For Those Interested in Archaeology

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/26/altamira-cave-paintings-open-public-spain-cantabria?CMP=fb_gu

For 12 years, visitors wanting to see Spain's prized prehistoric Altamira cave paintings have had to settle for a replica in a museum a few hundred feet away.
But from Thursday, small groups of visitors will again be allowed in the cave, which has been described as the Sistine Chapel of paleolithic art, as part of an experiment to determine whether the paintings can support the presence of sightseers.
The vast cavern complex, in the Cantabria region of northern Spain, was made a World Heritage Site by Unesco in 1985. It is covered in paintings dated to between 14,000 and 20,000 years ago of animals including European bison and bulls.
From now until August, on a randomly selected day of the week, visitors to the replica cave in the Museo de Altamira will be invited to enter a draw; five will be chosen to take a guided tour including 37 minutes inside the cave. Visitors will have to put on special suits, masks and shoes before entering the site.

 

Where'd you dig THAT idea up?!

 

A nice what if though!
"An ancient bone belonging to a Neanderthal may change the way we think our human ancestors communicated.
Tests performed on a 60,000 year-old Neanderthal hyoid bone show that the bone is “indistinguishable from our own,” suggesting the ancient humans used their vocal tract in a manner comparable to the way modern humans do. The new findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE.
"To many, the Neanderthal hyoid discovered was surprising because its shape was very different to that of our closest living relatives, the chimpanzee and the bonobo. However, it was virtually indistinguishable from that of our own species. This led to some people arguing that this Neanderthal could speak," Stephen Wroe, a zoologist and paleontologist with the University of New England, said in a statement.
The bone, which was discovered in Israel in 1989, was subjected to 3D X-ray imaging that allowed researchers to create a virtual model of the hyoid bone -- a bone located between the chin and cartilage near the thyroid that supports the tongue and raises the larynx to allow for vocalization and swallowing.
When the bone was first found, the technology at the time didn’t exist to confirm the theory that the bone’s resemblance to modern humans means they had similar communication patters. The latest study was able to revisit the argument and make a firmer conclusion.
"By analyzing the mechanical behavior of the fossilized bone with micro x-ray imaging, we were able to build models of the hyoid that included the intricate internal structure of the bone,” Wroe said. "From this research, we can conclude that it's likely that the origins of speech and language are far, far older than once thought."
A commonly held theory dates the use of speech to about 100,000 years ago where only modern humans were capable of complex speech. Wroe says other, older hyoid bones found more recently are more than 500,000 years old. While they haven’t been modeled, the bones are likely similar to those of modern humans and Neanderthals, Wroe says. This may mean that language can be dated back even further.
While the latest study may challenge the origins of speech, it does not definitively prove Neanderthals spoke, Wrote told the BBC."
http://www.ibtimes.com/did-neanderthals-speak-60000-year-old-hyoid-bone-virtually-indistinguishable-our-own-1559113?

 

And yet more prehistory "porn" lol. Sorry, my fellow anoraks will understand.
"Britain’s recent spell of wet weather has damaged many people’s homes but it has also unearthed some archaeological treasures.
Prints that could be 7,000 years old have been uncovered by a tidal surge in Northumberland.
The impressions, some made by animals and others possibly by humans, have been preserved in a newly exposed area of peat bed at Druridge Bay.




+6


The find follows the discovery of similar footprints, which have since dated at more than 7,000 years old, at nearby Low Hauxley in an organised dig that took place last year.It is believed the 100metre long bed has been uncovered during the recent tidal surge that hit the east coast of England.
Archaeologist Barry Mead found the latest prints on his daily walk along the beach near his home with his dog, although it is not yet certain as to exactly which animals the prints were made by.
Mr Mead, who is Greater Morpeth Development Trust’s Heritage Officer, was involved in last year’s dig and now regularly walks the length of Druridge Bay to look for new prints."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2574597/7-000-year-old-footprints-animals-possibly-humans-exposed-Northumberland-beach.html#ixzz2vF6DB7mI

 

