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Stones Forum >> Neanderthals
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Neanderthals |
chimera
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|  Posted 21-11-2008 at 04:23
hwyl sem,
Thanks for the info. It may fit with this:
Independent."By showing how all the bones fit together and function as a whole - and by comparing the reconstructed skeleton with skeletons of our own species, Homo sapiens - it will now be easier to formulate ideas as to how Neanderthals must have functioned economically and socially in different ways to anatomically modern humans.
Whereas Homo sapiens was able to pursue prey over very long distances, Neanderthals appear to have been markedly less able to do so and would probably therefore have had to have been more confrontational with their potential dinners.
As a consequence, Neanderthal males were probably away from their families for shorter periods than Homo sapiens - and it is likely that family structures and relationships between males and females may well have been markedly different."
maybe they were warm and fuzzy.
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bat400
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| Posted 29-11-2008 at 03:40
Were Neanderthals stoned to death by modern humans?
The New Scientist article submitted by coldrum has a Misleading Headline, but an interesting debate on the origin of projectile weapons.
Human aerial bombardments might have pushed Neanderthals to extinction, suggests new research. Changes in bone shape left by a life of overhand throwing hint that Stone Age humans regularly threw heavy objects, such as stones or spears, while Neanderthals did not.
"The anatomically modern humans would have this more effective and efficient form of hunting," says Jill Rhodes, a biological anthropologist at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, who led the new study. A warmer Europe would have opened up forests, enabling longer range hunting, she says.
Rhodes and a colleague studied changes to the arm bone that connects the shoulder to the elbow – the humerus – to determine when humans may have begun using projectile weapons.
"If we're trying to understand whether anatomically modern humans had projectiles, then why not read the signature that it can imprint in the skeleton," Rhodes says.
Bent bones
Studies of elite handball and baseball players suggest that frequent overhand throwing from an early age permanently rotates the shoulder-end of the humerus toward an athlete's back, compared to people who haven't spent much time hurling.
This bone rotation only occurs in the throwing arm, so a difference between the right and left arm in fossils could be a sign of projectile use, Rhodes says.
To find out, she and Churchill measured humerus bones from Neanderthals and ancient and modern humans.
They found some evidence for projectile use in male European humans from around 26,000 to 28,000 years ago – the middle Palaeolithic period – who would have been contemporaries of Neanderthals. Their right humerus bones were generally more rotated toward their back than their left, while Rhodes's team noticed no such asymmetry in Neanderthal arms.
Earliest projectiles?
"These upper Palaeolithic men were doing something different with their arms than the Neanderthals were," she says.
The earliest concrete evidence of projectile use comes from a 20,000-year-old spear-throwing device, says Steve Churchill, at Duke University in Durham North Carolina, who co-authored the paper.
But as far back as 100,000 years – before Homo sapiens left Africa – sharpened stones began to resemble the pointed stone heads of later throwing spears and arrows. This has led some researchers to speculate that the use of projectile weapons originated in Africa – not later on in Europe or other places of human settlement.
"It's all very suggestive, but there's no smoking gun there," Churchill says.
However, Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, doubts that projectile weapons played a major role in human culture before about 25,000 years ago and the extinction of Neanderthals.
Ancient conflict
"The shift in hunting strategies, there's probably something there, but it's not as pronounced as people make it out to be," he says.
Humans may have been hurling aerodynamic stones around the time Neanderthals died out, but spear-throwing did not become a common hunting practice until aeons later, he argues.
"No matter what's happening, we're not talking about the appearance of a new behaviour, but the shift in frequency of a behaviour," Trinkaus says.
This could leave open the door for occasional uses of projectiles during the period when Neanderthals and humans might have interacted. A Neanderthal rib bone that shows signs of damage inflicted by a thrown spear is tantalizing evidence for a more nefarious use of projectile weapons.
"There is some evidence of warfare between them," Rhodes says.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16091-were-neanderthals-stoned-to-death-by-modern-humans.html
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chimera
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| Posted 29-11-2008 at 07:58
Nefarious neanderthal New Zealand.
