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<< News >> Georgia clues to human origins

Submitted by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007  Page Views: 2799

Date UncertainCountry: Georgia Type: Not Known (by us)

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A team of scientists working in Georgia has unearthed the remains of four human-like creatures dating to 1.8 million years ago.

In the journal Nature, the researchers outline details of the partial skeletons uncovered in a Medieval town.

The bones reveal a mixture of primitive and advanced features, team leader David Lordkipanidze explained.

These early hominids may have been among the first to leave Africa to colonise the rest of the world.

"They are the earliest, undisputable hominids outside of Africa," Dr Lordkipanidze said.

"We are dating them between 1.7 and 1.8 million years old. They are the most complete collection of a Homo [species] from any site older than 300,000 years old," he told the BBC's Science In Action programme.

Ancient pioneers

Discovered in the early 1990s, the Dmanisi site has proved a rich source of remains and artefacts from the dawn of the Pleistocene Epoch.

Studying the various skulls and jaws has given scientists important information about the early species that lived here.

But, until now, they had little information about the rest of the skeleton.

The remains uncovered at the town of Dmanisi consist of the partial skeleton of an adolescent individual associated with a skull, and the "post-cranial" remains of three adults.

In many respects, the well-preserved fossils resemble Homo erectus, a species from the genus Homo that first appeared in Africa some two million years ago and quickly spread throughout Europe and much of Asia.

They have remarkably human-like spines and lower limbs that would have been well suited for long distance travel. Their feet had well-developed arches.

An apparently small difference in the size of males and females also puts them in the same company as Homo erectus and Homo sapiens.

Feature mix

However, they also have relatively small brains and primitive upper limbs, traits which they share with the earlier Homo habilis, and even with the more primitive Australopithecus, which first appeared in Africa some four million years ago.

"They are smaller than what we thought Homo erectus could be," David Lordkipanidze explained.

"They have smaller brains; and also their body proportions, they are not completely human-like.

"In the [Nature report], we showed that their legs were very human but their hands were still ape-like. So, I would say these are quite mosaic features; this does not fit precisely the definition of Homo erectus before the Dmanisi finds. Maybe we are adding something new to the Homo erectus definition."

The most famous example of Australopithecus is the so called "Lucy" specimen found in north-eastern Ethiopia in 1974 which led scientists to rethink existing theories about early human evolution.

bbc.co.uk.

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"Georgia clues to human origins" | Login/Create an Account | 7 News and Comments
  
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Archaeologists discover oldest-known fiber materials used by early humans by coldrum on Sunday, 04 October 2009
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Flax fibers could have been used for warmth and mobility; for rope, baskets, or shoes

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. – A team of archaeologists and paleobiologists has discovered flax fibers that are more than 34,000 years old, making them the oldest fibers known to have been used by humans. The fibers, discovered during systematic excavations in a cave in the Republic of Georgia, are described in this week's issue of Science.

The flax, which would have been collected from the wild and not farmed, could have been used to make linen and thread, the researchers say. The cloth and thread would then have been used to fashion garments for warmth, sew leather pieces, make cloths, or tie together packs that might have aided the mobility of our ancient ancestors from one camp to another.

The excavation was jointly led by Ofer Bar-Yosef, George Grant MacCurdy and Janet G. B. MacCurdy Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University, with Tengiz Meshveliani from the Georgian State Museum and Anna Belfer-Cohen from the Hebrew University. The microscopic research of the soil samples in which numerous flax fibers were discovered was done by Eliso Kvavadze of the Institute of Paleobiology, part of the National Museum of Georgia.

"This was a critical invention for early humans. They might have used this fiber to create parts of clothing, ropes, or baskets—for items that were mainly used for domestic activities," says Bar-Yosef. "We know that this is wild flax that grew in the vicinity of the cave and was exploited intensively or extensively by modern humans."

The items created with these fibers increased early humans chances of survival and mobility in the harsh conditions of this hilly region. The flax fibers could have been used to sew hides together for clothing and shoes, to create the warmth necessary to endure cold weather. They might have also been used to make packs for carrying essentials, which would have increased and eased mobility, offering a great advantage to a hunter-gatherer society.

