• The sinkhole was found by scientists in Leye Fengshan UNESCO Global Geopark
• It’s reported to be 306m in length, 150m in width and 192m in depth
• Researchers say it could be home to previously unidentified animal species

By Madison Burgess

Published: 12:24 EDT, 21 August 2023 | Updated: 12:35 EDT, 21 August 2023

Have scientists discovered a new species of HUMAN? Ancient skull belonging to a child with no chin who lived 300,000 years ago suggests our family tree ‘needs another branch’

• A fossilised skill, jaw and leg bones were found in Hualongdong, China in 2019
• Interestingly, researchers say the unknown species ‘did not possess a true chin’ 

By Sam Tonkin

Updated: 14:22 EDT, 7 August 2023

Climate change may have propelled the evolution of humanity forward by giving humanity’s ancient ancestors bigger brains, a new study has suggested.

Researchers from Washington University in St Louis found increases in the brain sizes of ancient hominins (humanity’s ancestors) aligned with glacial phases more than 600,000 years ago.

The team developed a computer simulation to mathematically show how new mating habits and ‘parental cooperation’ needed to survive during an inhospitable Ice Age would have ‘sped up’ the evolution of the human brain.

The simulation suggested that hominins sought mates similar to themselves due to the rising importance of necessities like fire, food, and shelter to survive the deadly cold. 

The new mating habits, which the researchers call ‘positive assortative mating,’ could have also helped advance critical human abilities — like the development of language-based communication and fire.

Plus, greater ingenuity and a willingness to cooperate between parents, according to their study, would have vastly helped humanity’s ancestors prevent cold-related deaths, including hypothermia.

‘It has long been argued that climate change was an important driver of hominin evolution, with considerable attention given to glacial phases,’ according to the new study’s lead author, economist Bruce Petersen.

‘In The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Charles Darwin placed great emphasis on sexual selection for hominin evolution,’ Petersen said. 

‘However, its role as an evolutionary force was then largely ignored for over a century.’

In other words, an Ice Age truce in the war between the sexes improved the chances for intelligent parents who got along with each other and taught their children well. 

Petersen used anthropological and climate data to develop the simulation and found that ‘periods of severe climate change’ beginning with a major glacial freeze 676,000 to 621,000 years ago would have led to a period of increased sexual pickiness.

This ‘Ice Age within an Ice Age,’ dubbed MIS 16 after the marine isotopes used to identify it, would have led to what Petersen calls ‘positive assortative mating.’

‘This means that mates are less specialized,’ Petersen said, ‘in part because complementarities arise only when mates work together.’  

‘An efficient mating system surely became ever more important with the lengthening of offspring dependency and the start of the severe glacial phases,’ he noted.

The research team’s simulation pitted three categories of early men against each other: first, a group that was the most intelligent but physically weak, a second ‘intermediate’ group and lastly, a third that was the strongest but least intelligent.

Their mathematical models found that the positive assortative mating of pairs from the first category not only produced the fittest offspring — but was often the only pairing with enough children for their genes to survive the brutal glacial freeze.

‘Many scientists have argued that the enormous advantages of both language and fire would have placed strong selective pressures on these behaviors,’ Petersen said.

Using economics models, Petersen described these as ‘home-produced family public goods’ which were ‘demanding to produce’ and included fire, language, shelter, and child training.  

The new research also suggests that survival pressures due to climate change would have spurred physical changes, reducing ‘dimorphism’ or body differences between the sexes.

‘Finally, this paper suggests that the economics of the family, particularly the focus on assortative mating, can be useful for future research on the evolution of sexual dimorphism in Homo [early hominins more broadly, not just Homo sapiens or others].’  

‘A prediction of this paper’s model,’ Petersen noted, is a ‘decline in body size dimorphism.’ 

These changes in sex-based difference — height, weight and strength — ‘may have continued well into the time period of Homo heidelbergensis: an extinct species of human known from fossils dating from 600,000 to 200,000 years ago in Africa, Europe, and possibly Asia,’ he said.

Petersen believes that extreme Ice Age hardship was a key instance in which ‘positive’ natural selection, meaning co-parenting choices, had a bigger impact on human evolution than ‘negative’ natural selection, from deaths and competition. 