Underarm bowling - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
29 Aug 2008 ... In cricket, underarm bowling is as old as the sport itself. .... of it being hit for the six runs that New Zealand needed to tie the match. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underarm_bowling - 39k - Cached - Similar pages
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chimera
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| Posted 30-11-2008 at 07:39
The two-handed sword of 15-16th cent. is increasingly being linked to Neanderthal clubs, which caused equal muscle-bone features in the arms. Genetic throw-backs occur today:
View Tennis Club Poll Results: What's Your Type of Backhand Club?
Two hands as much as possible 190 45.56%
Two hands, but backhand slice often 126 30.22%
One hand, just here to say hi 81 19.42%
One hand, but trying to learn using two hands 21 5.03%
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bat400
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| Posted 14-01-2009 at 04:08
Neanderthals could have died out because their bodies overheated.
Submitted by coldrum:
Analysis of DNA obtained from Neanderthal remains has revealed key differences from modern humans that suggest their bodies produced excess heat. While in the cold climate of an ice age this would have provided the species with an advantage, as the earth warmed they would have been less able to cope. Ultimately this would have caused their extinction around 24,000 years ago.
Scientists at Newcastle University have put forward the theory after examining a particular form of genetic material which was obtained from the fossilised bones of Neanderthals.
By comparing it with that found in modern humans, they discovered that Neanderthals had key differences in the sections responsible for producing energy in all living cells.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, a neurogeneticist at Newcastle University, believes the differences in this mitochondrial DNA could have caused Neanderthals to be inefficient at producing energy, meaning their cells leaked heat.
He said: "Differences in these mitochondrial DNA sequences might explain why modern humans were able to survive while Neanderthals were not.
"We compared mitochondrial DNA sequences from Neanderthals that have been obtained by other researchers with a huge database of human sequences from around the world to see how different it was from modern humans.
"We found a number of differences within a certain part of the mitochondrial DNA that were quite unlike anything we see in modern humans.
Mitochondria are tiny structures found inside all living cells and are the biological power stations that produce the energy cells need to survive by converting sugar from food into energy.
The research by Professor Chinnery, which was recently presented at a conference held by the American Society on Human Genetics, is the latest attempt to find out why our ancient cousins died out.
Also:
Recent work by scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Germany revealed that Neanderthals shared a language gene that is only found in modern humans. The controversial findings raised the debate about whether Neanderthals were capable of speech.
For more, see:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/3867382/Neanderthals-could-have-died-out-because-their-bodies-overheated.html
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bat400
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| Posted 14-01-2009 at 04:11
Late Neandertals and Modern Human Contact in Southeastern Iberia
Submitted by coldrum:
It is widely accepted that Upper Paleolithic early modern humans spread westward across Europe about 42,000 years ago, variably displacing and absorbing Neandertal populations in the process.
However, Middle Paleolithic, presumably Neandertal, assemblages persisted for another 8,000 years in Iberia. It has been unclear whether these late Middle Paleolithic Iberian assemblages were made by Neandertals, and what the nature of those humans might have been.
New research, published Dec. 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is now shedding some light on what were probably the last Neandertals.
The research is based on a study of human fossils found during the past decade at the Sima de la Palomas, Murcia, Spain by Michael Walker, professor at Universidad de Murcia, and colleagues, and published by Michael Walker, Erik Trinkaus, professor of Anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues.
The human fossils from the upper levels of the Sima de las Palomas are anatomically clearly Neandertals, and they are now securely dated to 40,000 years ago. They therefore establish the late persistence of Neandertals in this southwestern cul-de-sac of Europe. This reinforces the conclusion that the Neandertals were not merely swept away by advancing modern humans. The behavioral differences between these human groups must have been more subtle than the Middle-to-Upper Paleolithic technological contrasts might imply.
In addition, the Palomas Neandertals variably exhibit a series of modern human features rare or absent in earlier Neandertals. Either they were evolving on their own towards the modern human pattern, or more likely, they had contact with early modern humans around the Pyrenees. If the latter, it implies that the persistence of the Middle Paleolithic in Iberia was a matter of choice, and not cultural retardation.
For more, see: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/547207/
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bat400
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| Posted 14-01-2009 at 04:17
Of Neanderthals and dairy farmers
Submitted by coldrum:
Harvard Archaeology Professor Noreen Tuross sought to rehabilitate the image of Neanderthals as meat-eating brutes last week, presenting evidence that, though they almost certainly ate red meat, Neanderthal diets also consisted of other foods — like escargot.
