Clipmarks | invictus's Anthropology collection

Decoding Neanderthals

Sat, 20 Sep 2008 18:53:41 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: New NGC documentary on Sunday.

Research into the lives of Neanderthals is progressing at such a pace that National Geographic could probably produce a new documentary like "The Neanderthal Code" (airing Sunday, September 21, at 9:00 pm ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel) every couple of years and still fill it with new breakthroughs. This program covers a vast amount of science, both old and new, and serves as a thorough and entertaining summary of the latest interpretations and data on our species's closest fossilized relatives. The show addresses several important questions: Did Neanderthal's make art? Were they tougher than professional bull-riders? Did they have religion? If so, were they such a bunch of Puritans that they wouldn't mate with the Homo sapiens who invaded their territory in Europe roughly 40,000 years ago?

Little arrow that rewrites history books

Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:25:15 GMT

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Clip Source: www.pretorianews.co.za

Two researchers from Wits University believe that what they have discovered is a 60 000-year-old arrow that was fired from the earliest known bow. Their discovery has pushed back the origins of bow-and-arrow technology by 20 000 years.

The bow, probably made of wood and long since decayed, was used at a time when Neanderthals in Europe were using large spears in duels with woolly mammoths and other large prehistoric game.

The bone arrow, just 5cm long, was excavated by Wadley at the Sibudu cave, near the coastal town of Ballito in KwaZulu Natal, two years ago.

It's mystery who the people were who fashioned the arrow.

Also at this time, humankind was leaving an ever-increasing archaeological record of the first inklings of modern human behaviour. They were burying the dead, using coloured pigments and wearing jewellery.

"This at a time a few thousand years before they walked out of Africa, to become the ancestors of all humans," said Backwell.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, south africa, prehistory, arrow, science

Human line 'nearly split in two'

Thu, 24 Apr 2008 20:24:48 GMT

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Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests.

The genetic split in Africa resulted in distinct populations that lived in isolation for as much as 100,000 years, the scientists say.

This could have been caused by arid conditions driving a wedge between humans in eastern and southern Africa.

Details have been published in the American Journal of Human Genetics.

It would be the longest period for which modern human populations have been isolated from one another.

Tags: anthropology, humans, science

'First European' is 1.2 million years old

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:17:18 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Very important new data that could change the history textbooks.

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

An analysis of an ancient jaw containing teeth has confirmed that humans reached Western Europe well over a million years ago, far earlier than previously thought. The prehistoric fossil was excavated last June at Atapuerca in northern Spain, along with a previously reported tooth and stone tools used for butchering meat.

The new study of the jaw confirms that the 'first Europeans' arrived well over a million years ago, reports the archaeological team — led by Eudald Carbonell of the Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain — in the latest issue of the journal Nature.

The research opens an interesting new chapter in the story of European colonization, the study authors say. The earliest known human fossils found outside of Africa are from Dmanisi in the modern-day Republic of Georgia. The Georgian hominins lived some 1.7 million years ago and represent an early expansion of humans outside Africa.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, humans, europe

Culture, Not Skulls, Gave Humans Edge Over Neanderthals

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:46:42 GMT

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Clip Source: www.livescience.com

The first modern humans had something Neanderthals didn't. About 30,000 years ago, our Neanderthal neighbors died off while we survived. Scientists are unsure what gave us an edge, but new research could help narrow down the possibilities.

A team of anthropologists has compared measurements of Neanderthal skulls to modern human skulls, and argues that most variations among them are the result of random changes that occur over time, and not of adaptations driven by natural selection.

"We're actually saying that the differences between modern humans' skulls and Neanderthals' are not due to changes that increased people's ability to survive and reproduce," said researcher Tim Weaver

"Whatever advantages humans had over Neanderthals didn’t have to do with the size and shape of the cranium."

In other words, modern humans don't seem to have developed skeletal adaptations that gave them better eyesight, hearing or smell than Neanderthals.

Tags: anthropology, humans, neanderthals, genetics, culture, science

The Neanderthal-Human Split: (Very) Ancient History

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 16:32:15 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Neanderthals and humans once shared a common ancestor, but we split from the stocky, hairy hominid group as long as 400,000 to 350,000 years ago, concludes a new study.

