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Research: Seafaring hunter-gatherers reached a remote island well before the arrival of farmers

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The discovery of stone tools, hearths and cooked food waste at a cave site in Latniya on the Mediterranean island of Malta indicates that hunter-gatherers had crossed at least 100 km of open water to arrive on the island 8,500 years ago.

Hunters and Gatherers had crossed at least 100 km of open water to arrive in Malta 8,500 years ago. Image credits: Daniel Clark/MPI GEA.

Maltese archipelago is a chain of smallest islands in the Mediterranean.

Humans were not thought to have reached and lived such a small, isolated island, about 7,500 years ago, until the Neolithic regional shift to life.

In the standard view, the limited resources and ecological vulnerability of the small island, combined with the technical challenges of long-distance sailors, meant that hunter-gatherers were unable or unfulfilled to take these journeys.

“Relying on the use of sea-level currents and wind breezes, as well as the practice of exploring landmarks, stars and other paths, there is a crossing of about 100 km per hour at a speed of about 4 km per hour.

“Even on the longest day of the year, these sailors would have been open water in the darkness of hours.”

At the site of a cave in Latniya in the northern Merry area of ​​Malta, researchers discovered human traces in the form of stone tools, hearths and cooked food waste.

“At this location, we recovered a variety of animals, including hundreds of bodies of deer, birds, turtles and foxes,” said Dr. Matthew Stewart, a researcher at Griffith University.

“Some of these wildlife were long thought to have been extinct by this point,” added Professor Eleanor Scerri, a geographer at the Max Planck Institute and a researcher at the University of Malta.

“They were hunting and cooking red deer with turtles and birds.

In addition to this, scientists have found clear evidence regarding the exploitation of marine resources.

“We found that seals, groupers, thousands of edible marine gastropods, crabs and sea urchin debris all cooked undoubtedly,” said Dr. James Brinkhorn, a geography researcher at the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute.

“The diverse range of terrestrial areas, particularly the incorporation of the ocean fauna into their diet, have enabled these hunter-gatherers to maintain themselves on an island as small as Malta,” Dr. Stewart said.

These findings raised questions about the extinction of endemic animals in Malta and other small Mediterranean islands, and whether distant Messium Age communities are linked through seafarers.

“The results add a millennium to Maltese prehistoric times and enforce a reassessment of the capabilities of Europe’s last hunter-gatherer sailors, and its connections and ecological impacts,” Professor Scerri said.

Team’s paper It was published in the journal today Nature.

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EML Scerri et al. The marine voyage of hunter-gatherers has been extended to remote Mediterranean islands. NaturePublished online on April 9, 2025. doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08780-y

Source: www.sci.news

New record low levels of world sea ice have been reached

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Arctic ocean sea ice

Shutterstock / Kevin Xu

According to satellite measurements from the European Union’s Climate Service Copernicus, there is less sea ice covering the ocean this February.

“One of the consequences of a warm world is to melt sea ice, and both Poles’ records or near-recorded low-sea ice covers have pushed the world’s sea ice cover to the lowest ever.” Samantha Burgess The European Middle Distance Centre is forecast in a statement. According to the service, global temperatures in February this year rose 1.59°C above the pre-industrial average, making it the third security in March on record.

These high temperatures have affected the global sea ice range, including both the Arctic and Antarctic, which is currently close to the largest in the year. Satellite records from both regions date back to 1979.

In the Arctic, sea ice was 8% below average throughout February, missing an area of ​​nearly the size of the UK ice. This was the three consecutive months of successive months that set a low monthly new record in the Arctic.

This decline in the Northern Hemisphere is combined with the long-term decline in Antarctic sea ice seen over the past two years. Antarctic ice appeared to recover to near average levels last December, but then again fell rapidly. In February, the ice reached the fourth-lowest range on record for the month, 26% below the average.

Record low ice in both hemispheres is a “cause of serious concern,” he said. Robert Larter In a statement in the UK Antarctic Survey. He says that ice shortages could harm the polar ecosystems, expose ice shelves to more seawater, and accelerate melting and rising sea levels.

The lack of ice also affects beyond the poles. Less ice means less solar radiation is reflected in the universe, increasing warming. It can also weaken global ocean currents, relying on the dense salt water that is generated when sea ice forms.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

The implementation of clean energy suggests that China’s emissions could have reached their peak.

