Free Republic

Extinct humans left louse legacy By Paul Rincon BBC News Online science staff The evolutionary history of head lice is tied very closely to that of their hosts Some head lice infesting people today were probably spread to us thousands of years ago by an extinct species of early human, a genetics study reveals. It shows that when our ancestors left Africa after 100,000 years ago, they made direct contact with tribes of "archaic" peoples, probably in Asia. Lice could have jumped from them on to our ancestors during fights, sex, clothes-sharing or even cannibalism. Details of the research appear...

Mata Menge, however, produced a small number of stone tools, including some made of nonlocal chert, as well as remains of large stegodon, crocodile, giant rat, freshwater molluscs, and plants... Morwood dated the sites using a technique that analyzes individual zircon crystals from volcanic deposits. A sample from Tangi Talo, taken near a pygmy stegodon tusk and giant tortoise shell fragments, yielded a date of about 900,000 years ago. At Mata Menge, a sample from just beneath the artifact-bearing level dated to about 880,000 years ago, while another, taken above in situ artifacts, gave a date of about 800,000... Tools...

While the author of this webpage does not believe that Homo Erectus is responsible for the surface lithics found in the Calico Mountains of California, he does believe the presence of these lithics is quite important in establishing the fact that man was on this continent eons before those of the Clovis school are willing to admit. Once the door is thrown open to an earlier arrival date for man on this continent, then serious study will hopefully begin on the many early man sites to be found in both North and South America, but currently ignored because of their...

Years of research in eastern Asia and Alaska have produced little evidence of any historical or technological connection between the Asian Paleolithic (Stone Age) and Clovis peoples. Also, the southeastern United States has produced more Clovis sites than the West, and a few radiocarbon dates suggest some of them may predate those in the western states. If correct, that hardly fits the notion that Clovis technology originated in northeast Asia or Alaska. Over the years, various scholars have noted similarities between Clovis projectile points and "Solutrean" points, the product of a Paleolithic culture on the north coast of Spain between...

New twist on out-of-Africa theory Judy Skatssoon ABC Science Online Wednesday, 14 July 2004 Homo erectus, the species thought to be the first to leave Africa for Eurasia in the out-of-Africa model of human origin (Image: Science) Early humans made love, not war, according to new DNA analysis presented at a genetics conference that gives a new twist on the out-of-Africa hypothesis of human origins. U.S. researcher Professor Alan Templeton of Washington University, St Louis, debunks the prevailing version of the out-of-Africa hypothesis, which says early humans migrated from Africa and wiped out Eurasian populations. Instead, they bred, he told...

Immigrants from the Other Side? According to the Clovis-First theory, for decades the gospel preached by authorities on the peopling of the Americas, the first Americans walked across the Bering Land Bridge from Asia about 12,000 years ago, and after finding a corridor through the Cordilleran Ice Sheet--admittedly it wasn't an easy trip and the timing was tricky--descended into temperate North America. We know them by their classic fluted points, unlike any others in the world, they left at campsites on their journey south to populate Central and South America. [~ 45:l ~] There have been variations of the basic...

Erectus AhoyPrehistoric seafaring floats into view Bruce Bower As the sun edged above the horizon on Jan. 31, 2000, a dozen men boarded a bamboo raft off the east coast of the Indonesian island of Bali. Each gripped a wooden paddle and, in unison, deftly stroked the nearly 40-foot-long craft into the open sea. Their destination: the Stone Age, by way of a roughly 18-mile crossing to the neighboring island of Lombok. Project director Robert G. Bednarik, one of the assembled paddlers, knew that a challenging trip lay ahead, even discounting any time travel. Local fishing crews had told him...

A routine construction dig has turned up a fossil skull that is giving scientists a better glimpse inside the head of our ancient predecessor, Homo erectus. According to a report published today in the journal Science, the find suggests that the H. erectus population that occupied the island of Java was isolated from other Asian populations and probably made only minimal genetic contributions to the ancestry of modern humans. So far, more than 20 hominid skull fossils have been found at sites in Java. The latest, dubbed Sm 4 (see image), was recovered from the bed of the Solo River...

Contact: Joel Schwarz joels@u.washington.edu 206-543-2580 University of Washington Evidence acquits Clovis people of ancient killings, archaeologists say Archaeologists have uncovered another piece of evidence that seems to exonerate some of the earliest humans in North America of charges of exterminating 35 genera of Pleistocene epoch mammals. The Clovis people, who roamed large portions of North America 10,800 to 11,500 years ago and left behind highly distinctive and deadly fluted spear points, have been implicated in the exterminations by some scientists. Now researchers from the University of Washington and Southern Methodist University who examined evidence from all suggested Clovis-age killing sites...

American Indians Wary of DNA Tests BY TIM SULLIVAN THE SALT LAKE TRIBUNE Ever since the arrival of white colonists, American Indians have been tapped for their resources -- most recently their genes. And with an eye toward past abuses, some of them are growing wary of geneticists and anthropologists taking their blood, hair or ancestors' bones for research purposes. In Utah, tribes don't have as much experience with these exchanges as in other parts of the Americas, but officials with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes and the Northwest Band of the Shoshone feel they should be prepared. On...