Some of the fibers were twisted, indicating they were used to make ropes or strings. Others had been dyed. Early humans used the plants in the area to color the fabric or threads made from the flax.

Today, these fibers are not visible to the eye, because the garments and items sewed together with the flax have long ago disintegrated. Bar-Yosef, Kvavadze and colleagues discovered the fibers by examining samples of clay retrieved from different layers of the cave under a microscope.

The discovery of such ancient fibers was a surprise to the scientists. Previously, the oldest known were imprints of fibers in small clay objects found in Dolni Vestonice, a famous site in the Czech Republic some 28,000 years old.

The scientists' original goal was to analyze tree pollen samples found inside the cave, part of a study of environmental and temperature fluctuations over the course of thousands of years that would have affected the lives of these early humans. However, while looking for this pollen, Kvavadze, who led the analysis of the pollen, also discovered non-pollen polymorphs – these flax fibers.

Bar-Yosef and his team used radiocarbon dating to date the layers of the cave as they dug the site, revealing the age of the clay samples in which the fibers were found. Flax fibers were also found in the layers that dated to about 21,000 and 13,000 years ago.

Bar-Yosef's team began the excavations of this cave in 1996, and has returned to the site each year to complete this work.

"We were looking to find when the cave was occupied, what was the nature of the occupation by those early hunter-gatherers, where did they go hunting and gathering food, what kind of stone tools they used, what types of bone and antler tools they made and how they used them, whether they made beads and pendants for body decoration, and so on," says Bar-Yosef. "This was a wonderful surprise, to discover these ancient flax fibers at the end of this excavation project."

###

Bar-Yosef and Kvavadze's co-authors are Belfer-Cohen, Meshveliani, Elizabeth Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute of Science and Bar-Ilan University, Nino Jakeli of the Georgian State Museum, and Zinovi Matskevich of the Department of Anthropology at Harvard.

The research was funded by the American School of Prehistoric Research at the Peabody Museum, Harvard University.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-09/hu-ado090809.php
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Fossil find in Georgia challenges theories on early humans by coldrum on Thursday, 01 October 2009
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Fossil find in Georgia challenges theories on early humans

Fossil skull of Homo erectus discovered in Georgia

A skull from one of the five early Homo erectus skeletons unearthed at Dmanisi in Georgia. They are the earliest human remains to be discovered outside Africa. Photograph: Georgian National Museum

Early humans may have taken a detour into Eurasia before embarking on their epic journey out of Africa, according to new fossil evidence.

Palaeontologists in Georgia have unearthed remains of five primitive humans that date back to 1.8m years ago, suggesting some of our oldest ancestors lived in the region at the time.

The partial skeletons, which represent the earliest humans discovered outside Africa, challenge the theory that our ancestors evolved entirely on the continent and left the cradle of humanity only 60,000 years ago.

David Lordkipanidze, director of the Georgian National Museum, said the primitive humans were short, with small brains and strongly developed legs. Other remains suggest they lived alongside predators including sabre-toothed cats.

The fossils are thought to be early Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans, which lived in Africa 2m years ago. Lordkipanidze said some Homo erectus may have left Africa for Eurasia before returning much later.

The fossils were uncovered at the Dmanisi archaeological site south-west of the Georgian capital of Tbilisi. Remains thought to belong to two males and three females were found next to stone tools and animal bones bearing cut marks, suggesting the species prepared meat for food.

"The Dmanisi fossils are extremely important in showing us a very primitive stage in the evolution of Homo erectus," said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. "They raise important questions about where that species originated."

By piecing the skeletal remains together, researchers estimate they stood about 1.5 metres tall and had brains a little more than half the size of those in modern humans.

Lordkipanidze said: "The Dmanisi people were almost modern in body proportions and were highly efficient walkers and runners. Their arms moved in a different way, and their brains were tiny compared to ours. They were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/sep/08/fossils-georgia-dmanisi-early-humans

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Ancient human footsteps on show in Italy by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007
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Ancient human footsteps on show in Italy

Want to walk in the footsteps of the early humans?