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China has introduced solar power generation, and panels have been installed on North Barren Mountain in Zhangjiakou City.

Cost Photo/NurPhoto/Getty Images

With large-scale deployment of wind and solar power across China, the country's emissions could peak in 2023, potentially marking a historic turning point in the fight against climate change. be.

China's CO2 emissions hit a record high in 2023 as the Chinese economy recovers from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. But since then, large amounts of wind and solar power have been added to the country's power grid, while emissions from the construction industry have declined.

China's carbon dioxide emissions remained flat from July to September 2024, after falling by 1% in the second quarter of this year, according to a new analysis. This means that overall emissions in 2024 could be flat or slightly down at 2023 levels.

This will be critical to tackling global climate change. Lauri Milivirta At the Center for Energy and Clean Air Research, a Finnish think tank. “For the past eight years, since the signing of the Paris Climate Agreement, China's emissions growth has been the main driver of global emissions,” he says.

In its climate change plan submitted to the United Nations, China pledged to peak greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and achieve net-zero emissions by 2060. But experts warn. This plan is not very ambitious Given the large impact that China, the world's largest emitter, has on global climate change.

It's important for China to bring emissions to a peak as soon as possible, Millibilta said. “This would pave the way for the country to start reducing emissions much sooner than current commitments require,” he said. “This will have huge implications for global efforts to avoid catastrophic climate change.”

China is rushing to ramp up power supplies across the country to meet rapidly growing power demand. This demand increased by 7.2% year-on-year from July to September, due to rising living standards and increased demand for air conditioning due to the strong heat wave from August to September.

New renewable energy sources are being introduced at breakneck speed across China to fill the electricity demand gap. From July to September, compared to the same period in 2023, solar power generation increased by 44 percent and wind power generation increased by a whopping 24 percent. Based on the current trajectory, China's solar power growth this year will rival China's total annual electricity generation. Australia in 2023.

However, coal-fired power usage still increased by 2% and gas production increased by 13% from July to September in response to increased demand. This resulted in an overall 3% increase in CO2 emissions from China's power sector during this period. However, these were offset by a slowdown in the construction industry across China as real estate investment declined.

Oil demand also fell by 2% in the third quarter of this year, as electric vehicles continue to make up a larger share of China's car fleet. By 2030, almost one in three cars on China's roads will be expected to be electric.

Myllyvirta carried out an analysis of the website carbon briefs Uses official figures and commercial data. “If the rapid growth of clean energy is sustained, it will pave the way for sustainable emissions reductions,” he says.

However, he said that flat or declining emissions in 2024 were not guaranteed as government stimulus measures to boost the economy could cause emissions to rise in the last three months of the year. He warns that this does not mean that the Carbon emissions must fall by at least 2% in the last three months. He predicted that three months of this year will be below 2023 levels.

still Signals from the Chinese government It has signaled that the country's emissions are expected to continue rising until the end of the decade, which would use up the remaining global carbon budget by 1.5 degrees Celsius.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Sunday reached record-breaking temperatures as the hottest day ever recorded on Earth.

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summary

  • According to the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, Sunday was the hottest day on record.
  • The global average temperature reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), breaking the previous record set in July last year.
  • Last month was the hottest June on record worldwide.

Sunday is The hottest day on record According to data from the European Union's Copernicus Climate Change Service, on Earth:

The global average temperature reached 17.09 degrees Celsius (about 62.76 degrees Fahrenheit), slightly surpassing the previous record of 17.08 degrees Celsius recorded on July 6, 2023.

“We are now in truly uncharted territory and there is no doubt that new records will be broken in the coming months and years as the climate continues to warm,” Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, said in a statement.

So far, both July this year and July 2023 have been much warmer than the 1991 to 2020 average, according to Copernicus data. Before last year, the hottest day on record was August 12, 2016, when the average temperature reached 16.8 degrees.

Last week, a heatwave that hit southern and central Europe reportedly sparked wildfires in southern Italy, forcing the Greek Ministry of Culture to close the Acropolis for several hours. Associated Press.