‘The paper applies core economic principles, rarely used to explain human evolution prior to Homo sapiens,’ Petersen added. 

‘Sexual selection and parental cooperation, in conjunction with severe glacial phases, helped drive hominin intelligence in the Middle Pleistocene.’

Italians are furious after a tourist was filmed by an English-speaking man scrawling ‘Ivan + Hayley’ into the wall of Rome’s ancient Colosseum.

A bystander filmed the tourist as he carved the names into the stone walls of the 1,937-year-old building using a set of keys.

The man can be seen scratching ‘Ivan + Hayley 23’ into one of the bricks, likely trying to mirror the date of their visit, which according to the English-speaking man who recorded the footage, was last Friday, on June 23. 

The man carving the walls, who was wearing shorts and a blue T-shirt, grinned into the camera when he realised he was being filmed. 

The video was shared on Reddit with the caption: ‘A******e tourist carves name in Colosseum in Rome’.

In the video, the English-speaking man filming the footage said to the other: ‘Are you serious man? That is f***ed up man. Stupid a******e.’

Other users were quick to comment, sharing their outrage and speculating that the man was called ‘Ivan’ and ‘Hayley’ was his girlfriend.

They also called on the poster to send the video to police, so the vandal could be arrested.

If caught he could face a massive fine which in the past has been up to £17,000. He could even face up to a year of jail time.

In a statement, Italy’s Minister of Culture Gennaro Sangiuliano said: ‘I consider it very serious, unworthy and a sign of great incivility that a tourist defaces one of the most famous places in the world, a historical heritage such as the Colosseum, to engrave the name of his fiancée.

‘I hope that whoever made this gesture at the Flavian Amphitheatre will be identified and sanctioned according to our laws.’

Alfonsina Russo, director of the Colosseum, told MailOnline:’The Carabinieri police are now tracking down this man and we will see if we can get him. 

‘When you get uneducated people at the Colosseum this kind of hooliganism happens and I hope there are no copycats.’

A spokesperson for the Carabinieri paramilitary police in Rome added:’We have been informed of this incident and are looking to identity the culprit and when he is caught, he will be punished.’

This is not the first time tourists have been fined for vandalising what is believed to be the world’s largest amphitheatre. 

In 2020, an Irish tourist was arrested for allegedly carving his initials into the Colosseum. 

The Carabinieri police said a 32-year-old man was caught by the Colosseum’s private security and immediately reported to officers.

The man’s two initials, about 2in high, were said to have been carved with a metal point on a pillar of the first floor in September 2020.

The unnamed man was accused of damaging a historical and artistic landmark.

Fines start at £1750 (€2,065), while a sentence could be as much as one year in prison.

Archaeologist Federica Rinaldi, responsible for the ancient Roman amphitheater, said people who carve their initials into the monument want to ‘appropriate’ it.

She added: ‘The Colosseum, like any monument that represents the history of all of us, must be preserved and handed over to future generations.’

The Colosseum, considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world, is a World Heritage Site.

This is along with 54 other Italian sites which comprise the city’s historic centre.

In January 2017, the Colosseum was vandalised with black spray paint, officials have said.

The name ‘Balto’ and the word ‘Morte’ (death) were sprayed onto the pillar overnight.

Two Brazilian men who attempted to climb over a gate into the Colosseum on the same day were apprehended by the authorities when they fell 13 feet (four metres), one fracturing his hip bone.

CCTV was studied to see if they were responsible for the the graffiti.

Francesco Prosperetti, special superintendent for the Colosseum, said: ‘We worry that this could become a game and people could start competing over it.’ 

In 2015, two American tourists were arrested for carving initials into the Colosseum.

Before they were spotted, the women, 21 and 25, were able to carve a J and an N into a brick wall on the first floor of the west side of the Colosseum.

After carving the 8in-high letters, the women posed together for a selfie. 

The women, just two of six million tourists that flock to the Colosseum every year, used a coin to engrave the letters, La Stampa reported.

They are said to have broken away from their tour group – but other tourists saw what had happened and alerted security.

Police charged the women with ‘aggravated damage on building of historical and artistic interest’, according to Repubblica. 

After they were caught, the women apologised to Piazza Dante police and Captain Lorenzo Iacobone.

