Credit: Photo courtesy of Graeme Barker
Posted on 01/05/2016 12:30:41 AM PST by SunkenCiv
As the terrorist group ISIS is pushed out of northern Iraq, archaeologists are resuming work in the region, making new discoveries and figuring out how to conserve archaeological sites and reclaim looted antiquities.
Several discoveries, including new Neanderthal skeletal remains, have been made at Shanidar Cave, a site in Iraqi Kurdistan that was inhabited by Neanderthals more than 40,000 years ago.
Additionally, though ISIS did destroy and loot a great number of sites, there are several ways for archaeologists, scientific institutions, governments and law enforcement agencies in North America and Europe to help save the region's heritage, said Dlshad Marf Zamua, a Kurdish archaeologist and doctoral student at Leiden University in the Netherlands.
He criticized antiquity dealers who are benefiting financially from ISIS' looting and destruction, calling on authorities in North America and Europe to prevent those dealers from selling northern Iraq's heritage. "It was said that war was created for selling weapons, but in the situation of our area, the war was created for selling weapons, oil and antiquity objects," Marf Zamua said.
Before ISIS moved into Iraq in the summer of 2014, scientists with 45 foreign missions from 16 countries were conducting archaeological excavations and surveys in the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, said Marf Zamua.
Over the past few months, Kurdish forces have gone on the offensive and, with support from allied air strikes, are pushing ISIS out of the region. And archaeologists are returning to the area, including at Shanidar Cave. This cave was originally excavated between 1952 and 1960 by a team led by archaeologist Ralph Solecki from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The archaeologists at that time found several Neanderthal skeletons and pollen remains suggesting that the Neanderthals placed flowers in graves before burial.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Credit: Photo courtesy of Graeme Barker
I wish they would have given ME the heads up
they were coming back! I mean, the place was a mess!
Rocks, mammoth bones, cutting tools, everywhere.
"Please excuse my grandson, Throg, as he not speak for the old ones"
ISIS have created a new soup recipe:
1/2 lb bat wings.
1 cup chopped cave fungi
1 TBS camel dung
1 quart camel piss
3 TBS dried sand flies for garnish
I consider the Neanderthals to be more developed than Isis and followers of Islam.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Neanderthal
I wasn’t aware until just now as to how diverse their habitat was. I knew they lived on the EurAsian land mass but this is a new locale for me.
The races from sub-Saharan Africa (Negroid, Pygmies and Khoi-san) don't
I love Neanderthals. :)
Good point, FRiend!
Besides the Geico Caveman commercials, my favourite caveman comedy skit:
The Origins of Teenagers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ytgDuV0qOBI
As for as is known *now* (since there isn't that much Neandertal DNA with which to compare it), sub-Saharan Africans of the present day don't have any; eastern Asians have about 1/3 more than Europeans.
Neanderthals didn’t exist.
Scientists discovered significant differences in the DNA of people in Europe that was not found in Africans. They were afraid of what that might mean for political correctness. So, they created an elaborate story about how Europeans originally came from Africa and inter-bred with an “inferior human species” that was already there. That way, not only were the genetic differences explained, they could not be used as an argument for why the Europeans were more successful.
In that part of the world, how can they tell which ones are the neanderthals?
Hey, I know that guy! Is he a Neanderthal? He never mentioned it!
The Neandertal Enigma"Frayer'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
in local libraries
:’)
‘They’ didn’t exist, and still don’t. Neandertal did.
A recreation of a Neanderthal. Wikimedia Commons
DNA from a man who lived 40,000 years ago in Romania reveals that up to 11 percent of his genome came from Neanderthals.
Because large segments of the individual's chromosomes are of Neanderthal origin, a Neanderthal was among the man's ancestors as recently as four generations back in his family tree, reports a study published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
The finding reveals that some of the first members of our species who came to Europe interbred with the local Neanderthals. [Ancient Human With 10 Percent Neanderthal Genes Found | Jennifer Viegas | June 22, 2015]
I thought Siberians, much of the middle east and Asians were mixed with a neanderthal like species called Denisovan.
I always suspected my husband had Neanderthal DNA once I heard about the “ginger gene” and the fact that 40% of Scots and other northern British had it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had more than 4%. He had red hair, clear light blue eyes, hairy body including one shoulder, heavy brow, crystalline hard teeth, extreme mesomorph physique, short legs, long torso, man’s growth at age 13, very strong for size (at 5’11” and 200 lbs was sparring partner for an Olympic heavyweight wrestling contender), warrior temperament, heavy skull. One time he caught a guy sneaking out of a neighbors house. He stopped the guy who picked up a cinder block and broke it over my husbands head. Husband said, “Now you’re going to get it.” The guy ran away, very fast.
I don’t know if I can find any of his DNA. Would his 2 sons have half if I have none, or would it depend on which specific chromosomes they received and the number of genes on each chromosome? Of course, perhaps I have some too. I have very large teeth, and two lateral upper incisors have an indentation which I saw somewhere Neanderthals have. Also I am very strong for my size.
For those who have not read the Clan of the Cave Bear series of books, the author used findings of the Shanidar cave as part of her plot line where a troop of Neanderthals adopt a little hss girl, and live there until the roof collapses killing some.
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