New Evidence Links Stonehenge To Ancient Sun Worship

New Evidence Links Stonehenge To Ancient Sun Worship

Researchers have reportedly uncovered new evidence that supports the theory that Stonehenge had been used to worship the sun before the legendary stones were erected at the location.

According to a report published online at the MyFoxHouston.com website Monday, representatives from the University of Birmingham and the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Archaeological Prospection have confirmed that a team of experts representing both institutions had discovered a pair of large pits that were “positioned on celestial alignment.”

Archaeologists Race Against Sea Change in Orkney

Archaeologists Race Against Sea Change in Orkney

Archaeologists are trying to understand how erosion affects the Orkney Islands' abundance of coastal archaeological sites. Hundreds of coastal sites from Orkney's 10,000-year human history are endangered by climate change. Archaeologists can't fight the ocean so, like the people whose climate adaptation they study, modern researchers continue to adapt themselves. They take advantage of the fact that destructive storms can reveal and even excavate sites, though they're not the most delicate of diggers. And, by adopting new techniques such as 3D laser scanning, they can record, if not save, sites before they are taken by the sea. For Orkney, whose dense archaeology is covered with shell sand that preserves both stone and bone unusually well, the dangers from storms and sea level rise are especially acute because of its northern latitude.

Native American Blankets Made With Dog Hair

Native American Blankets Made With Dog Hair

To Native Americans known as the Coast Salish, the hair of the dog isn't a dubious hangover cure—it's a key ingredient in the large, beautiful blankets woven by their ancestors more than a century ago. A molecular analysis of some of these venerable textiles now confirms they are made partly of yarn spun from the fur of an unusual canine, verifying oral accounts handed down through the Pacific Northwest tribe over generations.

Dissecting the Cave Lion Diet

Dissecting the Cave Lion Diet

A quarter larger than today's lions, the European cave lion was one of the biggest cats around 12,000 years ago. Now, an unusually sophisticated analysis of its bones is revealing what these creatures ate—and why they may have disappeared.

Ötzi the Iceman may have smashed eye in fall

Ötzi the Iceman may have smashed eye in fall

A sharp incision in his right eye may have contributed to the rapid demise of Ötzi the Iceman, the famous mummy who died in the Italian Alps more than 5,000 years ago.

Twenty years after two hikers stumbled upon the Iceman in a melting glacier, new analyses have revealed that a deep cut likely led to heavy bleeding in the man's eye. In the cold, high-altitude conditions where he was found, that kind of injury would have been tough to recover from.

'Earliest' evidence of human violence

'Earliest' evidence of human violence

A healed fracture discovered on an ancient skull from China may be the oldest documented evidence of violence between humans, a study has shown.

The individual, who lived 150,000-200,000 years ago, suffered blunt force trauma to the right temple - possibly from being hit with a projectile

Neuroscience: Neanderthals in mind (Clive Gamble)

Neuroscience: Neanderthals in mind (Clive Gamble)

another article by Gamble...

Hominid skull hints at later brain evolution by Carol Clark

Hominid skull hints at later brain evolution by Carol Clark

An analysis of a skull from the most complete early hominid fossils ever found suggests that the large and complex human brain may have evolved more rapidly than previously realized, and at a later time than some other human characteristics.

Neanderthals Vanished Because of Their Own Success, Suggests Study

Neanderthals Vanished Because of Their Own Success, Suggests Study

Using data obtained from the archaeological record, a team of researchers at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado, Denver, conducted experiments using complex computer modeling to analyze evidence of how human hunter-gatherers responded culturally and biologically to the dramatic changes that took place during the last Ice Age. The results showed, among other things, that the Neanderthals, thought by many scientists to have become extinct at least in part because of their inadaptability and inability to compete with the expanding presence of modern humans, may have actually been victims of their own success. 

Archeologists investigate Ice Age hominins' adaptability to climate change

Archeologists investigate Ice Age hominins' adaptability to climate change

Computational modeling that examines evidence of how hominin groups evolved culturally and biologically in response to climate change during the last Ice Age also bears new insights into the extinction of Neanderthals. Details of the complex modeling experiments conducted at Arizona State University and the University of Colorado Denver will be published in the December issue of the journal Human Ecology, available online Nov. 17.

Dear Professor, I think my husband may be a Neanderthal

Dear Professor, I think my husband may be a Neanderthal

In May 2010, biologists broke the news that our modern human ancestors had sex with their Neanderthal cousins in Europe and Western Asia as they trudged out of Africa to colonise the world.

