Digest ping. I put the list of this week's topics in post #1.
Posted on 04/07/2024 7:01:24 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Ancient humans quarried flint to make weapons for hunting and butchering elephants up to 2 million years ago in what's now the Upper Galilee region of Israel, a new study finds.
The research answers long-standing questions about why there were so many ancient quarries in the region, and found that they were located near water sources likely used by migrating elephant herds.
The study authors propose that Homo erectus — an early ancestor of modern humans that lived from about 1.89 million to 110,000 years ago — quarried flint at the sites to make tools for hunting and butchering elephants until about 500,000 years ago, during the Paleolithic period, or Old Stone Age.
"An elephant consumes 400 liters [105 gallons] of water a day, on average, and that's why it has fixed movement paths," study co-author Meir Finkel, an archaeologist at Tel Aviv University, said in a statement. "These are animals that rely on a daily supply of water, and therefore on water sources — the banks of lakes, rivers and streams."
The authors looked at the ancient migration routes of elephants — suggested by earlier studies that considered the landscape and fossilized bones — and found that they corresponded closely to the ancient quarry sites in the Upper Galilee region, according to the study published Feb. 21 in the journal Archaeologies.
The quarries are within walking distance of the major Paleolithic sites at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov and Ma'ayan Baruch in the Hula Valley, between the Sea of Galilee and Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
The other GGG topics added since the previous digest ping, alpha:
Digest ping. I put the list of this week's topics in post #1.
The Homo Erectus are running the country!
Well, it would have been ideal if it hadn't been for all the foot-dust from Fred's feet polluting the place. It was as bad as tire dust from EVs.
Dino farts....
“Homo Erectus”??? All I could imagine was a queer, green/purple-haired woke that had OD’d on Viagra.../s
Homo erectus were Democrats?
why there were so many ancient quarries in the region,
They were mining Viagra?
Wonder if they ate raw elephant meat or used the flint to spark fire with kindle wood.
Don’t even ask what they used for a chisel.
Not sure. I’m just contemplating the sheer size of the bucket of coleslaw.
Never, ever play “pull my finger” with an elephant.
Oy vey, more elephants!
Yep, so are you a hunter or a gatherer?
A bit of both, I don’t like to specialize.
Oh, okay, I am just a gatherer, I can’t aim my spear worth a shit.
What’s a shit?
You know, what elephants drop. There’s one.
You learn something new every day. Well, time to put the dead ones in a cart and drag it back to the village.
Yeah, if only there was an easier way, but our best minds cannot come up with anything.
Well you know what they say, at least we’re always erect.
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