Mirage News Originally Posted: July 30, 2020 At the end of last year, scientists from USF and Southern Methodist University (SMU) wrapped up an intense two-year field season on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica with colleagues at the Costa Rican Water and Sewage Authority’s Water Laboratory. With more than 5,000 beach surveys, 500 behavioral observations and 80 interviews to digest, and water quality data to crunch, it was time to celebrate this phase of their NSF-funded coastal health study called MERA, which included several trainings by the USF team to help their colleagues get up to speed on a suite of environmental monitoring techniques. It was December 2019, a time when working side-by-side was a fine thing to do and facial expressions – like [...]

Science Magazine Originally Posted: July 22, 2020 In Science magazine, SMU archeologist David Meltzer questions if stone tools found in a Mexico cave indicate that humans were there 26,000 years ago, more than 10,000 years before any other known human occupation in the region. At first glance, Chiquihuite Cave in Mexico’s Zacatecas state is an unlikely place to find signs of early humans, let alone evidence that might change the story of the peopling of the Americas. It sits a daunting 1000 meters above a valley, overlooking a desert landscape in the mountains north of Zacatecas. Getting there requires a 4- or 5-hour uphill scramble over a moonscape of jagged boulders. But in the soil below the cave’s floor, a team led by archaeologist Ciprian [...]