Ps: any chance of this topic being pinned? Save me scrolling halfway down the page looking for it!
"The ancestors of America's Indians lived in Beringia - the land exposed during the last ice age that is now the Bering Strait - for millennia, genetic studies have determined. Scott Armstrong Elias reports.
But genetic evidence shows there is no direct ancestral link between the people of ancient East Asia and modern Native Americans.The theory that the Americas were populated by humans crossing from Siberia to Alaska across a land bridge was first proposed as far back as 1590, and has been generally accepted since the 1930s.
A comparison of DNA from 600 modern Native Americans with ancient DNA recovered from a late Stone Age human skeleton from Mal'tanear Lake Baikal in southern Siberia shows that Native Americans diverged genetically from their Asian ancestors around 25,000 years ago, just as the last ice age was reaching its peak.
Based on archaeological evidence, humans did not survive the last ice age's peak in northeastern Siberia, and yet there is no evidence they had reached Alaska or the rest of the New World either.
While there is evidence to suggest northeast Siberia was inhabited during a warm period about 30,000 years ago before the last ice age peaked, after this the archaeological record goes silent, and only returns 15,000 years ago, after the last ice age ended.
So where did the ancestors of the Native Americans go for 15,000 years, after they split from the rest of their Asian relatives?"
http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_comments/Blogs/2308413/first_americans_lived_on_beringia_for_thousands_of_years.html?

 

"There has been much research into the factors that have influenced the human genome since the end of the last Ice Age. Anthropologists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and geneticists at University College London (UCL), working in collaboration with archaeologists from Berlin and Kiev, have analyzed ancient DNA from skeletons and found that selection has had a significant effect on the human genome even in the past 5,000 years, resulting in sustained changes to the appearance of people. The results of this current research project have been published this week in an article entitled "Direct evidence for positive selection of skin, hair, and eye pigmentation in Europeans during the last 5,000 years" in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
For a number of years population geneticists have been able to detect echoes of natural selection in the genomes of living humans, but those techniques are typically not very accurate about when that natural selection took place. The researchers in Mainz and London now decided to take a new approach. This involved analyzing DNA from archaeological skeletons and then comparing the prehistoric data with that of contemporary Europeans using computer simulations. Where the genetic changes could not be explained by the randomness of inheritance, the researchers were able to infer that positive selection played a role, i.e., that frequency of a certain mutation increased significantly in a given population."
http://machineslikeus.com/news/natural-selection-has-altered-human-appearance-over-time?

 

"It's been known for years that some Native Americans and Russians share ancestors, and new research claims to have confirmed this link by discovering they also share language traits.
Scientists from Georgetown University used a technique called linguistic phylogeny to discover a direct link between the Na-Dene family of languages in North America, and the Yeniseian languages of Central Siberia.
Their findings also revealed the migration of people from central Asia to North America around 13,000 years ago may not have been a one-way trip - with some people returning home to Siberia, taking their language back with them.





+3

In 2012, DNA research found genetic markers that linked people living in the Russian republic of Altai, southern Siberia, with indigenous populations in North America.

Scientists believe that during an ice age between 15,000 and 20,000 years ago, inhabitants of Siberia crossed a stretch of land known as the Bering Land Bridge into North America.
This stretch of land is now buried under the waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas.
By studying mutations in the languages of these two regions, scientists found a lineage shift approximately 13,000 and 14,000 years ago - when the inhabitants are thought to have made this journey across the ice.
However, because of the wide spread of languages, and the fact links still remain in Siberia, the researchers suggest some of these migrants returned home."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2579405/Native-Americans-Russians-share-language-Dialects-reveal-ancestors-migrated-13-000-years-ago.html#ixzz2vr4uenNR

 

Lovely stuff!
"New analysis of an early Australopithecus specimen discovered in South Africa puts the “Ape Man’s” age at roughly 800,000 years earlier than scientists previously thought. The nearly complete skeleton of the prehistoric hominid, nicknamed “Little Foot,” is now believed to be around 3 million years old, putting him in the running with other famous Australopithecines as human’s earliest forefather.
"No longer are the Australopithecus of East Africa, like Lucy, the sole candidates,” Laurent Bruxelles, a paleontologist from France's National Institute for Archaeological Research, told AFP.





