Posted on 12/07/2011 8:13:47 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Neandertals... constructed a large, ring-shaped enclosure out of 116 mammoth bones and tusks at least 44,000 years ago in West Asia, say archaeologist Laëtitia Demay of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and her colleagues. The bone edifice, which encircles a 40-square-meter area in which mammoths and other animals were butchered, cooked and eaten, served either to keep out cold winds or as a base for a wooden building...
Mammoth-bone huts previously discovered at Homo sapiens sites in West Asia date to between 27,500 and 15,000 years ago. The new discovery comes from Molodova, a Ukrainian site first excavated in the 1950s. There, Neandertals erected a mammoth-bone structure that's unlike later mammoth-bone huts, suggesting that the two Homo species developed these practices independently, says study coauthor Stéphane Péan, also of France's National Museum of Natural History.
Researchers have argued for decades about whether Molodova Neandertals left mammoth bones scattered about or built something out of them...
Demay's team regards Molodova stone tools as typical of Neandertals that lived in Europe and West Asia before modern humans showed up.
Neandertals assembled the circular Molodova structure out of the largest and strongest parts of mammoth skeletons â mainly tusks, shoulders, ribs and hips, the scientists say. Weathering and water damage on the bones indicate that they were placed in a shallow trench.
Remains of at least 15 mammoths, all bearing stone-tool marks but few signs of chewing by nonhuman animals, were uncovered inside the bone enclosure... also... bones of red deer, bison and other animals that contained butchery marks... was cooked in 15 fire pits arrayed throughout the site.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencenews.org ...
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
in local libraries
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GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach | |
Thanks Renfield. |
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We have always been at war with Westasia...
Not....
World’s oldest BBQ place discovered?
Oh, you’d like a tour? Well, this is Rover’s room. He was such a good mammoth. So smart. See, there’s his rib cage. And across the hall is Rover’s grandson’s room. Oh, did he have fun playing catch with his grandpa’s tusk. Yeah, that’s it on the mantel.
Don’t know how to break this to those Frenchie eggheads, but Moldova is in Europe, not “West Asia.”
[snip] The Middle and Upper Paleolithic site of Molodova is located on the Dniester River in the Chernovtsy province of the Ukraine. [/snip]
archaeology.about.com/od/mterms/g/molodova.htm
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