That estimate matches prior DNA studies, putting a date to the time when human beings first emerged on the planet. But would these first humans have been anatomically just like us? Probably not, suggests lead author Timothy Weaver, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis.

"Early fossils along this lineage are quite different from later ones," he told Discovery News.

Fast evolution, in fact, probably drove the initial Neanderthal/human divergence, which likely began as genetic drift -- random changes in DNA. As the two groups parted ways, their changing environments likely drove more substantial changes in body shape and size, in response to differing needs.

Tags: anthropology, humans, neanderthals, prehistory, science

Out of Africa, Not Once But Twice

Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:36:14 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Modern humans are known to have left Africa in a wave of migration around 50,000 years ago, but another, smaller group -- possibly a different subspecies -- left the continent 50,000 years earlier, suggests a new study.

While all humans today are related to the second "out of Africa" group, it's likely that some populations native to Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia retain genetic vestiges of the earlier migrants, according to the paper's author, Michael Schillaci.

Schillaci, an assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the University of Toronto, also found the earlier group of emigrants had some genetic similarity to Neanderthals, a hominid that left Africa much earlier, settling in Europe and parts of western and central Asia.

Tags: anthropology, humans, migration, africa, neanderthal, prehistory, science

Human ancestors more primitive than once thought

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 03:33:49 GMT

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Clip Source: www.physorg.com

A team of researchers, including Herman Pontzer, Ph.D., assistant professor of physical anthropology in Arts & Sciences, has determined through analysis of the earliest known hominid fossils outside of Africa, recently discovered in Dmanisi, Georgia, the former Soviet republic, that the first human ancestors to inhabit Eurasia were more primitive than previously thought.

The fossils, dated to 1.8 million years old, show some modern aspects of lower limb morphology, such as long legs and an arched foot, but retain some primitive aspects of morphology in the shoulder and foot. The species had a small stature and brain size more similar to earlier species found in Africa.

The findings, published Sept. 20 in the journal Nature, are a marked step in learning more about the first human ancestors to migrate from Africa.

Tags: anthropology, humans, evolution, science

Is Monogamy Natural?

Wed, 25 Jul 2007 17:45:12 GMT

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clipper's remarks:

"Lots of animals," Quirk says, "have the 'marriage' instinct: penguins, parrots, swans, gibbons, seahorses, humans. ... What do all these animals have in common? Long childhoods. Who has the longest childhood in the animal kingdom? Humans."

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

Is Monogamy Natural?

Vaunted in the mainstream media, two new reports from the Pew Research Center report and the National Survey of Families and Households indicate that couples become bored and unhappy sooner than was previously thought: more like three years into their togetherness than seven.

For species whose slow-growing offspring statistically stand better chances of survival with two parents providing double-sustenance, double-vigilance, double-protection and double-support, monogamy makes scientific sense. But because it's so difficult "to live in the same nest for fifteen years," as Quirk puts it, "love is an instinct coded into our genes."

Fool yourself all you want about free will.

"We inherited the desire to fall in love," Quirk insists, because that soul-baring, die-for-you devotion helped our ancestors "raise babies on the dangerous Pleistocene savanna."

Tags: anthropology, genetics, humans, marriage, monogamy, instincts

Clues Boost 'Out of Africa' Theory

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 17:48:20 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Clues Boost 'Out of Africa' Theory

July 18, 2007 — Twenty years after it was popularized, the "Out of Africa" theory, which posits that modern humans originally came from Africa before spreading out in a global conquest, has received an emphatic boost, scientists said on Wednesday.

Rival theories about the rise of Homo sapiens sapiens, as anatomically modern man is called, say humans either came from a single point in Africa or among different populations in different parts around the world, who evolved independently from a forebear, Homo erectus.

The "Out of Africa" scenario has been underpinned since 1987 by genetic studies based mainly on the rate of mutations in mitochondrial DNA, a genetic material inherited from the maternal line of ancestry.

The "multiple origins" school, meanwhile, points out that human skulls from around the world have clearly different characteristics, and argues that this proves our species evolved in slightly different forms more or less simultaneously.