Evidence from Neanderthal bones collected from the Shanidar cave in Northern Iraq decades ago and analyzed recently by Tuross indicate that at least that particular Neanderthal was not a heavy carnivore. Neanderthals, she suggested, had a varied diet that included meat, but that was not solely or even largely made up of it. One possible alternative food was found in abundance in the cave, she said: land snails.
“This was not a heavy meat-eater,” Tuross said. “So what else can they be eating? I think the answer is escargot.”
Tuross, the Landon T. Clay Professor of Scientific Archaeology, was just one expert in disciplines ranging from anthropology to history to genetics attending a day-long symposium Friday (Dec. 5) that aimed to bridge divides between traditional fields in order to shed more light on the human past.
The event, “The Science of the Human Past,” was sponsored by the Harvard Provost’s Office and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and was organized by the Initiative for the Science of the Human Past at Harvard University.
Michael McCormick, the Francis Goelet Professor of Medieval History, said the symposium grew out of a series of workshops he organized three years ago after he received the Mellon Distinguished Achievement Award. McCormick said he decided to use the award money to bring together scientists and humanists who would not otherwise meet, to see if they could learn from one another’s data and methods.
In addition to Tuross’ talk, the agenda included presentations on the Neanderthal Genome Project, the impact of sex-based evolutionary forces on the human genome, humans and the extinction of the megafauna, mathematical modeling of contact between linguistic groups, and the origins of dairy farming.
Tuross praised the effort to unify scholars in different disciplines who are seeking answers to similar questions.
Tuross’ attempt to show the Neanderthal’s dietary diversity comes on the heels of studies that examined the concentration of a type of nitrogen atom that increases in animals as they feed up the food chain. One study showed that Neanderthals living in Vindija Cave in Croatia had higher concentrations of this atom than even top predators, leading researchers to conclude that Neanderthals were heavy meat eaters.
Tuross questioned that conclusion, however, saying that scientists don’t know why that particular nitrogen isotope concentrates in predators, making it possible that other mechanisms are at work. In addition, she said, studies of Neanderthals on Gibraltar showed they had a varied diet, as do modern humans.
“Humans are promiscuous in our omnivory. We can eat almost anything and do eat almost anything, in prodigious quantities,” Tuross said.
The evolutionary forces that split humans from Neanderthals hundreds of thousands of years ago didn’t go away after the break. Mark Thomas, of University College, London, presented evidence about one of the strongest forces that has driven human evolution in Europe over the past 20,000 years: milk.
Thomas’ research showed that a gene variant for “lactase persistence” (LP) that allows humans to digest milk into adulthood — uncommon in most adult animals and in many human societies — swept across Europe sometime in the last 20,000 years.
To spread so rapidly, Thomas said, the gene must have conveyed an extraordinary survival advantage to those possessing it. There are several potential candidates. Among them is that milk provides a ready source of calories, protein, calcium, and fat, particularly during the winter or during crop boom-and-bust cycles. It also provides an uncontaminated source of fluids, perhaps lessening illness and parasitic infections; and obtaining it may be a more economical use of lands than farming.
“In Europeans, this is probably the most strongly selected part of the genome in the last 20,000 years,” Thomas said.
Thomas found that the gene variant coincided well with the rise of animal domestication, indicating that humans became dairy farmers almost as soon as they began to keep animals.
To track the gene’s spread across Europe, Thomas designed a computer model that took into account both archaeological and genetic data. He then ran multiple simulations, randomly changing other variables and looking for patterns that matched what is known today.
The closest matches pegged the rise of milk-drinking Europeans to about 7,400 years ago in central Europe. The spread matched the known rapid spread of Europe’s first farmers, the Linearbandkeramik culture.
alvin_powell@harvard.edu
For more, see: http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/12.11/11-past.html
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bat400
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| Posted 20-01-2009 at 02:50
Quote:
| On 2008-10-20 00:30, Originally submitted by coldrum:
DNA-based Recreation of Neanderthal Woman
Artists and scientists created "Wilma" (shown in a photo released yesterday) using analysis of DNA from 43,000-year-old bones that had been cannibalized. Announced in October 2007, the findings had suggested that at least some Neanderthals would have had red hair, pale skin, and possibly freckles.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/09/080917-neanderthal-photo.html |
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Submitted by coldrum, some of the basis for that reconstruction:
In a major breakthrough, Spanish scientists have discovered the blood group and two other genes of the early humans who lived 43,000 ago.