Tourists in Italy can do almost that, after footpaths believed to have been left up to 385,000 years ago were opened to the public.

The fossilised footprints, which Italian scientists say are among the oldest anywhere, extend along six trails at the edge of the Roccamonfina volcano in southern Italy.

There is also a handprint, made when one of the primitive humans slipped on the soft earth.

The fossilised footpaths were known locally as the "Devil's Trails" for centuries because they were thought to be supernatural.

Scientists first identified them properly in 2003, and had kept the area off-limits to the public until Saturday.

Tourists cannot place their feet directly into the fossils, but can walk along the footpath from a safe distance.

Paolo Mietto of the University of Padua in Italy said scientists had also discovered another set of tracks nearby that were now being excavated. He said the tracks in total point to more than six different individuals.

"That says a lot about the potential for this site," Mietto said.

The footprints belong to primitive members of the human family about 1.5 metres tall, who walked upright with a free-standing gait and used their hands to steady themselves.

http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.aspx?StoryName=425106
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Human ancestors: more gatherers than hunters? by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007
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Human ancestors: more gatherers than hunters?

Early humans may have dug potato-like foods with tools, say anthropologists from USC, UC San Diego and UW-Madison
Chimpanzees crave roots and tubers even when food is plentiful above ground, according to a new study that raises questions about the relative importance of meat for brain evolution.

Appearing online the week of Nov. 12 in the early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study documents a novel use of tools by chimps to dig for tubers and roots in the savanna woodlands of western Tanzania.

The chimps’ eagerness for buried treats offers new insights in an ongoing debate about the role of meat versus potato-like foods in the diet of our hominid ancestors, said first author Adriana Hernandez-Aguilar, who collected the field data for her doctoral research at the University of Southern California.

The debate centers on the diet followed by early hominids as their brain and body size slowly increased towards a human level. Was it meat-and-potatoes, or potatoes-and-meat"

“Some researchers have suggested that what made us human was actually the tubers,” Hernandez-Aguilar said.

Anthropologists had speculated that roots and tubers were mere fallback foods for hominids trying to survive the harsh dry season in the savanna 3.5 million years ago and later (hominids are known to have consumed meat at least as early as 2.5 million years ago).

But the study found that modern chimps only dig for roots during the rainy season, when other food sources abound.

The finding suggests, but does not prove, that hominids behaved the same way. Researchers view modern chimps as proxies for hominids because of similarities in habitat, brain mass and body size.

“We look at chimps for the way that we could have behaved when our ancestors were chimp-like,” Hernandez-Aguilar said.

Corresponding author Travis Pickering, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said: “Savanna chimps, we would contend, are dealing with environmental constraints and problems – evolutionary pressures – that our earliest relatives would have dealt with as well.”

The tuber-digging chimps “suggest that underground resources were within reach of our ancestors,” added co-author James Moore of the University of California at San Diego.

The study was based on observation of 11 digging sites in the Ugalla savanna woodland of western Tanzania.

Chimpanzees were linked to the excavated tubers and roots through knuckle prints, feces, and spit-out wads of fibers from those underground foods.

Seven tools were found at three of the sites, with worn edges and dirt marking implying their use as digging implements.

Because chimpanzees in the area are not habituated to humans, Hernandez-Aguilar was unable to observe them directly. She plans to conduct further observations in the area and to advocate for greater protection for the savanna chimps.

“Chimpanzees in savannas have not been considered a priority in conservation plans because they live in low densities compared to chimps in forests,” she said.

“We hope that discoveries such as this will show the value of conserving the savanna populations.”

Hernandez-Aguilar conducted her thesis work under Craig Stanford, professor of anthropology at USC.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2007-11/uosc-ham111107.php
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The Scariest Thing about Neanderthals by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007
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The Scariest Thing about Neanderthals

LiveScience's Human Nature Columnist
LiveScience.com
Sat Nov 3, 3:05 PM ET



Who knew the Weasley family trademark—a shock of bright red hair—was tens of thousands of years old?