Bruxelles and a team of scientists from France and South Africa have spent 13 years excavating the Sterkfontein Caves of Gauteng, South Africa, a site renowned for producing several fossils of the ape-man Australopithecus. Little Foot was the most complete specimen uncovered from Sterkfontein.
Little Foot, who stood barely a meter (3.3 feet) tall, died after he fell 20 meters into a hole. His remains were naturally mummified under several meters of sediment and rock and stayed there until they were unearthed in 1997.
Researchers determined Little Foot’s age by comparing the position of the skeleton to the age of the calcareous flowstone surrounding the hominid. Previous analysis had concluded that the age of the flowstone and the age of Little Foot were the same, but Bruxelles and his team found that the flowstone came into contact with the skeleton only after it filled the voids in the cave caused by ancient erosion and collapse. "
http://www.ibtimes.com/3-million-year-old-ape-man-may-beat-lucy-earliest-human-forefather-1561885?





"LONDON — British archaeologists have found what they say is the world's oldest complete example of a human being with metastatic cancer and hope it will offer new clues about the now common and often fatal disease.
Researchers from Durham University and the British Museum discovered the evidence of tumors that had developed and spread throughout the body in a 3,000-plus-year-old skeleton found in a tomb in modern Sudan in 2013.
Analyzing the skeleton using radiography and a scanning electron microscope, they managed to get clear imaging of lesions on the bones which showed the cancer had spread to cause tumors on the collar bones, shoulder blades, upper arms, vertebrae, ribs, pelvis and thigh bones."
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/archaeologists-find-3-200-year-old-human-skeleton-cancer-n55051

 

What do you reckon? Be one helluva find if they're right.
"Budapest| Construction workers building the foundations of a new bridge over the Danube River in the Hungarian capitol, have unearthed a spectacular 5th century sepulchre. The analysis of the monument revealed that it was the burial chamber of a great hunnic leader, most likely that of King Attila himself.
“This site is absolutely incredible!” explains Albrecht Rümschtein, an historian from the Lorand Eötvös University in Budapest and member of the team of specialists investigating the tomb. “We found many horse skeletons, as well as various weapons and other artefacts, all traditionally associated with Huns. These objects include a large sword made of meteoric iron, which could certainly be Attila’s legendary “Holy War Sword of the Scythians”, allegedly given to him by the god Mars himself. In fact, this definitely seems to be the resting place of the almighty Attila, but further analysis needs to be done to confirm it.”
Nicknamed “the scourge of God” by roman historians, Attila was the ruler of the Huns, a nomadic people originating possibly from Central Asia. He ruled from 434 A.D., until his death in 453 after a feast celebrating his latest marriage to a beautiful and young gothic princess named Ildico. He led many military raids on both the Eastern and Western Roman Empires provoquing what has become knowned as the Barbarian Invasions or the Great Migration, a large movement of germanic populations that greatly accelerated the fall of Rome and the advent of the Middle Ages in Europe. He his considered by most Hungarians, as the founder of the country."
http://worldnewsdailyreport.com/hungary-archeologists-discover-tomb-of-attila-the-hun/#sthash.AheAkUWy.dpuf

 

"Humans arrived in the Americas from Asia at least 9,000 years earlier than previously believed, archaeologists have said, citing an analysis of stone tools found in caves in Brazil.
The discovery of stone tools at Serra da Capivara National Park in northeast Brazil last year suggested humans were present on the American land as early as 22,000 years ago, according to the scientists.
The radiocarbon dating of spear points found in the 1920s placed the arrival of big-game hunters across the Bering Strait about 13,000 years ago, forming the basis of when humans were believed to have arrived in the Americas.
"If they're right, and there's a great possibility that they are, that will change everything we know about the settlement of the Americas," Walter Neves, an evolutionary anthropologist at the University of Sao Paulo, told the New York Times.
The National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site, is itself a testimony to several evidences that have "forced a sweeping re-evaluation of the fundamental traditional theories underpinning the origins of human settlement in the Americas".
Of more than 300 archaeological sites found within the park, the majority consist of rock and wall paintings dating from 50,000-30,000 years ago.
According to Unesco, many of the rock shelters in the Serra da Capivara National Park are decorated with rock paintings, some of which are more than 25,000 years old.
A few archaeologists disregard the stone tools as an evidence of human settlement in the Americas.
The sharp-edged stones may have resulted from falling rocks, and not human handiwork, according to archaeologist Gary Haynes of the University of Nevada."
http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/humans-came-americas-asia-9000-years-earlier-was-previously-thought-1442991?

