Aerial view of the Aghitu-3 excavation site.Credit: Soseh Aghaian, NAS
Posted on 10/23/2022 12:34:41 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Under the aegis of the University of Oslo, an international research team has extracted and analyzed plant DNA from the sediments of the Armenian "Aghitu-3" cave. About 40,000 to 25,000 years ago, the cave was used as a shelter by humans of the Upper Paleolithic. A detailed analysis of the DNA shows that the cave's inhabitants may have used numerous plant species for a variety of purposes, including for medicine, dye, or yarn.
he excavations were led by the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia and the research project "The Role of Culture in Early Expansions of Humans (ROCEEH)," which is based at the University of Tübingen and the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt. The study was recently published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
At first glance, there is nothing that sets the Aghitu-3 cave apart from the numerous other basalt caves in the highlands of southern Armenia. However, the 11-meter-deep, 18-meter-wide, and 6-meter-high cave holds something special: it is one of just a few sites containing finds from the Upper Paleolithic in the Republic of Armenia. The cave sediments reveal information about human settlement during a period of about 39,000 to 24,000 years before present.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
Aerial view of the Aghitu-3 excavation site.Credit: Soseh Aghaian, NAS
“MAY HAVE”....means who the hell knows...
No, it means that they’re not speaking in absolutes.
The researchers found evidence of human occupation and evidence of the plants. One possibility is that the plant material ended up there without human involvement: animals, wind, etc. Another possibility is that the people brought the plants there.
If the people brought what seem to be non-food plants to the site, then medicines, dye, or yarn are some of the possible uses.
Maybe a week from now, researchers will find the same kind of material in another site that has more evidence about how the plants got there or were used.
If there’s just a big pile of every kind of plant, then they could have just washed in. But there’s no reason to think that’s the case.
True, but without more evidence, plant matter *could* have arrived without human intervention without alien intervention, which is my standard for “possible.” Wind or animal transmission is often haphazard.
Haphazard, not specific.
Right, but no aliens are required to make it specific. Mr. Wyman reminds us that You Never Know. Today’s, “We’re sure of this,” is tomorrow’s, “Oops, so wrong!”
Is such a thing even possible? Yes, it is.
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