In the United States, High temperature warning Six states, including Arizona, California and Montana, enacted special heat stroke laws on Tuesday. Officials believe more than 300 people have died from heat stroke in Maricopa County, Arizona, so far this year.

Last month was the hottest June on record globally, breaking records for the 13th consecutive month of record high temperatures. Copernicus Service Monitoring.

“As it gets hotter, we're going to have to significantly recalibrate how we live our lives,” said Bharat Venkat, director of the UCLA Thermal Lab, which studies the effects of rising temperatures.

As a more personal example, Venkat said he took his dog for a walk at a local mall this summer because the sidewalk was “really hot and I was worried his paws would get burned.”

He stressed that at a larger, more severe level, “many of these adverse effects overlap with existing social inequalities.”

People with underlying medical conditions are more susceptible to heatstroke. People who work outdoors, like delivery people or farmers, face a bigger problem. Certain structures, like prisons and food trucks, retain more heat, making them especially hot for people inside.

Global average temperatures typically peak between late June and early August because this is the hottest time of the year in the Northern Hemisphere, which contains most of the world's land mass and population.

In the Southern Hemisphere, average temperatures are also rising due to melting Antarctic sea ice, the Copernicus Service reported.

This year has been particularly warm because of an El Niño weather pattern, said Bob Henson, a meteorologist and climate writer at Yale University's Climate Connections.

La Niña is Estimated Arrival There should be a moderate cooling effect over the next few months.

But overall temperatures will continue to rise and records will continue to be broken, Henson said.

Source: www.nbcnews.com

Ancient geese reached the height of three meters and weighed as much as a cow

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Artistic reconstruction of Genyornis newtoni, an ancient relative of the goose

Illustration by Jacob C. Blokland

Australia's prehistoric ptarmigan, once thought to be an ancestor of the emu, was actually the largest goose that ever lived.

This group was reclassified based on analysis going back 45,000 years. Genyornis neutoni The skull was found in the fossil deposits of Lake Carabonna in the South Australian desert.

The newly discovered skull is the first of the extinct species to be discovered since 1913, and the only one well-preserved enough to allow detailed anatomical study. G. Newton He weighed approximately 230 kilograms and was over 2.5 metres tall.

However, its close relativesDromornis stiltoniAt well over three metres tall and weighing up to 600 kilograms, it is not only a contender for the largest bird in history, but also the largest goose ever.

When Thunderbird fossils were first discovered in the 19th century, they were thought to be ancestors of ratites, which include emus, cassowaries and ostriches. Later, some argued that the group, officially called Dromornithiidae, with eight known species, should be classified with land birds, which also include chickens and pheasants.

now, Phoebe McInerney Researchers from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, concluded that the Thunderbird is a large waterbird and should be classified as part of the Anseriformes, the same group as geese.

The team was primarily convinced by the anatomy of the beak and skull, including the arrangement of muscles and the deformation of the bones to which they were attached. Genyornis The structure is nearly identical to that of South American screamers, an ancient lineage of waterbirds, and is so complex that it's unlikely it evolved independently, McInerney said.

Artistic reconstruction of the skull of Geniornis newtoni based on fossil data

Illustration by Jacob C. Blokland

All of the ptarmigans were herbivores, she says, but they were probably fierce creatures. “They would have been very tough animals,” McInerney says. “They could defend themselves and they would have been quite formidable beasts. They would have had a very low, loud cry.”

Adam Yates Yates, of the Northern Territory Museum and Art Gallery in Australia, said the study supports the claims of his predecessor, Peter Murray, who proposed in the early 1990s that the Thunderbird was a waterbird. “So it's not a shock to me,” Yates said. “But Genyornis It took so long to find the skull, so we're very happy that it has finally been found.”

Many Thunderbird species became extinct before humans arrived in Australia around 65,000 years ago, which is thought to have been due to climate change.G. Newtoni Humans had inhabited the continent for tens of thousands of years, and some researchers speculate that hunting may have also played a role in their extinction.

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Source: www.newscientist.com

Homo sapiens are believed to have reached Northern Europe around 45,000 years ago, according to scientists.

