skeleton news stories on Newser

'Illegal' Dinosaur Skeleton Sells for Over $1M

Neal Colgrass — Mon, 21 May 2012 17:48:23 CDT

A New York auction house sold off a dinosaur skeleton for $1 million yesterday despite a restraining order from the Mongolian government, which said the find had been illegally exported, New Scientist reports. Heritage Auctions kept mum about the seller and winning bidder, and said it had "legal assurances" that...

Scientists Find Bones of Another Pre-Human Walker

Kevin Spak — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:16:16 CDT

Lucy was not alone. Scientists have unearthed fossilized bones that they believe must have belonged to the foot of another pre-human species that walked upright around 3 million years ago, the AP reports. It's the first evidence of such a species during that era since the one made famous by...

Stonehenge: Ancient Tourist Hot Spot

Kate Schwartz — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 10:50:02 CDT

Religious site? Healing temple? Whatever Stonehenge was used for, it was quite the tourist hot spot. Isotopic tests performed on a recently discovered skeleton—dubbed "The Boy with the Amber Necklace" because of the beads tied round his neck—found that he traveled from the north coast of the Mediterranean...

Aruba Calls Off Watery Search for Natalee's Remains

Jane Yager — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 06:02:18 CDT

Aruban authorities have called off the underwater search for Natalee Holloway's body that was sparked when a Pennsylvania couple spotted what they believed to be a skeleton in photos they took while snorkeling off the island last year. A dive team spent two days scouring the waters favored by the...

Scientists Find Fossil of 'Mother of All Primates'

Mary Papenfuss — Fri, 15 May 2009 06:16:55 CDT

Scientists have discovered a 47 million-year-old primate fossil that they believe represents the common ancestor of all later monkeys, apes, and humans, reports the Wall Street Journal. The find supports a theory that humans' ancient ape-like ancestor was an adapid, which is also believed to be linked to lemurs. The...

Island 'Hobbits' Separate Human Species

Ambreen Ali — Thu, 07 May 2009 12:23:02 CDT

Two new reports forward the theory that the tiny people who roamed an Indonesian island 8,000 years ago were a separate species of human, the BBC reports, not just pygmy versions of homo sapiens. The biggest clue is the feet of the “hobbits,” which are distinctly primitive but human....

Oldest-Known Nuclear Family Unearthed

Rob Quinn — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 04:57:27 CST

The oldest nuclear family ever discovered has been found in a group hug in a Stone Age burial site, the Independent reports. Genetic testing revealed that the four skeletons buried in each other's arms at the site in Germany were a father, mother, and their two young sons. All had...

For TB Clues, Researchers Turn to Bones

Dustin Lushing — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 18:50:00 CDT

Scientists are analyzing bones found in the ancient city of Jericho, in what's now the West Bank, for clues to fighting tuberculosis. The German, Israeli, and Palestinian researchers hope the 6,000-year-old DNA they're studying will reveal how the disease evolves and how to combat it.

'Hobbits' Were, Indeed, a Different Kind of Human

Asta Hostetter — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:30:27 CDT

A new study of three wrist bones from an 18,000-year-old fossil shows that the so-called hobbits of Indonesia were, indeed, a separate human species. When the bones were discovered in 2003, scientists trumpeted the find as evidence of a smaller species, Homo floresiensis. But skeptics argued that the hobbit,...