After analysing the fossil bones found in a cave in north-west Spain, the experts concluded they had human blood group "O" and were genetically more likely to be fair skinned, perhaps even with freckles, have red or ginger hair and could talk.
The investigating team from Spain's government scientific institute, CSIC, used the very latest forensic techniques to remove the bones for analysis to prevent them getting contaminated with modern DNA.
Carles Lalueza, an evolutionary biologist with the investigation, said: "What we were trying to do was to create the most realistic image of the Neanderthals with details that are not visible in the fossils, but which form part of their identity."
[In] The report, published in BMC Evolutionary Biology,
The Spanish scientists also describe how they also discovered two other genes.
One gene known as MC1R suggests the Neanderthals had fair skin and even freckles like redheads.
Another, a variety of FOXP2, is related to speaking and the capacity to create a language and therefore suggests they could communicate orally.
Since 2000, archeo-paleontologists, wearing special sealed white suits, masks and helmets have been painstakingly sifting through 1,500 bone fragments found in the "Tunnel of Bones" in the Sidrón cave complex in Borines, Asturias, north-west Spain.
For more, see http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/4015567/European-Neanderthals-had-ginger-hair-and-freckles.html
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Chyknel2
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| Posted 21-01-2009 at 08:51
It'[s only a feeling, but I don't believe this is true
http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/003121.html
Anyone?
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sem
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| Posted 21-01-2009 at 18:22
Hi C2
What don't you believe ? The text of the article seems a bit ambivalent to me. When it says throwing technology is it referring to spear chucking or stuff like spear throwers (atl-atl etc) and bows?
I remember reading though, about many Neanderthal remains showing signs of trauma which the author thought were due to hunting accidents and could only have been caused by close-quarter hunts. Sorry but I can't remember where.
Sem
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Chyknel2
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| Posted 22-01-2009 at 03:28
Yes, I thought it seemed a bit ambivalent too. Also, the lack of skeletal evidence for them being chuckers might have been down to something else they mention - that they were anatomically different from us, shorter and squatter - maybe they were well capable of throwing things, in which case the fact they did so wouldn't show up as a change in their throwing arms.
Dunno, they just seemed to be making an attractive story out of little evidence. It ends up saying they "probably hand threw spears over short distances, but perhaps they simply never got around to inventing means of propelling spears or other projectiles long distances". What does that mean? That they had spears but they only threw them gently?! Or that they didn't have bows or slings? If the latter, they are still saying they DID throw spears - and IMO tough nuts like them would throw them very hard...
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bat400
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| Posted 24-01-2009 at 13:13
Coldrum has also sent us excerpts of the article quoted in the Stone Pages and the stories referenced by it:
Quote:
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A trio of new studies on prehistoric weapons suggests Neanderthals made sophisticated weapons and tools -- possibly including the first sticky adhesive -- but they lacked the projectile weapons possessed by early humans.
"While we are not suggesting that modern humans were directing projectile weapons against Neanderthals, it is certainly possible that at times they did so," Steven Churchill, co-author of one of the papers, told Discovery News.
Churchill (Duke University) and colleague Jill Rhodes compared Neanderthal fossils with those of prehistoric and modern humans, focusing on the shoulder and elbow.
"When engaged in overhead throwing activity, such as throwing a baseball, or a spear, this increases the movement arm of the muscles and gives greater strength and velocity to the throw," said Rhodes (Bryn Mawr College).
She explained to Discovery News that modern athletes often show a characteristic backward displacement at the shoulder joint. Usually just one joint shows this, since most people have a preferred throwing arm.
The anthropologists found this telltale skeletal characteristic in the early modern European fossils, but not in the Neanderthals. The findings are published in the current issue of the Journal of Human Evolution.
http://dsc.discovery.com/news/2009/01/14/neanderthals-weapon.html
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And the story on hefting weapons with adhesive:
Quote:
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New finds move back the origins of Stone Age tools that were attached to handles with adhesive material
In a gripping instance of Stone Age survival, Neandertals used a tarlike substance to fasten sharpened stones to handles as early as 70,000 years ago.