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homo sapiens is connected with Rinkombi Lanisia Yersmanovician Culture According to three papers published in , Neanderthals existed in central and northwestern Europe long before they became extinct in southwestern Europe. journal Nature And that journal natural ecology and evolution. The evidence is homo sapiens And the fact that Neanderthals lived side by side is consistent with genomic evidence that the two species occasionally interbred. Suspicions have also been raised that modern humans' invasion of Europe and Asia about 50,000 years ago may have driven Neanderthals to extinction.

Stratigraphy including location of homo sapiens Bones, a map of the LRJ site, and stone tools from the Ranis site in Germany. Image credit: Mylopotamitaki other., doi: 10.1038/s41586-023-06923-7.

The Paleolithic Rincombi-Lanisia-Jerzmanovician (LRJ) culture or technocomplex spread across northwestern and central Europe.

The Ranis Cave site in the Orla River Valley, Thuringia, Germany, is one of the eponymous LRJ sites based on its unique configuration of bifacial and monofacial points.

Previous dating had shown that the site was more than 40,000 years old, but there were no recognizable bones to show who made the tools, so it was unclear whether they were the product of Neanderthals. It was unclear whether it was a product of Neanderthals or not. homo sapiens.

“The new discovery is homo sapiens Who created this technology homo sapiens At this time, 45,000 years ago, they were this far north,” said Dr. Elena Zavala, a researcher at the University of California, Berkeley.

“So these are some of the earliest.” homo sapiens In Europe. “

“The cave ruins of Ranis provide evidence of initial dispersal. homo sapiens It is widespread throughout the high latitudes of Europe,” said Professor Jean-Jacques Hubelin, a researcher at the Collège de France.

“It turns out that stone structures thought to have been made by Neanderthals were actually part of early Neanderthals.” homo sapiens toolkit. ”

“This fundamentally changes what we know about this period. homo sapiens Long before Neanderthals disappeared in southwestern Europe, they reached northwestern Europe. ”

Scientists carried out genetic analysis of hominid bone fragments from new deep excavations carried out at Ranis between 2016 and 2022, as well as from earlier excavations in the 1930s.

Because the DNA in ancient bones is highly fragmented, she used special techniques to isolate and sequence the DNA. All of it is mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), which is inherited only from the mother.

“We have confirmed that the bone fragments are: homo sapiens. Interestingly, some of the fragments shared the same mitochondrial DNA sequence, even if they were from different excavations,” Dr. Zavala said.

“This indicates that these fragments belong to the same person or his maternal relatives, and connects these new discoveries with discoveries from decades ago.”

The bone fragments were initially identified as human through analysis of bone proteins in a field called paleoproteomics.

The authors found that by comparing the Ranis mtDNA sequences with mtDNA obtained from human remains from other Paleolithic sites in Europe, they were able to construct an early Stone Age family tree. It's done. homo sapiens All over Europe.

All but one of the 13 Ranis fragments are very similar to each other and, surprisingly, to the mtDNA of a 43,000-year-old female skull discovered in the Zlaty Kush cave in the Czech Republic. Ta. The only standout player was in the same group as a player from Italy.

“That raises some questions: Was this a single population? What is the relationship here?” Dr. Zavala said.

“But when it comes to mtDNA, that's just one side of history. It's just the maternal side. We need nuclear DNA to investigate this.”

The researchers also found that Ranis Cave is primarily used by hibernating cave bears and denning hyenas, with only periodic human presence.

This low-density archaeological footprint is consistent with other LRJ sites and is best explained by short-term, opportunistic visits by small, mobile settler groups. homo sapiens.

“This means that even in these early groups, homo sapiens “Humans, dispersed across Eurasia, already had some ability to adapt to such harsh climatic conditions,” said Dr Sara Pederzani, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of La Laguna.

“Until recently, it was thought that resilience to cold climate conditions would not emerge until several thousand years later. So this is a fascinating and surprising result.”

The research team also carried out radiocarbon dating of human and animal bones taken from different layers of the site to reconstruct the site's age, focusing on bones with signs of human modification on their surfaces. They then correlated the age with the presence of humans in the cave.

“we, homo sapiens The Francis Crick Institute said Dr. Helen Furus, a postdoctoral researcher at .

“The evidence suggests that homo sapiens They occupied this site sporadically for 47,500 years. ”

Source: www.sci.news