Posted on 09/26/2011 7:20:26 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
His jaw must have dropped when he examined the material before him. It was a rare find. So rare, in fact, that, if what he was looking at was really what he thought it could be, it would be the first and only evidence of soft body tissue from an early hominin ever discovered.......soft tissue from an early (possible) pre-human ancestor nearly 2 million years old. The find was part of the remains uncovered by paleoanthropologist Lee Berger of the University of the Witwatersrand and his colleagues when they discovered fossils of Australopithecus sediba, a possible precursor to our earliest human ancestors (the Homo genus) in the Malapa cave system of South Africa.
"I was standing with Lee in his lab looking at what might be australopithecine skin" said Dr. John Hawks, a paleoanthropologist with the University of Wisconsin - Madison. "I'm not talking about an imprint of skin, like a skin cast. These appear to be thinly layered, possibly mineralized tissue"[1].
The possible mineralized skin tissue was found on top of the skull of the fossil remains of what was identified as a young boy, and on the jaw near the chin of a fossilized woman. Scientists suggest that such surviving evidence is possible because the remains of the individuals found at Malapa were rapidly deposited and entombed in a thick layer of sand and clay through natural causes in a cave or shaft at or soon after their deaths.
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
Slap me some skin. ;)
LOOKOUT!!!
Joe’s on a roll!!!
#22 - Eeeewwwww!!
I am somewhat familiar with those tests.
I was curious as to how fishtank obtained a specimen and what scientific tests HE ran to back up his claim.
The things that FReepers do amaze me.
Damn, Joe. Just damn.
Gotcha.. kind of like a while back we had a guy talking about the mineralized dino skin as though it was ground beef. :->
No kidding. With all the crap out there these days the kids now will be known as the D Generation.
She rubs the lotion on the skin or else she gets the hose again.
Tastes like chicken though!
You just can’t ignore them, can ya?
I’ve always been the curious type.
Are you trying to ruin my appetite - forever?
We can be very wily...
Nahh, he'd use the picture showing her from the front for that...
I was thinking maybe her top slipped down... but no... I am going to have nightmares tonight.
The sun really is not your friend, ladies.
Repeat after me...
It’s a leather body suit...It’s a leather body suit...It’s a leather body suit...It’s a leather body suit...It’s a leather body suit...
I know I feel better. You?
Is she a burn victim?
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