They said: ‘We apologise for what we did. We regret it but we did not imagine it was something so serious. We’ll remember for a lifetime.’  

According to The Guardian, the section damaged dates back to the 1800s – a key period of restoration.

A spokesman for the Special Superintendency for the Archaeological Heritage of Rome is quoted as saying: ‘It’s not an original wall but it’s nevertheless antique.’ 

In 2014, a Russian tourist was fined £17,000 (20,000€) for carving the letter ‘K’ on a section of brickwork.

Construction on the Colosseum began sometime between 70 and 72CE and seated around 50,000 spectators.

They came to watch gladiators in combat with each other and dangerous animals, including lions.

Other tourists have repeatedly caused chaos in Rome, like in 2018, when two British tourists stripped and posed for photos in a fountain at one of Rome‘s most famous monuments.

One of the Britons can be seen removing his underwear as the two men frolicked in the water at the foot of Altare della Patria in the Italian capital.

Others filmed as the men laughed and jokingly flexed their muscles in front of bemused tourists.

Their antics were captured on camera by a tour guide at the landmark – a monument to war dead that was originally built in honour of Victor Emmanuel II, the first king of the unified Italy. 

In the footage, two men – reported as being British by local media – are seen posing for photos in the fountain wearing only their briefs. 

Several people position themselves by the wall, dipping their feet into the water and taking photos.

One of the men then pulls his underwear down and hides his genitals between his legs to pose naked for photos. Numerous visitors walk past the Britons as they continued to misbehave.

The footage caused outrage on social media. One Italian wrote online: ‘English sons of b*****s, always playing up and attention-seeking.’ 

Local media said at the time that this was yet another assault on Italy’s heritage. 

An ancient Mayan city has been discovered deep in the jungles of Mexico. 

Buildings, stone columns and 50-foot high pyramids make up the settlement, which was thought to have been a major hub at points between 250 and 1000 AD and is located in a largely unexplored stretch of jungle larger the size of Arizona.

The city – named Ocomtún or ‘stone column’ – covers around a fifth of a square mile and is located in the Campeche region of the Yucatan Peninsula, which splits the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.

It was discovered in May by Slovenian archaeologist Ivan Šprajc, who led a team of into the thick jungle and spent a month uncovering the city’s remains, Mexico’s National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) announced on Tuesday.

According to Šprajc, the columns would have served as entrances to the upper floors of the buildings. The city is built around three main plazas, also features courts on which the Mayan inhabitants would have played an ancient ball game.

Ocomtún was discovered using LiDAR scanners, described by the National Geographic as one of archaeology’s most exciting modern tools, which use laser imaging captured from an aircraft to identify objects and structures hidden below.

The method has become especially popular among archaeologists searching dense regions of forest and jungle. 

The Maya civilization, known for its advanced mathematical calendars, spanned southeast Mexico and parts of Central America. They are also renowned for their pyramid temples and stone buildings.

Although they are thought to have been around for millennia, from around 1800 BC through to around 1000 AD, archeologists believe the Ocomtún fell late during the civilization between 800 to 1000 AD.

Political collapse led to its decline centuries before the arrival of Spanish conquistadors, whose military campaigns saw the last stronghold fall in the late 17th century.

The Ocomtún site has a core area, located on high ground surrounded by extensive wetlands, Šprajc said in a statement.

Ball games were popular throughout the Maya region and consisted of passing a rubber ball across a court without the use of hands and getting it through a small stone hoop.

The ball game is thought by experts to have been played throughout the  Mesoamerican region and is probably the oldest game in the history of sports. It is played on a stone-floored court about 160 feet in length.

Šprajc said his team had also found central altars in an area closer to the La Riguena river, which may have been designed for community rituals, though more research is needed to understand the cultures that once lived there. 

He has uncovered a number of Mayan cities during his career, which has been dedicated to the Yucatan Peninsula, and is the author of Lost Maya Cities: Archaeological Quests in the Mexican Jungle.

He suggested in his latest announcement that collapse of the city was likely a reflection of ‘ideological and population changes’ that led to the broader collapse of Maya societies in that region by around the 10th century.

Earlier this year a similar LiDAR approach was used to identify another Mayan civilization in Guatemala.

Whether it’s by bus, train or tube, many of us dread our daily commute to the office. 

