Awesome new paper by Thomas Clements and co-authors!
https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.2369
Fun fact: despite the name similarity, I have nothing to do with Pohlsepia or Palaeocadmus pohli 😉
#cephalopods #coleoids #coleoid #octopus #taphonomy #Carboniferous
🔥New paper out now in Journal of Human Evolution🔥
Grăunceanu (Romania) with an estimated age >1.95 Ma is not an archaeological site!
A new study by the MONREPOS Archaeological Research Centre (LEIZA), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Leiden University has refuted the evidence of human activity in the form of cut marks on animal bones.
@paleomonrepos
#Archaeology #Research #taphonomy #zooarchaeology #archeology #animalbones
Read now 👇
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248425001393?via%3Dihub
Dinosaur mummies unlock secrets of their real-life appearance
https://phys.org/news/2025-10-dinosaur-mummies-secrets-real-life.html
Duck-billed dinosaur fleshy midline and hooves reveal terrestrial clay-template “mummification” https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adw3536
"the duck-billed dinosaur had a fleshy crest over neck and trunk, a fleshy spike row over hips and tail and hooves capping the toes of the hind feet... the earliest hooves documented in a land vertebrate, the first confirmed hooved reptile"
I encountered the word "taphonomy" for the first time today. Basing a conjecture on its Greek roots, I thought it might refer to the law and customs pertaining to graves and burials.
My guess was wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taphonomy
I don't mean any disrespect to paleontologists here when I say I wish my guess had been right. I suppose it's a consequence of my being less interested in the natural sciences than the social sciences and humanities.
Also, I forgot to mention this great Common Descent episode about decomposers:
https://commondescentpodcast.com/2025/03/15/episode-213-decomposers/
The fossil record is a joint expression of ecological, taphonomic, evolutionary, and stratigraphic processes (Holland and Patzkowsky, 2012, ISBN:978-0226649382). This package allowing to simulate biological processes in the time domain (e.g., trait evolution, fossil abundance), and examine how their expression in the rock record (stratigraphic domain) is influenced based on age-depth models, ecological niche models, and taphonomic effects. Functions simulating common processes used in modeling trait evolution or event type data such as first/last occurrences are provided and can be used standalone or as part of a pipeline. The package comes with example data sets and tutorials in several vignettes, which can be used as a template to set up one's own simulation.
Fetid Fish Revise Understanding of #Fossil Formation
This study's findings raises important questions regarding just how "primitive" the early ancestors of vertebrates were 500 million years ago
by @grrlscientist via #Substack
#Fish #taphonomy #SciComm https://grrlscientist.substack.com/p/fetid-fish-revise-understanding-of
Fetid Fish Revise Understanding of #Fossil Formation
This study's findings raises important questions regarding just how "primitive" the early ancestors of vertebrates were 500 million years ago
by @GrrlScientist via #Substack
#Fish #taphonomy #SciComm https://grrlscientist.substack.com/p/fetid-fish-revise-understanding-of
Alexander Pohle
MONREPOS
Lukas VFN 🇪🇺
Anthropology.net
Jonathan Emmesedi
llewelly
Niklas Hohmann
GrrlScientist ⧖ Ⓥ 🇺🇦
GrrlScientist ⧖ Ⓥ 