Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools

You are here: Home

Search results

RSS Subscribe to an always-updated RSS feed.

3259 items matching your search terms.
Filter the results.
Item type



































New items since



Sort by relevance · date (newest first) · alphabetically
Article Reference Placoderm assemblage from the tetrapod-bearing locality of Strud (Belgium, Upper Famennian) provides evidence for a fish nursery
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2016
Article Reference Planning and geology in a coastal plain
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Plant economy and vegetation of the Iron Age in Bulgaria: archaeobotanical evidence from pit deposits
Major social and economical changes occurred in human societies during the Iron Age of Southeastern Europe: increasing structuring of societies, intensifying production and metal technologies and the establishment of a market economy. However, the related plant economy of the region is still poorly studied and understood. The Iron Age `pit field sites' (groups of pits distributed over a certain area) in south-eastern Bulgaria were recently intensively excavated, and their study provides rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which are used for filling this gap in our knowledge. The current study presents the archaeobotanical information from 196 flotation samples from 50 Iron Age pits. The results show a wide range of annual crops, the most important of which seem to be hulled wheats (mainly einkorn), barley and also millet. A variety of pulses and fruits is retrieved, each in small quantities. Some species like Olea europaea and Cucumis melo are an indication for contacts with adjacent regions (especially the Mediterranean area). The archaeobotanical assemblages also documented the environment and land use, revealing the exploitation of a variety of habitats like cropland, open grassland, shrub land and wetland. The archaeobotanical analyses of the Iron Age pit fields show that this type of structures can be an important source of information on the Iron Age plant economy in the region.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2016
Article Reference Octet Stream Plant selection for nest building by western lowland gorillas in Cameroon
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Plant use and local vegetation patterns during the second half of the Late Pleistocene in southwestern Germany
In light of recent discoveries of early figurative art in Paleolithic sites of southwestern Germany, gaining an improved understanding of biological, cultural, and social development of these hunter-gatherer populations under past environmental conditions is essential. The analysis of botanical micro- and macrofossils from the Hohle Fels Cave contributes to the limited floral record from this region. These data suggest generally open vegetation, with the presence of wood near Hohle Fels, as indicated by pollen, phytoliths, and evidence from wood charcoal throughout the whole sequence of occupation. The Aurignacian horizons (early Upper Paleolithic, starting around 44,200 calibrated years before present (cal yr BP) correlate with prevailing shrub tundra. Few arboreal pollen in the transitional section from the Aurignacian to the Gravettian horizons (middle Upper Paleolithic, until ca. 32 cal yr BP) supports the model of an interglacial tundra with a mosaic of cold steppe elements and some patches of woody species. In the Gravettian, the macrobotanical and the palynological records indicate colder climatic conditions and a generally reduced presence of wood patches. Few seed remains, mostly of the Asteraceae and Poaceae families suggesting the use of these plants. The collection of bearberry (Arctostaphylos sp.) for specific purposes is indicated by large amounts of bark fragments.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Plant-insect interactions in the Selandian (Early Paleocene) Gelinden Fossil Flora (Belgium) and what they mean for the ecosystems after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
This study aims to quantify the intensity and diversity of plant-insect associations observed in the fossil assemblage of Gelinden, Limburg, Belgium. The site yields a rich collection of well-preserved plant remains, mainly leaves, from a Paleocene European temperate forest. The 780 specimens presented here were scanned using standardized morphotype systems for any trace of damage. This raw data was then used to quantify the intensity and diversity of interactions in the Gelinden flora. This material showed an impressive richness of interactions, contrasting with the poor North American sites covering the period that followed the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction. Both hosts and interaction types observed at Gelinden are two to three times more abundant than in most American floras, in raw numbers and leaf area affected. This is coherent with what has been observed in the few other studies conducted in Europe, South America and Antarctica, pointing toward more regionalized effects of the extinction than previously assumed based on American findings. This greater richness implies that these sites were either less affected or quicker to recover from the Cretaceous/Paleogene extinction, questioning its global impact, at least on the lower levels of the food web, as discussed in the following paper.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Plant-insect interactions in the Selandian (Early Paleocene) Gelinden Fossil Flora (Belgium) and what they mean for the ecosystems after the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2023
Article Reference Plasticity and Convergence in the Evolution of Short-Necked Plesiosaurs
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2017
Article Reference Pleistocene and Recent species of the family Darwinulidae BRADY & NORMAN, 1889 (Crustacea, Ostracoda) in Europe
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications
Article Reference Pleistocene Mitochondrial Genomes Suggest a Single Major Dispersal of Non-Africans and a Late Glacial Population Turnover in Europe
How modern humans dispersed into Eurasia and Australasia, including the number of separate expansions and their timings, is highly debated [ 1, 2 ]. Two categories of models are proposed for the dispersal of non-Africans: (1) single dispersal, i.e., a single major diffusion of modern humans across Eurasia and Australasia [ 3–5 ]; and (2) multiple dispersal, i.e., additional earlier population expansions that may have contributed to the genetic diversity of some present-day humans outside of Africa [ 6–9 ]. Many variants of these models focus largely on Asia and Australasia, neglecting human dispersal into Europe, thus explaining only a subset of the entire colonization process outside of Africa [ 3–5, 8, 9 ]. The genetic diversity of the first modern humans who spread into Europe during the Late Pleistocene and the impact of subsequent climatic events on their demography are largely unknown. Here we analyze 55 complete human mitochondrial genomes (mtDNAs) of hunter-gatherers spanning ∼35,000 years of European prehistory. We unexpectedly find mtDNA lineage M in individuals prior to the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This lineage is absent in contemporary Europeans, although it is found at high frequency in modern Asians, Australasians, and Native Americans. Dating the most recent common ancestor of each of the modern non-African mtDNA clades reveals their single, late, and rapid dispersal less than 55,000 years ago. Demographic modeling not only indicates an LGM genetic bottleneck, but also provides surprising evidence of a major population turnover in Europe around 14,500 years ago during the Late Glacial, a period of climatic instability at the end of the Pleistocene.
Located in Library / RBINS Staff Publications 2016