Fictional wizards and J.K. Rowling aside, researchers Carles Lalueza-Fox of the University of Barcelona, Spain and Holger Rompler of the University of Leipzig in Germany announced last week that Neanderthals, who died out 35,000 years ago, had the same distribution of hair and skin color as modern human European populations. By inference, that means that about 1 percent of Neanderthals must have been redheads, with pale skin and freckles.

The idea of Neanderthals with red hair and freckles is just plain charming. But it's also scary because it underscores the fact that Neanderthals were so much like us, and now they're gone.

Ever since their fossils were first discovered in 1829 (and later called "Neanderthal Man" by William King, who was part Irish, by the way), these hominids have been relegated to the status of cave men and women. Neanderthals were shorter and more muscular than the other humans living at the same time, had bigger noses and projecting brow ridges, and no chins. Not a pretty picture.

But these ancient fellow Europeans were also culturally sophisticated. They buried their dead, built shelters, made tools, used fire and hunted. The may have had language (DNA sequencing has also revealed they carried the FOXP2 gene which is linked to language ability). And they had brains 100 cubic centimeters larger than people today.

And so why have these interesting people been relegated to second-class citizen status?

Because they threaten us.

Neanderthals are chronologically the closest, and the most familiar, example that we have of our kind disappearing off the face of the Earth, and that means we can go too.

No one knows exactly why Neanderthals went extinct, but the possibilities are also troubling.

They may have been wiped out by disease or bad weather. Or overpopulated their habitat and run out of food, fuel, and decent water.

They may have once been the greatest society on Earth, but in their arrogance ignored the smaller-brained hominids (that would be us) on the other side of the hill and been caught off guard and slaughtered in the first genocide.

Perhaps Neanderthals were simply unable to adapt to changing times, unable to lift their blinders and see beyond their own borders to the march of humanity across the globe.

Neanderthals scare us because they are ghosts from the past, a few with wizardly Weasley hair and a sprinkle of freckles, and they are now turned in our direction whispering, "You're not so unique. Watch out."

Meredith F. Small.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071103/sc_livescience/thescariestthingaboutneanderthals;_ylt=Amb2HBdsPJ_KDvi3M7ewuqWs0NUE
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Mammoth hunters' camp site found in Russia's Far East by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007
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Mammoth hunters' camp site found in Russia's Far East

KHABAROVSK, November 12 (RIA Novosti) - Archaeologists have found a 15,000 year-old hunters' camp site from the Paleolithic era near Lake Evoron in Russia's Far East, a source in the Khabarovsk archaeology museum said on Monday.

"The site dates back to the end of the Ice Age, a period which is poorly studied" Andrei Malyavin, chief of the museum's archaeology department said. "That is why any new site from this period is a discovery in itself."

The site, found during a 2007 archaeological expedition to Lake Evoron, is the largest of four Stone Age sites, discovered near the Amur River so far, and was most likely established by mammoth hunters.

"We came to this conclusion after studying flint pikes, arrowheads and a stone scraper," Malyavin said, adding that a comprehensive archaeological excavation could take a couple of years.

In 2006, archaeologists discovered an Iron Age burial mound around 2,500 years old...

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Archaeologists Discovered Early Man Site in Khabarovsk Territory by coldrum on Thursday, 15 November 2007
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Archaeologists Discovered Early Man Site in Khabarovsk Territory

A site of prehistoric humans of the ice age has been found in the Solnechniy District near Lake Evoron

VLADIVOSTOK, November 13, vladivostoktimes.com Archaeologists have found a site of ancient humans of the Stone Age. The site dates back 15 thousand years ago, the Khabarovsk Museum of Archaeology reported to RIA PrimaMedia.

"The site, which dates back to the end of the ice age, has been found in the Solnechniy District, not far away from Lake Evoron. A total of four similar sites have been found in the Territory in the area of the low Amur, but this one is the largest," said Andrei MALAYVIN, the Chair of the archaeology department at the Khabarovsk Museum of Archaeology.

He noted that the ice age is considered to be understudied, that is why any new site of that time is a big luck. "The people who lived at the site near Evoron were most likely mammoth hunters. Stone pikes of darts, arrow-heads, and knives,...

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