Tags: anthropology, mitochondrial dna, africa, homo sapiens, science

Why We Walk on Two Legs: It's Easier

Tue, 17 Jul 2007 16:31:32 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Why We Walk on Two Legs: It's Easier

Why did humans evolve to walk upright? Perhaps because it's just plain easier. Make that "energetically less costly," in science-speak, and you have the conclusion of researchers who are proposing a likely reason for our modern gait.

Bipedalism — walking on two feet — is one of the defining characteristics of being human, and scientists have debated for years how it came about. In the latest attempt to find an explanation, researchers trained five chimpanzees to walk on a treadmill while wearing masks that allowed measurement of their oxygen consumption.

The chimps were measured both while walking upright and while moving on their legs and knuckles. That measurement of the energy needed to move around was compared with similar tests on humans and the results are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tags: anthropology, humans, bipedalism, walking, evolution, science

Modern humans reached India early

Mon, 09 Jul 2007 20:37:38 GMT

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Clip Source: www.thehindu.com

Modern humans reached India early

Evidence found in excavations by international team of scientists at Jwalapuram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In the course of archaeological excavations at Jwalapuram in Kurnool district of Andhra Pradesh, an international team of scientists has found evidence that anatomically modern humans are likely to have reached India before a massive volcanic eruption in what is today Indonesia occurred tens of thousands of years ago.

The “super-eruption” of the Toba volcano in Sumatra some 74,000 years ago was the largest volcanic event to have occurred in the last two million years and the ash thrown up high into the atmosphere by that cataclysmic explosion reached India too, said Ravi Korisettar of the Department of History and Archaeology at Karnatak University in Dharwad, Karnataka.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, prehistory, india

Neanderthal Genome Map Possible

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 18:28:49 GMT

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Clip Source: dsc.discovery.com

Study: Neanderthal Genome Map Possible

Researchers studying Neanderthal DNA say it should be possible to construct a complete genome of the ancient hominid despite the degradation of the DNA over time.

There is also hope for reconstructing the genome of the mammoth and cave bear, according to a research team led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Their findings are published in this week's online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, genetics, neanderthal, science

Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’

Mon, 25 Jun 2007 16:16:04 GMT

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clipper's remarks: A very controversial, unorthodox and exciting new theory on the history of humanity. Professor Helmut Ziegert from Germany, a very experienced and bright archaeologist, comes up with new findings that could shake all we know about the distant past of homo sapiens and the starting point of the Neolitic Age, which was the beginning of our civilization.

Sean Kingsley, an archaeologist and the managing editor of Minerva, said: “This research is nothing less than a quantum leap in our understanding of Man’s intellectual and social history. For archaeology it’s as radical as finding life on Mars.

“As a veteran of over 81 archaeological surveys and excavations . . . Ziegert is nothing if not scientifically cautious, which makes the current revelation all the more exciting.”

Clip Source: www.timesonline.co.uk

Rise of man theory ‘out by 400,000 years’

Our earliest ancestors gave up hunter-gathering and took to a settled life up to 400,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to controversial research.

The accepted timescale of Man’s evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus — mankind’s early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe — began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.

The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity’s cultural development.

Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.

Tags: archaeology, anthropology, civilization, humanity, neolitic age, helmut ziegert, science

Food and drink: What it says about us

Wed, 16 May 2007 19:33:42 GMT

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Clip Source: www.physorg.com

What did the Vikings eat for supper? How good were the grocers in Roman Pompeii? What was it like feasting with the Greeks in the second millennium BC? How can this tell us why we like TV dinners today?

Although the eating and drinking habits of the ancient world may appear at first to have been very different to ours this conference will illustrate the many similarities — particularly in our cultural behaviour, agriculture, trade patterns, architecture and domestic contexts.

Researchers at the University say there is a lot that the study of food and drink in archaeology can tell us and it isn't just about what they ate in the ancient world. It is about how they ate, what they hunted and the production of food. It can also be used to date archaeological sites by carbon remains, pottery fragments and associated architecture.

Tags: archaeology, ancient world, anthropology, food, agriculture