Researchers at the Catalan Institute of Paleontology have described a new primate species that went extinct 20 million years ago. The small prosimian, similar to today’s lemur and weighing between 110 and 115 grams, was described through a study of the dental record of this genus of primitive primate

STAFF | ABRIL 5TH, 2011

The ancestors of both humans and various animals were driven from Africa to Eurasia by climate change. This second wave of migration occurred around 800,000 years ago, according to a study of the remains of 180 cattle by the Catalan Institute of Human Paleontology and Social Evolution and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

STAFF | MARCH 30TH, 2011

The first stone tools were made by the combined mastery of three critical technical gestures. The right combination of these movements provides clues about the cognitive abilities of man. This was demonstrated by a study of the Catalan Institute of Human Paleontology and Social Evolution published in the Journal of Archaeological Science

STAFF | MARCH 29TH, 2011

The oldest water rat in history has been found at the Sima del Elefante dig, part of Atapuerca in northern Spain, an archaeological site rich in fossils where the remains of the first Europeans were discovered. This rodent lived 1.2 million years ago and is related to a species of rat in the Iberian Peninsula

STAFF | JANUARY 26th, 2011

The analysis of the genome of an extinct hominid in Siberia and the morphology of a tooth of another individual now suggest that this is a new hominid population different from the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens

STAFF | DECEMBER 23RD, 2010

Researchers from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology have identified a new species of primate, Pseudoloris pyrenaicus, from the fossil remains of a nearly complete set of teeth found at the Sant Jaume de Frontanyà site in Berguedà, Spain. The discovery has led to a rough draft of the first evolutionary lineage in the Pseudoloris genus.

STAFF | OCTOBER 26TH, 2010

The archaeological site of the Sima de los Huesos in Spain’s Burgos province has revealed shards from a skull a half million years old.

JULY 27, 2010 | ALICIA RIVERA

Today, the remains of her jaw are being used to shed light on the childhood of Homo antecessor.

Staff | June 15, 2010

Last year, a team of scientists announced that Ardi, a pre-human fossils dating back 4.4 million years ago, had lived in a wooded area, an idea that was revolutionary because it contradicted previous theories. However, according to new findings from another team of scientists who examined the exact same data, the environment of the first bipedal primates was more likely a savannah.

Staff | 28 may 2010

Scientists at the University of Florida in the U.S. have devised a method based on isotopes of oxygen and carbon to determine the body temperature of extinct organisms from their fossils. The method also allows scientists to estimate the temperature during the period in which the organism lived.

A. R. | 26 may 2010

All the way from prehistory to the very end of the species, two experts on human evolution, Salvador Moya-Sola, director of the Paleontology Institute of Catalonia (ICP), and Eudald Carbonell, director of the Institute of Human Paleontology and Cultural Evolution (IPHES) shared, in respective lectures, the considerations that build the foundations of their research.

Ànnia Monreal | 24 MAY 2010

A new species of small fossil primate was presented to the scientific community. These beings lived on the Iberian Peninsula around 39 million years ago, and were similar to modern lemurs, which nowadays are found only in the island of Madagascar. The new genus and species discovered belongs to the Family ‘Notharctidae’ (‘Infraorder Adapiformes’).

17 may 2010

Inhabited since the Paleolithic era, the shores of the Mediterranean Sea have been the cradle of newborn nations and awakening cultures for millennia. Now, a study by the Biology of Human Populations Research Group at the University of Barcelona (UB) has analyzed the genetic differences between the populations inhabiting the northern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean.

Staff | 11 may 2010

A group of international researchers have succeeded in sequencing the genome of the closest relative to human beings: the Neanderthal, who disappeared from existence 30,000 years ago. Initial tests of 4.000 billion base pairs of DNA indicate that Neanderthals "left footprints" in the genome of some modern humans. The findings have just been published in 'Science'.

Staff | 6 May 2010

Researchers at the Department of Geology at the UAB, in collaboration with the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology, have systematized the data from 29 sites of bones, footprints and eggs of dinosaurs in the Catalan Pyrenees, one of the best areas in the world to study precisely the time that these animals became extinct. The research, published in the prestigious journal "Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology", confirms that the diversity of dinosaur species was very large just before the time of termination. This finding refutes some scientific hypotheses which argue that the catastrophe that finally ended the dinosaurs was only the end point of a more gradual process of extinction. In addition, researchers have discovered the unexpected presence of a group of Asian dinosaurs that arrived only one million years before extinction.

17 March 2010