Gabriele Russo

Dynamic omnivory shapes the functional role of large carnivores under global change - Nature Communications Omnivores like bears can switch between plant and animal diets, potentially helping them respond to changing conditions. By combining modern and fossil data, this study shows that bears shift toward c...

A New study shows bears' diet dynamically shifts the omnivore-herbivore spectrum depending on #ecosystem productivity. Basically, #bears 🐻 adjust their diet with climate + resource availability 🌿. And this has huge implications for modern conservation and interpretations about past ecosystems 🧪🦣

Homo sapiens-specific evolution unveiled by ancient southern African genomes - Nature The genomes of 28 ancient southern African individuals dated to between 10,200 and 150 years before present offer insights into the evolution of Homo sapiens.

Our new ancient DNA paper has just been published!
We present 28 new genomes from southern Africa - several of them high-coverage whole genomes.
Exciting to be moving towards population-level representation of ancient southern African genetic diversity!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The dog domestication: new ichnological evidence from the Upper Palaeolithic of the Bàsura cave (Toirano, NW Italy) The Grotta della Bàsura (Bàsura Cave) provides invaluable evidence of human-canid interactions during the Upper Palaeolithic. It offers unique insight…

In a cave in Liguria, ca. 14 thousand years ago, a group of humans and a single dog walked together in a cave and explored its depths. Their overlapping footprints and tracks are one of the oldest direct evidence of human-dog interactions 🐾🐕 #DogDomestication 🦣🏺🧪

Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Highly selective cannibalism in the Late Pleistocene of Northern Europe reveals Neandertals were targeted prey

New paper on #Neandertal #cannibalism from Goyet 👀🦴 Turns out the victims were mostly short-stature females & juveniles, likely outsiders. More than survival cannibalism evidence points to inter-group predation or deeply social conflict... #Paleolithic #Paleoanthropology

So proud to see our new paper out in PNAS spearheaded by @emilypigott.bsky.social She found a tiny 46,000 yr old Neanderthal bone at Starosele (Crimea). DNA work revealed long-distance connections across Eurasia, supported by stone tool evidence @heasvienna.bsky.social
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Biogeochemical evidence for targeted landscape use in ancient foragers of Malawi - Communications Earth & Environment Foragers hunted small game locally and procured most large prey in riparian habitats and Afromontane grasslands to the southeast of the Kasitu Valley of northern Malawi, suggesting that migratory beha...

"We found no evidence of migratory behavior in species that exhibit this behavior today. Ancient foragers likely hunted prey that were available year-round, consistent with zooarchaeological and genetic evidence for reduced mobility at the end of the Pleistocene." 🏺🧪🦣

Faunal persistence and ecological flexibility in Pleistocene Southeast Asia revealed through multi-isotope analysis Multi-isotope approaches provide valuable insights into mammalian ecological niches and factors contributing to extirpation.

A new landmark study of fossil teeth confirms that adaptable generalists survived Pleistocene climate shifts, while specialized picky eaters went extinct. This warns that modern conservation must prioritize habitat diversity to build the resilient ecosystems essential for survival.
#Conservation 🧪🦣

Reconstructed left hand of KNM-ER 101000.

New fossils reveal the hand of Paranthropus boisei🏺🧪
C. Mongle, Meave Leakey, @louiseleakey.bsky.social et al
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Suggests P. boisei capable of tool making and use in some capacity while also supports proposed dichotomy of dietary adaptations between Paranthropus and Homo

Early humans butchered elephants using small tools then made big tools from their bones, research finds During warmer periods of the Middle Pleistocene, ancient humans in Italy were in the habit of butchering elephants for meat and raw materials, according to a study published October 8, 2025 in the ope...

phys.org/news/2025-10...

Ancient DNA and dating evidence for the dispersal of hippos into central Europe during the last glacial Arnold et al. present evidence that Late Pleistocene hippos from the Upper Rhine Graben show close genetic ties to modern African hippos. Although hippos have been thought to have gone extinct around ...

Turns out #hippos 🦛 lived in Europe much more recently than we thought!
Fossil & genetic evidence from Germany shows they roamed 50,000–31,000 years ago, right in the middle of the last #iceage 🥶🌨️
Same species as today’s African hippos, thriving during warmer periods.
🦣🧪🧬

Wow! This is a nice news 👇

Photo of Ira Flatow and Jane Goodall taken in 2024 during her 90th birthday celebration."

Photo of Ira Flatow and Jane Goodall taken in 2020.

"I do know that when talking to people who perhaps think very differently, the only chance you have of getting them to think in a different way is to touch the heart." — Dr. Jane Goodall (1934-2025)

Thanks, Jane, for touching our hearts.

True! Also, cheetahs are not even big cats (but I still love them ahah)

Mitochondrial genomes of Middle Pleistocene horses from the open-air site complex of Schöningen - Nature Ecology & Evolution Mitochondrial DNA from horses at the Middle Pleistocene archaeological site of Schöningen reveals insight into the evolutionary history of horses and advances techniques for the analysis of ancient DNA retrieved from highly degraded samples.

