Posted on 02/07/2008 3:01:50 PM PST by blam
Doctoral student makes discovery on Neanderthal eating habits
by Michael Moffett
Hatchet Reporter
Issue date: 2/7/08
A doctoral student studying hominid paleobiology has pioneered a method for analyzing reindeer bones from around 65,000 to 12,000 years ago, an accomplishment that allows scientists to further understand the eating habits of early humans.
Early humans flocked to reindeer meat when the temperature dropped, J. Tyler Faith discovered.
"We see a steady increase in the abundance of reindeer, associated with declines in summer temperature," Faith said.
Faith analyzed bones from the Grotte XVI archaeological site in southern France in order to better understand the relationship between early humans and animals, and how this was affected by changes in the environment.
Faith's new findings help to understand the differences between Neanderthals and the modern man. He said differences in hunting behavior cannot explain why Neanderthals dropped out of existence between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago.
"Variation in the types of animals hunted and the parts of those animals that were exploited and processed by the human and Neanderthal occupants of Grotte XVI can be explained largely by environmental change, rather than behavioral or technological differences," Faith said.
His study was called "important, insightful and innovative" by Donald Grayson, a renowned Grotte XVI researcher and professor at the University of Washington, in an interview with Discovery News.
Faith has previously worked to develop "quantitative methods for measuring changes in how humans butchered and transported large animal remains."
He has also done research at the Shompole conservation area in southern Kenya, where he studied animal bones as a way to understand living wildlife.
For his dissertation, Faith is researching the extinction of large mammals in southern Africa. He hopes to determine whether human hunting pressure or changes to the environment contributed to the extinction of large mammals.
Including this study, Faith has been published five times in The Journal of Archeological Science, and has also been featured in Discovery News. He recently submitted work to the Journal of Human Evolution. Faith said he hopes to continue researching in East and southern Africa after he receives his Ph.D. and eventually hopes to become a professor at a research-oriented university.
"I have had a great time at GWU - I couldn't be happier anywhere else," Faith said. "I was excited by the many research opportunities available here in my program and at the National Museum of Natural History."
Also: "Neanderthals dropped out of existence between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago."
Not true, 27,000 year old Neanderthals skeletons have been found.
GGG Ping.
Must have been watching the Libs in the Senate dining room.....
“So easy a doctoral student could do it”
Early humans flocked to reindeer meat when the temperature dropped, J. Tyler Faith discovered.
obviously global warming/climate change caused this. as proof of it, the average temperature where I am has dropped 50 degrees in just 6 months..
They’re the ones that discovered, and passed down through the ages, the art of sticking straw in the cake to see if it was done.
Ill have the roast duck with mango salsa.
Happens on a annual basis here - 'xcept is just regular non-Santa type deer.
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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Thanks Blam. |
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Must have been watching the Libs in the Senate dining room”
Supping on the famous navy bean soup which is about as close as any of them get to expertise in military affairs.
Interesting show on PBS I saw once. About these folks that live in Northern Russia, almost up to the arctic circle.
They herd reindeer. Only reindeer. They have no agriculture of any kind.
The ONLY thing that grows there is the lichen. The ONLY thing that will eat the lichen is the reindeer.
And the folks that herd and process the reindeer are TOTALLY dependent on them. They use everything they can get from the reindeer, they even eat the eyeballs and burn reindeer dung for fuel and cooking.
The thing that struck me the most was how no-nonsense the people seemed. Ain’t alot of song and dance up there. Pretty sparse existence. And they were round. Short and round. Short round folks maintain their heat best.
SC, this sounds awfully familiar to another article you posted some time ago....don’t know if you’ve linked it to that one on the thread...do you recall the other article?
I love the sunglasses. And I loved those commercials. Existential meltdown bump.
Yeah, I think so too. Click on the keyword “godsgravesglyphs” (up by the first message of this topic) and search for “neander”, and of course, let my lazy butt know what you find. ;’)
New Evidence of Neanderthal Violence
BBC | 4-22-2002 | Helen Biggs
Posted on 04/23/2002 6:06:24 PM EDT by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/671495/posts
Neanderthal Man Floated Into Europe, Say Spanish Researchers
The Guardian (UK) | 1-16-2006 | Giles Tremlett
Posted on 01/16/2006 6:13:24 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1559199/posts
Neanderthal ‘butcher shop’ found in France
PhysOrg | September 27, 2006 | Staff
Posted on 09/28/2006 9:05:07 AM EDT by DaveLoneRanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1709879/posts
Stone Age Revolution:
Modern Humans May Have Divided Labor To Conquer
Science News | 11-4-2006 | Bruce Bower
Posted on 12/04/2006 3:38:58 PM EST by blam
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1748338/posts
Neanderthal Women Joined Men in the Hunt
(Eat your heart out, feminists)
The New York Times | December 5, 2006 | NICHOLAS WADE
Posted on 12/07/2006 8:42:12 AM EST by DaveLoneRanger
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1749820/posts
‘Post-Neanderthal Equality’
(Where is the next feminist revolution?)