 

"Europeans may be closer to their Neanderthal cousins than previously thought, new research suggests.
Breeding with Neanderthals has long been known to have left its traces in the DNA of modern Europeans.
But this mingling of the two human sub-species was thought to have taken place long ago in Africa, before our ancestors spread across the globe.
Scientists at Edinburgh University have shown that the genetic similarity between Neanderthals and non-African modern human populations must have arisen after interbreeding in Europe and Asia
The new evidence suggests Homo sapiens and Neanderthals got together much more recently.
Scientists have shown that the genetic similarity between Neanderthals and non-African modern human populations must have arisen after interbreeding in Europe and Asia."
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2599854/Europeans-closer-Neanderthals-thought-Ancient-DNA-humans-species-interbreeding-outside-Africa.html#ixzz2yLJ2SANt

 

The existance of Scotland was all the proof surely...? : ) OK Ducking now...
The Basque are evidence also IMO...

 

Pmp40fire: P_twinlugers: P_chaingun:

 

Since Neanderthals typically had larger brains than homo sapien sapien it may not be the insult that some think it is. They also tended to have more robust skeletons and muscular structure from what I recall. One of my Anthropology teachers in college stated that he would have no trouble spotting individuals say on the streats of New Yourk that looked like Classic Neanderthals as well. Of course being compared to a New Yorker may be an even worse insult.....

 

Larger...but at the same time "simpler" IIRC in that far more of the brain's capacity was given over to sensory perception and interpretation....together with larger nasal cavities etc.....than Homo Sapiens.

 

"tools dug up by archaeologists in South Lanarkshire have been dated at 14,000 years old - making them the earliest evidence of humans in Scotland.



The discovery follows a study of more than 5,000 flint artefacts recovered from fields at Howburn, near Biggar, from 2005 to 2009.
Experts observed striking similarities to previous finds in northern Germany and the south o Denmark, helping them date the tools to the very earliest part of the late-glacial period.

They now believe Howburn is likely to have hosted the very first settlers in Scotland.
Previously, the oldest evidence of human occupation could be dated to around 13,000 years ago at a now-destroyed cave site in Argyll.
It is thought the hunters who left behind the flint remains came into Scotland in pursuit of game, possibly wild horses and reindeer, at a time when the climate improved following severe glacial conditions.
These glacial conditions returned around 13,000 years ago and Scotland was once again depopulated, probably for another 1,000 years, after which new groups of people with different types of flint tools made an appearance.
Historians say the similarity in the design of the Howburn tools to those uncovered elsewhere in Europe offers "tantalising glimpses" of links between people across what would have been dry land, now drowned by the North Sea.
Alan Saville, a senior curator at the National Museums of Scotland and a specialist in the study of flaked flint and stone tools, said: "These tools represent a real connection with archaeological finds in north-west Germany, southern Denmark and north-west Holland, a connection not seen elsewhere in Britain at this time.
"This discovery is both intriguing and revolutionises our ideas about where humans came from in this very early period. In southern Britain, early links are with northern France and Belgium. Howburn is just one chance discovery and further such discoveries will no doubt emerge.""
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/archaeologists-say-14000-year-old-tools-unearthed-in-south-lanarkshire-are-the-earlie.1397044294

 

I can understand living there for the awesome beauty...but buggered if id settle there...the wind...the cold...Id look at it from a window sitting in front of a fire...

 

But see, there's 'hard', and then there's Scots...

 

Given the evidence of interbreeding I think it's now pretty clear that they were Homo Sapiens.