Stone points and sharpened flakes unearthed in Syria since 2000 contain the residue of bitumen — a natural, adhesive substance — on spots where the implements would have been secured to handles of some type, according to a team led by archaeologist Eric Boëda (University of Paris X, Nanterre). The process of attaching a tool to a handle is known as hafting. The Neandertals likely found the bitumen in nearby tar sands, the team reports.
Stone tools of the type found at the Syrian site are typically attributed to Neandertals. These evolutionary cousins of modern humans frequently used bitumen and other tars as an adhesive for hafting and perhaps sometimes as a sleeve to protect a tool user’s hand, the researchers propose in the December Antiquity.
The new age of 70,000 years ago places the practice earlier than a previous finding in 1996 by Boëda’s team of 40,000-year-old stone artifacts unearthed at the same location, Umm el Tlel. Those artifacts also contained remnants of bitumen (SN: 4/13/96, p. 235).
“The surprising thing, to me, is that we do not find more such evidence for hafting by Neandertals,” remarks archaeologist John Shea (Stony Brook University, New York). Hafting may have been too time-consuming for Neandertals in some resource-poor locales, Shea hypothesizes, because their large bodies dictated that they forage constantly for food.
For more details of the finds, see the article by Bruce Bower:
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/39291/title/Tools_with_handles_even_more_ancient
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[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2009-01-24 13:17 ]
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bat400
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| Posted 16-02-2009 at 03:38
Coldrum submitted --
"First draft of Neanderthal genome completed"
The wait is over. The Neanderthal genome is complete. Well, kind of.
Nature is reporting today that a team of German scientists has completed a rough draft of the genome of a Neanderthal, a project we've followed closely at New Scientist.
In December, I spoke with team member Adrian Briggs of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. At that point, the team was half-way through decoding 3 billion bases of DNA belonging to a Neanderthal recovered in Croatia's Vindija Cave.
It looks like they really cranked up their sequencers the past couple months.
Team leader Svante Pääbo will officially announce their accomplishment at next week's annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago, according to Nature. His team plans to publish the sequence in a journal later this year. I look forward to the announcement and the paper's publication, but the work is not over. Not even close.
Pääbo's team has sequenced about 3 billion DNA letters, which amounts to reading half of the genome's letters once, on average. Genomicists call this 1x coverage. Human and animal genomes are routinely sequenced several times or more to ensure accuracy and completeness. And new sequencing technologies that are cheaper and faster than earlier techniques promise even greater levels of coverage.
When Pääbo's team published a complete mitochondrial genome from the same Neanderthal, they read each of its 16,565 letters 35 times, on average. This is important because DNA from the 38,000-year-old bone is shredded into tiny strands that are difficult to put in the correct order.
Despite these limits, the Neanderthal genome is already yielding insights into their biology, evolution, and, yes, whether they interbred with humans. The Neanderthal that has been sequenced appears to have been lactose-intolerant. It also lacks a version of the brain development gene micrcophalin, that some researchers think humans acquired through inbreeding with Neanderthals.
Pääbo's team and others will almost certainly perform more thorough searches for any trace of human-Neanderthal fraternisation. But don't expect a conclusive yes or no anytime soon. I'll be reporting from the AAAS meeting next week, where Pääbo is scheduled to speak, so stay tuned for additional news.
For more, see
http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2009/02/first-draft-of-neanderthal-gen.html
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sem
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| Posted 18-02-2009 at 18:17
Thanks Bat400
I'm looking forward to the announcement.
The interbreeding of Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals has been the subject of many theories.
Will we get a definate answer?
Cheers
Sem
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bat400
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| Posted 19-02-2009 at 01:23
Quote:
| But don't expect a conclusive yes or no anytime soon. |
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I'd guess that is a "no", but we'll keep an eye out.
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bat400
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| Posted 19-02-2009 at 01:32
coldrum submitted---
Composer's Neanderthal recreation
A musical experience with a difference is being previewed at the National Museum Wales in Cardiff - an attempt to recreate the sound of the Neanderthals.