But next time you complain about your journey, spare a thought for the Ancient Romans, whose travel times were significantly longer. 

At its largest, the Roman Empire stretched across the length and breadth of the UK, Europe and beyond, covering a staggering 1,061,780 square miles (2,750,000 square km).

To put this expanse into perspective, historians have created an interactive map that lets you explore the Empire and see how long it would have taken – and how much it would have cost – to travel the world in 200 CE. 

The map of the Roman world was created by historians from Stanford University, and features 632 sites, including urban settlements and mountain passes.

The map reveals how much it would have cost to travel on roads and seas across the Roman Empire in 200 CE, and calculates the route based on the season or mode of transport chosen. 

For example, travelling from Londinium to Roma in July would have taken 21 days, covering 1,642 miles (2643km). 

Prices in denarii would have been 1,031.23 per passenger. 

Denarius was a small silver coin used by the Romans. Its name is the origin of several modern words such as the currency name dinar, and the Italian common noun for money, denaro.

An unskilled labourer would have received a denarius for a day’s work, for example.

Map modes include travelling by foot, horses, relay, oxcart, porter, private chariot, and during a rapid military march.

Start and end points of routes can be selected using drop-down menus, and users can even select what season they travel in.

Elsewhere, travellers can select between the fastest, cheapest, and shortest routes and whether they want to exclude roads, rivers, coastal or open seas.

Once all the options have been selected, the Calculate Route button shows the results.

These appear as text in the bottom left-hand corner, a longitude and latitude graph along the bottom, and a node route on top of the map. The Display options in the top right-hand corner lets users remove, or show, terrain details, sites, names, paths and regions.

Orbis: The Stanford Geospatial Network Model of the Roman World model is based on a simplified version of the network of cities, roads, rivers and sea lanes that framed movement across the Roman Empire. 

Although it broadly reflects conditions around 200 CE, it also covers sites and roads created in late antiquity.

The baseline road network covers 52,587 miles (84,631 km) of road or desert tracks, in addition to 17,567 miles (28,272 km) of rivers and canals.

When travelling by sea, the map simulates monthly wind conditions and takes account of strong currents and wave height.

The model’s maritime network is made up of 1,026 sea routes, linking 513 pairs of sites in both directions.

The details were taken from historical sources and supplemented by coastal short-range connections between all ports, as well as number of mid-range routes that fill gaps in ancient coverage. 

Their total length, which would have varied monthly due to the changing conditions, averages at 119,806 miles (192,810 km).

Sea travel is possible at two sailing speeds that reflect the likely range of navigational capabilities in the Roman period. 

More than 150 of the sea lanes are classified as open sea connections and can be disabled to restrict movement to coastal and other short-haul routes.

For each route the model generates two outcomes for time, and four for expense in any given month.

The map was built by a team led by Elijah Meeks and included geographer and web developer Karl Grossner and Noemi Alvarez.

Want to remain healthy as you get older? Just swing your arms! How an ancient Chinese technique can help improve your walking speed, posture and flexibility and make everyday tasks that much easier

• Over 1,000-year-old exercise routine consists of sequence of five arm swings

By Fiona Macrae

Updated: 20:42 EDT, 28 May 2023

Forget ‘X’ marks the spot.

An amazing online map has been produced that pinpoints all the archaeological treasures around Europe – and further afield – and pulls up information about them at the click of a button.

Called Vici, the interactive digital map is described as an ‘archaeological atlas of classical antiquity’.

It’s inspired by Wikipedia, with more than 400 contributors adding pictures and information about sites and artefacts to the map since it launched in 2011. To date, there are more than 85,000 locations marked on the map and nearly 40,000 images.

Making them easy to track down, the exact coordinates of each site is identified.

With a particular focus on Europe, North Africa and the Middle East, the sites that feature on Vici.org include the Roman villa at Lullingstone, Kent, which dates back to around AD75 and features’ rich mosaic tiled floors’ and a burial chamber.

There is also the remains of Trajan’s Bridge in Romania – which was the world’s longest arch bridge for more than 1,000 years – and Malta’s roughly 5,000-year-old Mnajdra temple complex.

Rene Voorburg, who created the map, tells MailOnline Travel: ‘Nearly every day new places are added by the contributors. Some are very active and have added thousands of markers.’