Wall Street Journal | December 15, 2006 | Naomi Schaefer Riley
Posted on 12/15/2006 1:20:30 PM EST by Mrs. Don-o
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1754056/posts
Neanderthals on the Hunt
Archaeology | Volume 60 Number 2, March/April 2007 | unattributed (probably Mark Rose)
Posted on 02/19/2007 12:48:42 AM EST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1787189/posts
I tried but don’t seem to be finding the article that I know I posted on. I think it was posted at least a few months ago (and obviously predates the current article), and could have been written shortly before that time (or obviously earlier than that). People were discussing how the conclusions reached seemed at odds with what common sense would dictate concerning the scarcity vs. abundance of reindeer and how that affected the neanderthal’s diet (the scientific conclusions were that the more there was of the deer, the more they found more of the deer (bone?) was used and meat eaten). Many of us thought this didn’t make any sense. It would seem to me that the greater the scarcity of deer, the more likely you would eat everything on a deer and not be “picky” about what was eaten. I think the word “picky” was actually in the article. I’m wondering if the person in this article is the same person as cited in the earlier article. Oh well...maybe someone will remember....
p.s. I’m too lazy right now, myself, to wonder back checking my previously posted upon threads....but I might end up doing that at some point, lol.
yes! that’s exactly the one. Thanks blam!
Ancient Tooth Suggests Neanderthals Were More Mobile
By Elena Becatoros, Associated Press
ATHENS — Analysis of a 40,000-year-old tooth found in southern Greece suggests Neanderthals were more mobile than once believed, paleontologists and the Greek Culture Ministry said Friday.
Analysis of the tooth — part of the first and only Neanderthal remains found in Greece — showed the ancient human to whom it belonged had spent at least part of its life away from the area where it died.
"Neanderthal mobility is highly controversial," said paleoanthropology Professor Katerina Harvati at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Some experts believe Neanderthals roamed over very limited areas, but others say they must have been more mobile, particularly when hunting, Harvati explained.
Ian Tattersall, curator of anthropology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, said the tooth analysis provided a rare piece of hard evidence.
"This is a very interesting finding in the sense that we don't actually know how far Neanderthals tended to move in their lifetime," said Tattersall, who is not connected to the Greek study.
"It is consistent with the picture that is building of Neanderthals leading a fairly mobile life over large tracts of land."
Until now, experts only had indirect evidence, including stone used in tools, Harvati said. "Our analysis is the first that brings evidence from a Neanderthal fossil itself," she said.
Harvati was part of the team that carried out the analysis on the tooth, found in a seaside excavation in Gythio in Greece's southern Peloponnese region in 2002.
The findings were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The team from the Max Planck Institute, led by Department of Human Evolution professor Mike Richards and Harvati, analyzed tooth enamel for ratios of strontium isotope, a naturally occurring metal found in food and water. Levels of the metal vary in different areas. As it is absorbed by the body, an analysis of its levels can show where a person lived.
Eleni Panagopoulou of the Paleoanthropology-Speleology Department of Southern Greece said the levels of strontium isotope found in the tooth showed that this particular Neanderthal grew up in a different area — at least 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) away — from its discovery site.
"The analysis results ... will contribute to solving one of the central issues of paleoanthropology, that of the mobility of the Neanderthal," Panagopoulou said.
"Our findings prove that their mobility was significant and that their settlement networks were broader and more organized than we believed," she said.
Given that Neanderthals also coexisted with modern man in some parts of Europe, "one could presume that this mobility would facilitate the contacts of the two populations on a cultural and, perhaps, on a biological level."
Professor Clive Finlayson, an expert on Neanderthal man and director of the Gibraltar Museum, disagreed with the finding's significance.
"The technique is interesting, and if we could repeat this over and over for lots of (individuals) then we might get some kind of picture," he said.