On the Ecological Connection Between Sabre-tooths and Hominids: Faunal Dispersal Events in the Lower Pleistocene and a Review of the Evidence for the First Human Arrival in Europe  Alfonso ArribasMuseo Geominero, Instituto Tecnológico Geominero de España. Ríos Rosas, 23. 28003 Madrid, Spain.Paul PalmqvistDepartamento de Geología y Ecología (Área de Paleontología), Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Málaga. 29071 Málaga, Spain. A reconstruction of a community of the large mammals of the Grecian Pleistocene .African Species in the Lower Pleistocene of Europe …The sabre-tooth genus Megantereon shares much in common with Smilodon, and both genera form the tribe Smilodontini. The earliest...

The First Americans May Have Come by Water by E. James Dixon If the foragers who created Clovis culture walked into North America, they had to pass through the long-described “ice-free corridor.” But a growing body of evidence indicates that pathway between the great glaciers of the last Ice Age was closed — in fact, the way south may have been blocked until centuries after the dawn of Clovis. If the first Americans could not walk into the New World, how did they get there? Coastal or ocean routes navigated by watercraft are the most likely explanation. No reliably dated ...

<p>Scientists say DNA evidence points to central Siberia while Native Americans say mythology and beliefs are more important.</p> <p>The theory has been around for years. The proof, however, that today's Native American ancestors came here via the Bering Strait and Alaska has been slow to follow.</p> <p>It's now here.</p>

DISCOVER Vol. 23 No. 5 (May 2002)Table of Contents The Amazon Trail Anna Roosevelt's ventures into the jungles of South America have turned up traces of human settlements far older than archaeologists ever suspected By John Dorfman Photography by Jennifer Tzar Archaeologists visiting remote sites in Brazil must rely on the skills of local pilots to locate—and land on—small airstrips in the rain forest. "The pilots here are very good," says Roosevelt, a veteran Amazon explorer, because the mining industry depends on them. "When I have a goal," says Anna Curtenius Roosevelt, her voice emphasizing the word, "everything else is...

Images: Pamela Patrick MAMMOTH HUNTER OR FISH CATCHER? Archaeologists had concluded that the first inhabitants of the New World were fur-clad big-game hunters who swept across the Bering land bridge in pursuit of their prey. But recent evidence suggests that the first settlers may have been just as likely to hunt small game, catch fish or gather plants as they moved through more temperate environments. The leaf-shaped spearpoint I'm holding is surprisingly dainty--for a deadly weapon. I let my mind wander, trying to imagine life some 14,700 years ago in the marshes of southern Chile, where this relic was ...

Study sheds light on early migrationSkulls raise questions on first Americans By MIKE TONER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 12/13/05 A 10-year study of ancient human skulls from Brazil provides new evidence that two distinct populations of prehistoric people settled the Americas more than 12,000 years ago — a finding that raises new questions about the identity and origins of the first Americans. Brazilian researchers say physical features of the skulls excavated from several limestone caves near Lagoa Santa in central Brazil differ sharply from the ancestors of today's Native Americans, who are thought to have migrated from Siberia to...

First Americans Arrived Recently, Settled Pacific Coast, DNA Study Says Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic News February 2, 2007 A study of the oldest known sample of human DNA in the Americas suggests that humans arrived in the New World relatively recently, around 15,000 years ago. The DNA was extracted from a 10,300-year-old tooth found in a cave on Prince of Wales Island off southern Alaska in 1996. The sample represents a previously unknown lineage for the people who first arrived in the Americas. The findings, published last week in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, shed light on how...

Americas Settled 15,000 Years Ago, Study Says Stefan Lovgren for National Geographic NewsMarch 13, 2008 A consensus is emerging in the highly contentious debate over the colonization of the Americas, according to a study that says the bulk of the region wasn't settled until as late as 15,000 years ago. Researchers analyzed both archaeological and genetic evidence from several dozen sites throughout the Americas and eastern Asia for the paper. "In the past archaeologists haven't paid too much attention to molecular genetic evidence," said lead author Ted Goebel, an archaeologist at Texas A&M University in College Station. "We have brought...

American Neanderthal? Unearthed Native American Could Help Solve Mystery W A S H I N G T O N, Feb. 18 —The baffling 9,300-year-old Kennewick Man, whose skeleton was unearthed in 1996 in Washington state, looks so “European” because he had Neanderthal roots, a scientist said today. The National Park Service said earlier this month it would allow a genetic analysis of the skeleton, which some Native American groups claim as an ancestor and want buried. It has intrigued researchers because the features seem to suggest a more Caucasian than Asian origin. Others say he looks like an Ainu — ...

Ancient tools at High Desert site go back 135,000 years Chuck Mueller, Staff Writer BARSTOW - In the multicolored hills overlooking the Mojave River Valley, the excavation of stone tools and flakes reveals human activities from the distant past. A new system of geologic dating has confirmed that an alluvial deposit bearing the stone tools and flakes at the Calico archaeological site is about 135,000 years old. But the site could even be older. Calico project director Fred Budinger Jr. said a soil sample, taken at a depth of 17 1/2 feet in one of three master pits at the...