Schöningen never stops to amaze!
Scientists have just recovered 300,000-year-old #horse #aDNA from the site 🤯 the oldest ever found in open air.
And those horses? Ancestors of all modern horses 🐎🧬
🧪🏺🦣

Links here 👇

Paper: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Press: uni-tuebingen.de/en/universit...

New discovery! Here @mariaguagnin.bsky.social and our team report on 12,000-year-old life-size camel rock art engravings in the Saudi desert. #GreenArabia @griffith.edu.au www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The earliest evidence of blue pigment use in Europe | Antiquity | Cambridge Core The earliest evidence of blue pigment use in Europe

The oldest use of blue pigment in Europe! 💙
At Mühlheim-Dietesheim (Germany), traces of azurite were found on a Final Palaeolithic artefact challenging the idea that blue was absent from Ice Age art.
So interesting! 🤔 Why hasn’t it been found elsewhere? Body paint, lost contexts?
🦣🏺🧪 #Paleolithic

Merci mon cher!

Thanks Roman!!

Thrilled to have won the Student Poster Prize at #ESHE2025! 🏆 Grateful for the opportunity to share my work on Lebanese fauna and for all the inspiring conversations throughout the conference!

Yesterday I had the pleasure of presenting my poster on large carnivore 🐆 exploitation in Lebanon at #ESHE2025. Such a great venue for it, with so many interesting posters around! I also got the chance to chat with lots of amazing people! #Paleolithic #zooarcheology 🏺🦣🧪

Great talk @armandofalcucci.bsky.social! Impressive depth of data analysis, and I really appreciated the open science approach. Finally, robust evidence that the Ahmarian and Protoaurignacian aren’t directly linked
#Paleolithic #lithics 🏺🦣🧪

#ESHE2025 kicks off on 24 Sept with tours at the NHMN in Paris, followed by a keynote panel on the 25th, conference talks, posters (25th to 27th) & an excursion to Resson and Grotte à la Peinture on the 28th. More info here: bit.ly/3G9CeiQ

AI is helping to decode animals’ speech. Will it also let us talk with them? The complexity of vocal communication in some primates, whales and birds might approach that of human language.

#AI is opening a window into #animal #communication, bonobos build phrases, whales craft alphabets 🐒🐋 It’s thrilling to imagine talking back, but... what if our words change their world forever?
Here is a good read to stay updated

Imagine a rhino horn longer than most people are tall… Woolly rhinos had them! Record-breaking 1.65 m nasal horn found in Siberia belonged to a 40+ year-old female 🦏❄️
#Paleontology #IceAge #Prehistory 🧪🦣
Paper 👇
zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

NYAS Publications The traditional view regarding Homo habilis as the primary agent in stone-tool making and animal butchery has long shaped our understanding of human evolution. Recent advances in artificial intellige....

A new cool research using AI reveals that Homo habilis fossils 💀 show #leopard bite marks 🐆 For decades, Homo habilis was cast as a toolmaker, meat-eater, or even predator. But this study shows that at least some were actually leopard prey!
#AI #Archeology 🧪🏺🦣

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age homotheres, white and touching faces together.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age Woolly rhino old adult and youngster.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age Glyptotherium.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age sloth mother with juvenile on back.

Prehistoric Planet Ice Age out later this year... such a thrill to put this series together, oh my goodness are you in for a treat :) Hopefully news on events and publicity coming soon! Sloths, cats, rhinos, glyptodonts AND SOOOO MUCH MORE!!

They finally added the #bookmark 🔖 feature! Finally 💙

Hominin glacial-stage occupation 712,000 to 424,000 years ago at Fordwich Pit, Old Park (Canterbury, UK) - Nature Ecology & Evolution The authors report Acheulean hominin occupation of eastern Britain during glacial marine isotope stages 17–16 and again in glacial marine isotope stage 12 via stone tools in sediments dated to 712,000...

Found the oldest artefact-bearing sediments in Northern Europe (773–607kya), showing hominins lived above 51°N even during glacial stages! Crazy 🥶
#Archeology 🦣🧪

Ancient mammoth remains yield the world's oldest host-associated bacterial DNA An international team led by researchers at the Center for Paleogenetics, has uncovered microbial DNA preserved in woolly and steppe mammoth remains dating back more than one million years. The analys...

phys.org/news/2025-09...

Dental microwear of cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) reveals locally adapted foraging strategies in South-Eastern Europe during late MIS 3 Cave bears (Ursus spelaeus sensu lato) represent a remarkable example of Late Pleistocene megafauna, whose ecology and extinction dynamics remain a su…

New study of cave #bear tooth microwear 🐻🦷 shows they weren’t strict herbivores but had seasonal, opportunistic diets, like modern bears. This flexibility, plus niche overlap with brown bears, offers a more complex picture of their path to extinction!
#zooarchaeology 🦣🏺