Vici’s launch was preceded by that of a sister website, Omnesviae, which functions as a ‘Roman route planner’ that roughly retraces the route of the Peutinger map, a medieval copy of a Roman roadmap from around the year AD300.

Rene, 54, who is based in the small Dutch city of Houten, says: ‘Vici.org started because I wanted a map that displayed the locations of the hidden and visible remains of the Romans for my local area. Basically, I wanted to “see” what was where in Roman times; where was the vicus (village), the harbour, the castle, where were the roads, and so on.’

The landscape archaeology expert, who works for the Dutch national library as a data specialist, says that although the map was initially focused on Roman history, it quickly became an all-encompassing map of antiquity spanning up to the end of the medieval age. Some of the markers also identify museums all over the world where objects from antiquity are on display.

One standout item to appear on the map, according to Rene, is a dice tower – a small tower that would have been used in the playing of dice games – that was discovered in a Roman villa in Germany.

The words etched into the tower pay tribute to a military defeat of the Picts, a group of people that lived in Britain in the early Middle Ages. Rene says of the artefact: ‘I think it is fascinating to think about how it got there. Perhaps the owner of the villa fought the Picts and got this as a souvenir before he settled in nowadays Germany?’

How does Rene recommend that users interact with the map? He says: ‘Personally I like to “walk” around that map, by dragging it around and zooming in or out, and look at the images that appear. When I go on holiday somewhere, I also use vici.org to find interesting remains to visit.’

Omnesviae, meanwhile, gives an ‘indication’ of where the Roman roads might have been in Europe, rather than offering exact coordinates and routes, Rene reveals. He says that its purpose is to ‘tell the story of how advanced the Romans were and what a huge empire they had’.

He adds: ‘I also like the fact that it binds and connects us Europeans with a common – and rather cool – history.’

To experiment with Vici – or to contribute to the map – go to Vici.org.

Early toilets in modern-day Israel show that the Kingdom of Judah was rife with deadly diarrhoea, a new study reveals.

Researchers have sampled ancient faeces from two Jerusalem latrines dating back around 1,500 years that were once part of ‘elite’ living quarters. 

They uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis – a common cause of debilitating dysentery in humans today.

The intestinal inflammation can lead to severe diarrhea with mucus or blood in the feces, and can cause stunted growth, impaired cognitive function and death.

It follows the discovery of a mysterious handprint in Jerusalem’s Old City that has baffled researchers. 

The new study has been led by the University of Cambridge and published today in the journal Parasitology. 

The authors say it provides the oldest example we have of this diarrhoea-causing parasite infecting humans anywhere. 

‘This provides our first microbiological evidence for infective diarrhoeal illnesses that would have affected the populations of the ancient near east,’ they say. 

‘It seems likely that outbreaks of dysentery due to giardiasis may have caused ill health throughout early towns across the region.

‘Most of those who die from Giardia are children, and chronic infection in this group can lead to stunted growth, impaired cognitive function and failure to thrive.’ 

The Kingdom of Judah was a Semitic-speaking kingdom founded around 930 BC with Jerusalem as its capital, although the city itself dates back further.

The Old City of Jerusalem, which is believed to have been continuously inhabited for almost 5,000 years, forms a walled quadrilateral about 3,000 feet long on each side in modern-day Israel. 

The faecal samples came from the sediment underneath toilets found in two building complexes in and around the Old City, both dating back to the 7th century BC.

During this time, Judah was a vassal state under the control of the Assyrian Empire, which at its height stretched from the Levant to the Persian Gulf, incorporating much of modern-day Iran and Iraq.

The first toilet is located at the House of Ahiel, a typical Israelite dwelling with the Old City walls, while the other, Armon ha-Natziv, is much further south. 

The team investigated any traces of faeces by applying a bio-molecular technique called ELISA, where antibodies bind onto the proteins uniquely produced by particular species of single-celled organisms.

‘Unlike the eggs of other intestinal parasites, the protozoa that cause dysentery are fragile and extremely hard to detect in ancient samples through microscopes without using antibodies,’ said study author Tianyi Wang.

The researchers tested for Entamoeba, Giardia and Cryptosporidium – three parasitic microorganisms that are among the most common causes of diarrhoea in humans and behind outbreaks of dysentery. 