"(But) I would have been surprised if Neanderthals didn't move at least 20 kilometers in their lifetime, or even in a year ... We're talking about humans, not trees."
thanks blam. I’ll read that one as soon as I get done reading a different article that is very long....(so long, I had to make a fresh pot of coffee to ensure I could make it through, fofl). This one looks interesting, also.
Ancient Food News - 48,000 BCE: Neandertal cutting implements manufactured in assembly line production on established cooking sites... Manuel Vaquero of Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Tarragona, Spain, has analyzed the spatial distribution of numerous Neandertal stone implements from two sediment layers in northeastern Spain's Abric Romani rock shelter, deducing a kind of workstation assembly line manufacture of small cutting instruments on established cooking sites there (Science News, 10/16/99, reporting on the September issue of Antiquity)Tasteless joke time: if Neandertals really were speechless, what did they do when they had Tourette's Syndrome? ; )
Carson I.A. Ritchie in Food in Civilization makes the most comprehensive case for the Neolithic invention of soup. "Evidence suggests that the Neaderthalers had evolved quite sophisticated cooking techniques. They were able to keep alive members of the group who were apparently either very elderly or lifelong invalids. The remains of one young man found near La-Chapelle-aux-Saints in France were those of a cripple who could have been of no use in hunting for the group. Another skeleton was that of an old man who had his teeth worn down to such an extent that he would have found it impossible to chew meat. There was no milk in those days, the food on which, in later times, old toothless people were kept alive. It seems at least likely that people of this sort were nourished on a diet of soup. Now the invention of soup making opened the door for all kinds of other sophisticated cookery.
What went on in the Neandertal kitchen is a matter for conjecture, but one sensible suggestion is that he boiled animals in their skins. The hide of a flayed animal would be suspended on forked sticks, filled with meat and water, and a fire lighted beneath it. After some time the water would boil, the meat would be cooked, and the broth could then be eaten by invalids. The skin would not catch fire with the heat because it would be cooked by the water. The experiment of boiling water in a bag made of fairly thick paper demonstrates that this kind of cooking is a practical idea. There can be no doubt that cooking in a skin took place in many parts of the world, and it was still being done in Ireland as late as the sixteenth century... Until recently, Icelanders used to steam their bread in the boiling water of the hot springs by simply wrapping it in some waterproof substance and then dangling it in the hot spring at the end of a rope...
Another way in which Neandertal extended his list of recipes was by using hot stones. The hot-stone technique meant the invesntion of frying. In addition, stones, heated to great heat on a campfire, could be transferred to any receptacle filled with water. A sufficiency of hot stones would induce the water to boil. [While] anthropologists have doubted the feasibility of primitive man's being able to pick the hot stones out of the fire... two stout poles, tied together with a thong, provide a pair of tongs with which even the hottest objects can be removed from a fire. This was the technique used by gun founders in Southeast Asia to remove pieces of slag from a furnace..." (Beaufort Books, 1981)
Neandertal Architecture - Apart from making structures out of mammoth bones, Neandertals also made tents out of wood and animals skins. An example of this is at the French site of Terre Amata, which is 400,000 years old. These huts were extremely large, measuring to up to about twenty-five feet long and more than twelve feet wide (Tattersall 1995). In the inside of the hut, archaeologists found a fireplace, a hearth, numerous stone tools, and broken animal bones. Very few of the fauna found suggested that perhaps this could have been a butchering site.It seems to me that since Neandertal preyed on creatures as large as the mammoth, butchering shelters might need to be built near the kill.
Stone Tools Made By Another Kind Of Human by Dr David Whitehouse - Scattered through the region, the team discovered 409 or remnants of prehistoric tools, including 14 associated with the mid- Palaeolithic period (between approximately 200,000 and 35,000 years ago). Most of these 14 stone tools are made using a technique usually associated with Neandertal man. The abundance of Neandertal stone tool remnants from the Palaeolithic period may help answer questions about the introduction of farming into Europe, Davis said. The Palaeolithic and Mesolithic periods, spanning from 750,000 to 11,000 years ago, represent a time before agriculture began. It was about 8,000 years ago that modern man's relatives in the Neolithic Age are known to have grown crops and domesticate animals.Neandertal built structures, manufactured tools and used them, interred their dead, probably had speech, [yet] were "another kind of human" and were not "modern man's relatives."
Neandertalers were more muscular than ourselves, had large faces with long ridges on thick-boned skulls, were adept at working stone tools, were capable hunters and there are indications that they had a complex society with death rituals.
The GEICO Neanderthals are sick of people underestimating them.
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