Jazz composer Simon Thorne was given the task of creating the "soundscape" to provide a musical backdrop to some of the ancient exhibits on display. The musician says the work is "probably the most unusual" he has undertaken. There has been strong interest in the composition and it will go on a separate live tour later in the year.
Thorne said: "Given that Neanderthal's man brain was about the same size as ours, and much of our brain is given over to language, then you can assume they probably had language too.
"Every culture has language and music, so we can probably assume that they had some kind of music too."
His 75-minute composition was commissioned by National Museum Wales to provide a musical illustration for the palaeolithic section of its exhibition Origins of Early Wales.
The exhibition includes artefacts like a Neanderthal hand axe and teeth found at Pontnewydd in Denbighshire and, as part of his research, Cardiff-based Mr Thorne visited the cave where they were found.
He said he was the first to admit that knowing exactly what Neanderthal music would have sounded like is impossible.
"It's a ridiculous notion to suggest we could ever know the precise role that music played in the lives of the Neanderthals, but imagining it has been a fascinating experience."
The composer has also researched the era extensively and been inspired by two books - Prof Steven Mithen's The Singing Neanderthals and David Lewis Williams's The Mind in the Cave.
Prof Mithen will be at the museum launch and, in conversation with Mr Thorne, will talk about the role music may have played in the lives of the Neanderthals.
The Reading University academic, whose research centres on the evolution of human language and musical ability, said Thorne's work was "a fantastic go at evoking the sense of prehistory of our human ancestry".
It will go on tour, complete with four singers, stone instruments and a video project to Harlech, Cardigan, Milford Haven and Swansea at the end of March, and already Mr Thorne has had "great interest" in his experiment from the British Museum.
He said the project had given him an insight into our own communication.
"We as human beings are instinctively creative," he said.
"We can't not be - we have to invent things and who's to say Neanderthal man did not invent the beginnings of music?"
"We use language for words, to communicate. But how do we learn language? If you look at babies and the noise they make, they learn to make singing noises before they learn to speak."
For more, see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/7874415.stm
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MikeGreen
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| Posted 08-03-2009 at 10:56
I thought I had read somewhere that Homo Erectus had spears and had hardened them by the use of fire - I am probably mistaken as this would be so long ago, but I would apreciate it if someone could confirm or rule this out.
Mike
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bat400
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| Posted 28-04-2009 at 00:49
Three Neanderthal Subgroups Confirmed in DNA Study. - submitted by coldrum.
The Neanderthals inhabited a vast geographical area extending from Europe to western Asia and the Middle East 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Now, a group of researchers are questioning whether or not the Neanderthals constituted a homogenous group or separate sub-groups (between which slight differences could be observed).
Researchers Virginie Fabre, Silvana Condemi and Anna Degioanni from the CNRS Laboratory of Anthropology, Marseilles, France, have studied the genetic structure of the mitochondrial DNA and by analyzed the genetic variability, modeling different scenarios. The study was possible thanks to the publication of 15 mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences that originated from 12 Neanderthals.
The new study confirms the presence of three separate sub-groups and suggests the existence of a fourth group in western Asia. According to the authors, the size of the Neanderthal population was not constant over time and a certain amount of migration occurred among the sub-groups. The variability among the Neanderthal population is interpreted to be an indirect consequence of the particular climatic conditions on their territorial extension.
Degioanni and colleagues obtained this result by using a new methodology derived from different biocomputational models based on data from genetics, demography and paleoanthropology.
The researchers hope that one day this methodology might be applied to questions concerning Neanderthal cultural diversity (for example the lithic industry) and to the availability of natural resources in the territory. This could provide new insights into the history and extinction of the Neanderthals.
For more, see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090415075150.htm.
[ This message was edited by: bat400 on 2009-04-28 00:53 ]
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bat400
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| Posted 17-05-2009 at 05:43
Neandertal cannibalism? Maybe not...
Submitted by coldrum ----
Scientists have long argued that Neandertal remains from the site of Krapina in northern Croatia exhibit evidence of cannibalism. The fragmentary nature of the bones, along with cut marks on a number of fragments, were said to be signs that our closest relatives feasted on one another. But a new study suggests that the nicks seem to be the result of much more recent handiwork.
