Free Republic

According to a statement released by the University of Tübingen, an international team of researchers has studied the effects of climate change on hunter-gatherers living in Europe between 47,000 and 7,000 years ago by analyzing their teeth with a machine learning algorithm called Pheno-ABC. "This has allowed us to collect an unprecedented dataset [including some 450 prehistoric humans from all over Europe] that is significantly larger than previous skeletal and genetic datasets," said Hannes Rathmann of the University of Tübingen. The researchers focused on inheritable features of teeth, such as their shape, the ridge and groove patterns on the chewing...

Abu Hureyra is an archaeological site that was occupied for thousands of years, spanning the transition from hunting and gathering to farming and herding. While a large body of research has explored this transition across many archaeological sites, much remains to be determined about the specific timeline, including the full range of early animal management practices that may have preceded large-scale herding.To shed new light, Smith and colleagues turned to ancient animal dung. Specifically, they analyzed the presence of dung spherulites—tiny calcium carbonate clumps found in the dung of animals—at Abu Hureyra, and considered this evidence alongside other archaeological, archaeobotanical,...

Paleolithic Residency Traced in Bushehr Province Parts of mountaneous region of Jam city in bushehr province Iranian archeologists have succeeded in tracing 40,000-year-old evidence of human beings residency in Jam-o Riz city in Bushehr province. Tehran, 25 August 2007 (CHN Foreign Desk) – For the first time, during excavating operations in city of Jam-o Riz in Bushehr province, Iranian archeologists have succeeded in tracing evidence of human beings settlement dating back to Paleolithic epoch to Middle Stone Age (40,000-10,000 years ago) in this region. Prior to this, some excavations were conducted by British archeologists in different parts of Bushehr province....

The latest excavations by an Iranian and French joint team at prehistoric caves of Kermanshah, west of Iran, revealed them to have been early settlements of Neanderthals who used to live there about 85,000 to 40,000 years ago. Current whereabouts any remaining Neanderthals are a matter of speculation. Nevertheless, many are convinced that they are now running the Iranian government.

Neanderthals Lived in Iran's Kermanshah Caves Apr 27, 2006 The latest excavations by Iranian and French joint team at prehistoric caves of Kermanshah, west of Iran, revealed them to have been early settlements of Neanderthals who used to live there about 85000 to 40000 years ago. The joint team was to continue its studies on other Paleolithic caves in Kermanshah province, but as the term of the agreement has reached an end, the French team have returned back home. This team is to resume its activities in March 2006 in prehistoric caves in Kermanshah province if the agreement is renewed...

Human communities in the Levant at this time were known as Natufian. They were primarily hunters and foragers and are considered the first non-nomadic society; the semi-sedentary habits of Natufian culture were likely a precursor to humans settling down and becoming farmers. At the el-Wad Terrace settlement, the site was densely layered with animal remains, of which "a high percentage" belonged to lizards and snakes, the researchers reported in a new study, published online June 10 in the journal Scientific Reports. The quantity of squamate bones at the site was astonishing; that alone hinted at human consumption as a possible...