Palaeontology articles within Nature

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  • Letter |

    The early history of flowering plants (angiosperms) is contentious. However, many fossils attributable to flowering plants have been found in the Early Cretaceous of China. The plant reported in this study goes a step further: not only is it an angiosperm, but it is a member of a relatively derived group, the eudicots, and possibly a member of the Ranunculaceae, an extant family of plants. This indicates that angiosperm evolution probably got into its stride even earlier than the Early Cretaceous.

    • Ge Sun
    • , David L. Dilcher
    •  & Zhiduan Chen

  • Letter |

    Coarse-resolution palaeoclimate proxy evidence has suggested that the Pliocene warm period (∼3–5 million years ago) was characterized by permanent El Niño conditions in which the equatorial Pacific was uniformly warm, instead of having the modern-day 'cold tongue' extending westward from South America. This study uses high-resolution climate proxy information from fossil corals to challenge this assertion and shows that ocean conditions in the western Pacific during the Pliocene warm period were characterized by El Niño variations similar to modern-day variations.

    • Tsuyoshi Watanabe
    • , Atsushi Suzuki
    •  & Tomoki Kase

  • Books & Arts |

    Marta Paterlini reports on an exhibition marking 20 years since Ötzi, one of the world's oldest natural mummies, was discovered under the Alpine ice.

    • Marta Paterlini

  • Letter |

    The 'Cambrian explosion', just over 500 million years ago, was a burst of evolution during which most kinds of animals we see today first appeared in the fossil record. They were, however, accompanied by a large number of creatures whose lineages were destined to disappear. Among these were the lobopodians, creatures vaguely related to modern arthropods and the velvet worms of tropical forests, and which — like velvet worms — looked more like worms with legs. Lobopodians came in a variety of bizarre forms, and the discovery of a lobopodian from the Cambrian of China adds to this group. It looked like a thin, flexible worm with oddly inappropriate, chunky, armoured legs. It is claimed that this creature was, however, the closest known fossil relative of modern arthropods, suggesting that the process of acquiring the robust external skeleton characteristic of the group started with the legs, and worked upwards from there.

    • Jianni Liu
    • , Michael Steiner
    •  & Xingliang Zhang

  • News & Views |

    Deposits in China dating to about 600 million years ago contain carbon compressions of algae and other organisms. The fossils provide a new window into the early evolution of complex multicellular life. See Letter p.390

    • Guy M. Narbonne

  • News |

    Sifting early human from non-human fossils is complicated by convergent evolution.

    • Matt Kaplan

  • News |

    Fossil discovery could push pint-sized, pointy-toothed dinosaur over to the plant-eaters.

    • Matt Kaplan

  • Books & Arts |

    Jan Zalasiewicz enjoys a romp through vertebrate evolution and its eccentric scholars.

    • Jan Zalasiewicz

  • News & Views |

    Analysis of ancient nuclear DNA, recovered from 40,000-year-old remains in the Denisova Cave, Siberia, hints at the multifaceted interaction of human populations following their migration out of Africa. See Article p.1053

    • Carlos D. Bustamante
    •  & Brenna M. Henn

  • Letter |

    To shed light on the natural history of Precambrian life, the evolutionary history of almost 4,000 gene families across the three domains of life are mapped onto a geological timeline. Over one-quarter of modern gene families arose during a period of rapid diversification of bacterial lineages. Functionally, these genes are likely to be involved in electron transport and respiratory pathways, whereas those that arose later are implicated in functions consistent with an increasingly oxygenating biosphere.

    • Lawrence A. David
    •  & Eric J. Alm

  • News & Views |

    The timing of the dispersal of our species from Africa is a continuing and lively topic of debate. Evidence that modern humans existed in China more than 100,000 years ago is both equivocal and thought-provoking.

    • Robin Dennell

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • Xing Xu
    • , Xiaoting Zheng
    •  & Hailu You

  • Letter |

    The origin of the anthropoids (higher primates, including monkeys, apes and humans) is mysterious. Fossils from the Eocene epoch in Africa have suggested that the anthropoids originated there, but this has been challenged by findings in Asia. Here, the discovery is reported of the oldest known diverse assemblage of African anthropoids, from the Eocene of Libya. The diversity of species found suggests either a long interval of anthropoid evolution in Africa, or the nearly synchronous colonization of Africa by several anthropoid clades.

    • Jean-Jacques Jaeger
    • , K. Christopher Beard
    •  & Michel Brunet

  • Letter |

    The Palaeocene–Eocene thermal maximum (PETM) is a well-known abrupt warming that occurred at about 55.8 Myr ago and is usually thought to have been caused by a large release of greenhouse gases, as recorded in a large carbon isotope excursion. Yet some marine evidence suggests that in fact the warming came first. Here it is shown that continental warming of about 5 °C preceded the excursion in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. Thus the PETM seems to have been caused by at least two separate warming events.

    • Ross Secord
    • , Philip D. Gingerich
    •  & Kenneth G. MacLeod

  • News Feature |

    A project to drill a 10-kilometre-deep hole in China will provide the best view yet of the turbulent Cretaceous period. Jane Qiu reports.

    • Jane Qiu

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • Nina Veselka
    • , David D. McErlain
    •  & M. Brock Fenton

  • Letter |

    The earliest direct evidence for stone tools is between 2.6 and 2.5 million years old and comes from Gona, Ethiopia. These authors report bones from Dikika, Ethiopia, dated to around 3.4 million years ago and marked with cuts indicative of the use of stone tools to remove flesh and extract bone marrow. This is the earliest known evidence of stone tool use, and might be attributed to the activities of Australopithecus afarensis.

    • Shannon P. McPherron
    • , Zeresenay Alemseged
    •  & Hamdallah A. Béarat

  • News & Views |

    How far back in the human lineage does tool use extend? Fossil bones that bear evidence of butchery marks made by stone implements increase the known range of that behaviour to at least 3.2 million years ago.

    • David R. Braun

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