qu... #Paleoecology #Evolution

Check out this inspiring talk by @ondrejmottl.bsky.social, featuring an impressive array of tools for #Paleoecology

Our first symposium of #TIBS2026 explores the exciting field of quantitative #Paleoecology. Discover how #data, #models, and innovative #methods are used to unlock and analyze the extensive ancient ecological record to address important scientific and practical questions.

Join us at the the first symposia of #TIBS2026, delving into the exciting world of quantitative #Paleoecology. Explore how #data, #models, and innovative #methods help unlock and analyze the vast ancient ecological record to answer vital scientific and practical questions.

Figure 6. Discovered beetle remains from the Late Glacial Lithuanian outcrops that are currently absent in Lithuania but common in Scandinavia. For Pycnoglypta lurida (A), Arpedium brachypterum (B), Otiorhynchus nodosus (C), and Agabus arcticus (D), the subfossil remains identified in this study, a modern specimen, and the modern distribution according to GBIF [62,63,64,65] are shown. Red crosses indicate the locations from which the subfossil remains were identified.

#LiteratureNotice Schafstall et al. First Records of Beetle Fauna (Insecta: Coleoptera) from Late Glacial Sediments of Lithuania: Novel Environmental Reconstructions doi.org/10.3390/d171... #Beetle #Beetles #fossil #paleoecology

Congratulations to our own @gerberd.bsky.social on winning the Danubius Young Scientist Award from @idmvienna.bsky.social for his research on ancient human populations and contemporary horses in the #CarpathianBasin.
More details on our website: bit.ly/4oMzZmc
#aDNA #popgen #Danube #paleoecology

PaleoMammalogy•2025 Taotienimravus songi • A New ecomorph of Nimravidae, and the early Macrocarnivorous Niche Exploration in Carnivora
doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1686
#Ecomorphology #Eocene #Evolution #Mammalogy #Nimravidae #Oligocene #PaleoEcology #Paleomammalogy #Paleontology #Phylogenetics

Paleontology•Lobodiscus tribrachialis•A putative triradial macrofossil from the Ediacaran Jiangchuan Biota
DOI: doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.108823
#PaleoEcology #Paleontology #Palaeontology #Proterozoic #Taxonomy

PalaeOpen

¡La Acción sigue abierta a participantes!
@gilromera.bsky.social coordina el grupo de Comunicación, Transferencia y Divulgación (2/2).
🔗 palaeopen.github.io
#COSTAction #Paleoecology #OpenScience #Networking

Grasslands and the Teeth That Tell Time A new study from South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind overturns the long-held belief that early humans experienced a sudden shift from woodland to grassland 1.7 million years ago.

Ancient antelope teeth from South Africa’s Cradle of Humankind reveal that grasslands didn’t replace woodlands overnight 1.7 million years ago. Early humans evolved in a stable, mosaic world rich in ecological variety. #Paleoecology #HumanOrigins #Anthropology www.anthropology.net/p/grasslands...

The First Landscapers: How Neanderthals and Early Humans Rewired Europe’s Ecosystems New simulations reveal that both Neanderthals and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers reshaped the European environment long before farming arrived.

New modeling reveals that both Neanderthals and Mesolithic hunter-gatherers transformed Europe’s ecosystems through hunting and fire, centuries before farming began. #Anthropology #Paleoecology #Neanderthals #HumanEvolution www.anthropology.net/p/the-first-...

Original post on fediscience.org

“Comparison of simulated and proxy-based climate reconstructions for Mid-Holocene Europe reveals high uncertainty”

A practice-oriented evaluation of time-continuous paleoclimate datasets by my co-authors and me, just published in The Holocene.

👉 https://doi.org/10.1177/09596836251366198

If […]

🌍 Interested in the deep history of human impact on the #environment?
Check out our new study led by our postdoctoral researcher @nikulinaav.bsky.social on how #Neanderthals and #Mesolithic foragers shaped European #landscapes long before #farming!

#Paleoecology #HumanImpact #Anthropocene

On the ecological impact of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in Europe: Early Holocene (Mesolithic) and Last Interglacial (Neanderthal) foragers compared Recent studies have highlighted evidence of human impact on landscapes dating back to the Late Pleistocene–long before the advent of agriculture. Quantifying the extent of vegetation transformations b...

🔥Before farming, hunter-gatherers already transformed nearly half of Europe’s #landscapes via burning and hunting!
Our new study using an #AI approach shows #Neanderthals began reshaping ecosystems; later foragers continued this process
👉 journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...
#Paleoecology #Anthropocene

What Poop Reveals About Ancient Humans Parasites are typically a rather private matter. And so, for that matter, is defecation. So likely never in their wildest dreams did the Loma San Gabriel people (in what is now Mexico), who answered nature’s...

What Poop Reveals About Ancient Humans #Science #Biology #Archaeology #AncientHumans #Paleoecology

Original post on archaeo.social

Preprint of my paper with Amanda Arranz-Otaegui, using ecological niche modelling to reconstruct the likely ranges of crop progenitors and wild plant resources in West Asia at the onset of agriculture:

https://doi.org/10.32942/X2DD27

#Archaeology #Prehistory #Ecology #Paleoecology […]