Many of us who live outside Africa today are a living legacy of those ancient couplings. Though modern humans more or less replaced Neanderthals, the encounters left an imprint on our genetic makeup. We carry inside our cells a smidgen of Neanderthal DNA.

Skeleton of ancient human relative may yield skin

Skeleton of ancient human relative may yield skin

As London's Natural History Museum takes delivery of two replica fossils, palaeontologists hint that they have discovered tools with the fossils, and mummified skin on the bones. It is strangely moving to hold it, knowing that this is an exact replica of a hand of one of our most ancient relatives. The bones looked frail and slight lying on the black felt, but fit snugly on my palm, knuckles lining up to knuckles (see photo). This woman, who died 1.9 million years ago after falling down a watering hole in what is now South Africa, had hands remarkably similar to mine.

The Archaeologist's Toolkit

The Archaeologist's Toolkit

The excavation of buried articulated Neanderthal skeletons at Sima de las Palomas (Murcia, SE Spain) (Walker et al)

Link: The excavation of buried articulated Neanderthal skeletons at Sima de las Palomas (Murcia, SE Spain) (Walker et al)

At Sima de las Palomas del Cabezo Gordo (Murcia, Spain) remains of several Neanderthals have been excavated recently. From about 50,000 years ago articulated parts of 3 adult skeletons (including skulls with mandibles, vertebral column, rib cages, shoulder blades, hip bones, upper and lower limbs, hands and feet, often in anatomical connexion) were excavated from the lower part of a cemented accumulation of scree and large stones (éboulis) sloping downwards and inwards into the cavity, along with burnt bones of large mammals and Mousterian implements. The excavation of the skeletons is the subject of this paper (palaeoanthropological skeletal descriptions are soon to be published elsewhere). Behind the cemented scree there accumulated a layer of finer sediment containing burnt animal bones, followed by more fine sediment that filled the cavity up to the overhanging rock roof and contained isolated teeth and unburnt bone fragments of Neanderthals, including 3 mandibles, as well as Mousterian implements and faunal remains, all dating from before 40,000 years ago. Altogether, at least 9 Neanderthals are represented by finds from the site (including 3 unstratified mandibles), ranging from babies to adults. Dating methods include radiocarbon, uranium-series, and optical luminescence. Pollen analysis implies conditions less severe than those of the Heinrich 4 cold oscillation at 40,000 years ago.

¿Ganaría una mujer neandertal al campeón mundial de pulsos?/Could a Neanderthal Woman Win at Arm-wrestling? (in Spanish)

Link: ¿Ganaría una mujer neandertal al campeón mundial de pulsos?/Could a Neanderthal Woman Win at Arm-wrestling? (in Spanish)

This is silly.

But, in his new book Manthropology, Australian anthropologist Peter McAllister says, yes the lady Neanderthal would win against a modern man based on calculations made from upper long bones of a La Ferrassie specimen.

woot!

woot!

calvin & hobbes do archaeology

calvin & hobbes do archaeology

Parasites drove human genetic variation: Adapting to pathogens was more important than climate and diet in driving natural selection.

Link: Parasites drove human genetic variation: Adapting to pathogens was more important than climate and diet in driving natural selection.

Modern humans began to spread out from Africa approximately 100,000 years ago. They settled in distant lands, where they had to adapt to unfamiliar climates, find different ways to feed themselves and fight off new pathogens. A study now suggests that it was the pathogens, particularly parasitic worms, that had the biggest role in driving natural selection — but that genetic adaptation to them may also have made humans more susceptible to autoimmune diseases.

New Dating of Cave Site Upsets Neanderthal History

Link: New Dating of Cave Site Upsets Neanderthal History

Members of our species (Homo sapiens) arrived in Europe several millennia earlier than previously thought. This was the conclusion by a team of researchers, after carrying out a re-analyses of two ancient deciduous teeth.

These teeth were discovered in 1964 in the “Grotta del Cavallo”, a cave in southern Italy. Since their discovery they have been attributed to Neanderthals, but this new study suggests they belong to anatomically modern humans. Chronometric analysis, carried out by the Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit at the University of Oxford, shows that the layers within which the teeth were found date to ~43,000-45,000 cal BP. This means that the human remains are older than any other known European modern humans. The research work was published in the renowned science journal Nature.

Oldest rock art in Egypt discovered

Link: Oldest rock art in Egypt discovered

Using a new technology known as optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), a team of Belgian scientists and Professor John Coleman Darnell of Yale have determined that Egyptian petroglyphs found at the east bank of the Nile are about 15,000 years old, making them the oldest rock art in Egypt and possibly the earliest known graphic record in North Africa.