Results for Entamoeba and Cryptosporidium were negative, but those for Giardia were positive even after the tests were repeated. 

Giardia colonizes the small intestine, causing a diarrheal condition known as giardiasis. 

Researchers say it is highly unlikely that the sampled sediment was contaminated by the environmental conditions or by those excavating the site.  

Their results suggest that outbreaks of dysentery due to the giardiasis parasite ‘likely caused ill health throughout early towns across the region’. 

‘We conclude that the limited sanitation technologies available at the time, the shortage of fresh water for much of the year, the population density of these towns and widespread house flies all had the potential to contribute to infection,’ they say in their paper.

What’s more, both toilets were likely only used by the elite, so any poorer populations of the Kingdom of Judah likely suffered the worst bouts. 

Jerusalem would have been a flourishing political and religious hub estimated to have had between 8,000 and 25,000 residents. 

House of Ahiel was a domestic building made up of seven rooms, housing an upper-class family at the time, that was likely built around the 8th century BC.

Meanwhile, the other toilet was once part of a ‘lavishly decorated estate’ at Armon ha-Natziv, surrounded by an ornamental garden. 

The site, excavated in 2019, likely dates from the days of King Manasseh, a client king for the Assyrians who ruled for fifty years in the mid-7th century.

Both toilets had carved stone seats almost identical in design – a shallow curved surface for sitting, with a large central hole for defecation and an adjacent hole at the front for male urination. 

‘Toilets with cesspits from this time are relatively rare and were usually made only for the elite,’ said lead study author Dr Piers Mitchell from Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology.

Researchers say their study gives ‘a fascinating insight’ into health and disease of the early populations of biblical period Jerusalem. 

It’s something that many people are self-conscious of, and if you not a fan of your nose, we finally know who to blame. 

Scientists have revealed that Neanderthal DNA helps dictate the shape of your nose.  

A new study led by UCL researchers found that a particular gene, which leads to a taller nose, may have been the product of natural selection as ancient humans adapted to colder climates after leaving Africa.

Dr Kaustubh Adhikari, who led the study, said: ‘In the last 15 years, since the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced, we have been able to learn that our own ancestors apparently interbred with Neanderthals, leaving us with little bits of their DNA.

‘Here, we find that some DNA inherited from Neanderthals influences the shape of our faces.

‘This could have been helpful to our ancestors, as it has been passed down for thousands of generations.’

The researchers used data from more than 6,000 people across Latin America, of mixed European, Native American and African ancestry, who are part of the UCL-led Candela study, which recruited from Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and Peru.

Genetic information from the people was compared to photographs of their faces.

To see how different facial traits were linked to the presence of different genetic markers, the researchers looked specifically at distances between points on their faces, such as the tip of the nose or the edge of the lips.

According to the study, researchers newly identified 33 genome regions associated with face shape.

They were able to replicate 26 in comparisons with data from other ethnicities using people in east Asia, Europe, or Africa.

In one genome region in particular, called ATF3, the researchers found that many people in their study with Native American ancestry (as well as others with east Asian ancestry from another group) had genetic material in this gene that was inherited from the Neanderthals.

They found that this contributed to increased nasal height.

This gene region has signs of natural selection, suggesting that it conferred an advantage for those carrying the genetic material, the researchers say.

First author Dr Qing Li, Fudan University, said: ‘It has long been speculated that the shape of our noses is determined by natural selection; as our noses can help us to regulate the temperature and humidity of the air we breathe in, different shaped noses may be better suited to different climates that our ancestors lived in.

‘The gene we have identified here may have been inherited from Neanderthals to help humans adapt to colder climates as our ancestors moved out of Africa.’

Co-corresponding author Professor Andres Ruiz-Linares, Fudan University, UCL Genetics, Evolution & Environment, and Aix-Marseille University, added: ‘Most genetic studies of human diversity have investigated the genes of Europeans; our study’s diverse sample of Latin American participants broadens the reach of genetic study findings, helping us to better understand the genetics of all humans.’

Researchers say the finding, published in Communications Biology, is the second discovery of DNA from archaic humans, distinct from Homo sapiens, affecting our face shape.

The same team discovered in a 2021 paper that a gene influencing lip shape was inherited from the ancient Denisovans.