News about PaperPanda, Open Access, and Research
A newly discovered fossilized stegosaur found in China is the most ancient ever found in Asia, and could be the oldest in the world. Treading the Earth some 170 million years ago, during the Middle Jurassic Bajocian age, the beastie was also small for a stegosaur, measuring just 2.8 meters (just over 9 feet) from … Read more
Scientists discovered remnants of an Old Stone Age culture, less than 100 miles (160 kilometers) west of Beijing, where ancient hominins used a reddish pigment called ochre and crafted tiny, blade-like tools from stone. The archaeological site, called Xiamabei, offers a rare glimpse into the life of Homo sapiens and now-extinct human relatives who inhabited the region some … Read more
Archaeologists deep in the Jordanian desert have discovered a 9,000-year-old ritualistic complex near what is thought to be the earliest known large human-built structure worldwide. The Stone Age shrine site, excavated last year, was used by gazelle hunters and features carved stone figures, an altar and a miniature model of a large-scale hunting trap. … Read more
An ancient temple dating from the early centuries of Buddhism has been unearthed in the Swat Valley in northern Pakistan – part of the ancient Gandhara region that was conquered by Alexander the Great and gave rise to a mixing of Buddhist belief and Greek art. Archaeologists think that the temple dates from about the middle … Read more
An astonishing fossil of an extinct ‘sea dragon’ discovered by a wetland conservationist one day at work has been hailed as the largest and most complete fossil of its kind ever found in Britain. The fossil, identified as an ichthyosaur, an ancient marine reptile that swam in Earth’s prehistoric oceans when dinosaurs walked on … Read more
In 1942, a peat cutter digging in a Danish bog crunched his shovel into a horned bronze helmet. Long, curving bull’s horns topped a round cap adorned with the beak and large eyes of a bird of prey. Fittings on the headgear may have made it possible to attach feathers and perhaps even a mane … Read more