Paleoanthropologist and archaeologist Jörg Orschiedt of the University of Hamburg in Germany reported at the annual meeting of the Paleoanthropology Society here that cut marks in the Krapina fossils he studied are randomly distributed and did not necessarily occur in spots that would permit de-fleshing (such as where muscles attach to bones). What's more, the scratches varied – some were shallow and others deep.
“I kept thinking it doesn’t make sense,” Orschiedt told ScientificAmerican.com.
An alternative explanation to cannibalism dawned on him as he sifted through photos of the bones. He came across a picture of a bone fragment with the letter F for femur (the thighbone) scrawled on it. It turns out the bone was mislabeled—it was actually part of a shinbone, not a thighbone—but what caught Orschiedt’s eye was that the cut marks interrupted the F. He concluded that the scratches were likely made inadvertently by a researcher—possibly during measurement of the bone with sharp instruments—after the bone was labeled, probably in the early 1900s.
One Krapina specimen that Orschiedt believes does have genuinely ancient cut marks is a famous partial skull known as the C skull. These nicks, which appear in the center of the forehead, are encrusted with minerals that could only have accumulated long ago. What do the marks mean? “It’s tempting to say it has to do with burial customs,” he says, although it is impossible to know the exact nature of those practices.
If Orschiedt is right, what is arguably the most famous example of cannibalism among our closest relatives can no longer be held up as such. That does not mean Neandertals never ate their own, however. Neandertal remains from other sites bear signs that they snacked on one another.. But Orschiedt says some of those fossils, too, should be re-examined in light of his observations at Krapina.
For more, see http://www.sciam.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=neandertal-cannibalism-maybe-not-2009-04-02
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bat400
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| Posted 17-05-2009 at 05:50
Finally unearthing the secrets of our Neanderthal cousins
Submitted by coldrum ---
THE human genome sequence, published in 2003, is revealing a multitude of secrets.
Now scientists have a draft genome sequence from the extinct Neanderthals (homo neanderthalensis) and are poised to clear up many long-debated issues, not least how like us our ancient cousins really were.
Neanderthals looked very similar to modern humans, although generally they had larger, stockier and more muscular bodies, shorter arms and legs, larger heads with prominent brows, large noses and reddish hair. They had bigger brains than modern humans, but exactly how intelligent they were is not entirely clear. They certainly made stone hunting tools, but there is no evidence of activities such as cave paintings or self-adornment until some 45,000 years ago. Then, they began to make bone tools and jewellery, but since this date coincides with modern humans' arrival in Europe, these may have merely been copied from the invaders.
With regard to brain size, humans develop massive brains while in utero and these continue to grow for several years after birth. But homo erectus, the direct ancestor of Neanderthals and humans from three million years ago, resembled chimps in doing most brain-growing in utero, and so grew up much faster than humans.
Humans have also evolved an extended skill-learning period during adolescence and, overall, take twice as long as chimps to reach adulthood. But what about Neanderthals? A recently discovered fossilised one to two week-old Neanderthal baby who died in Crimea about 70,000 years ago, as well as two infants aged 19 and 24 months from Syria, provide the answer.
It seems Neanderthal babies were more similar to humans than to homo erectus and chimps, with larger heads at birth. There is also some evidence Neanderthals had an extended childhood, indicating, if true, that prolongation of the nurturing period began during the evolution of the genus homo.
Another debate about Neanderthals is why they became extinct. Scientists previously thought they were killed off by humans, but as they co-existed for 15,000 years, and fossil records show no evidence of violent deaths, it seems more likely they were out-competed by humans, or were less able to survive the ice age that peaked 25,000 years ago. Paleogeneticist Svante Pääbo and his team from the Max Planck Institute in Germany, may soon provide the answers, as they have undertaken the massive task of sequencing the Neanderthal genome.
Despite these problems, Pääbo is confident he now has a draft DNA sequence derived entirely from 38,000 year-old bone fragments from two female Neanderthals found in Croatia. So far, comparison of three billion human and Neanderthal DNA bases has thrown up a mere 1,000 to 2,000 changes, compared with 50,000 between humans and chimps.
For more, see http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Finally-unearthing-the-secrets-of.5228844.jp
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