Free Republic

A new study reveals a long-isolated North African human lineage in the Central Sahara during the African humid period more than 7,000 years ago To the point DNA analysis from two naturally mummified individuals from Libya: More than 7,000 years ago, during the so-called African Humid Period (Green Sahara), a long isolated human lineage existed in North Africa. Limited gene flow: The genomes do not carry sub-Saharan African ancestry, suggesting that, contrary to previous interpretations, the Green Sahara was not a migration corridor between Northern and Sub-Saharan Africa. The spread of migratory herding in the Green Sahara probably occurred through...

Researchers analyzed the ancient DNA of two mummies from what is now Libya to learn about people who lived in the "Green Sahara" 7,000 years ago. Naturally mummified human remains found in the Takarkori rock shelter in the Sahara desert point to a previously unknown human population. (Image credit: © Archaeological Mission in the Sahara, Sapienza University of Rome) Two 7,000-year-old mummies belong to a previously unknown human lineage that remained isolated in North Africa for thousands of years, a new study finds. The mummies are the remains of women who once lived in the "Green Sahara," also known as...

New research reveals that our extinct Neanderthal relatives were surprisingly savvy navigators who used river valleys to zip across continents in record time. Computer simulations show they could cross from western Russia to Siberia in as little as 1,600 years, a prehistoric speed record that shows the efficiency of their migration skills.A new study published in PLOS One reveals that Neanderthals could have traveled from the Caucasus Mountains to the Altai Mountains of Siberia in the blink of an eye in prehistoric terms. Using sophisticated computer simulations that model ancient migration patterns, researchers from New York University discovered that these...

When archaeologists were sifting through layers of sediment from the San Lázaro rock shelter in Segovia, Spain, they noticed an unusual looking stone that seemed to contain a small red dot in the middle. BBC News reports that deeper analysis of the object revealed that the strange mark was actually a Neanderthal fingerprint, the oldest known human fingerprint in existence. The researchers suggest that the small rock's three natural indentations resemble the two eyes and mouth of a human face. The dot seems to have been added to the stone's surface with red ocher to create the missing nose. Multispectral...

Neanderthals seem to have produced a remarkably consistent set of stone tools for hundreds of thousands of years. Two new studies suggest that this presumed lack of diversity and innovation might not be the whole story.Karen Ruebens, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, analyzed more than 1,300 stone tools from European Neanderthal sites dated to between 115,000 and 35,000 years ago. She found that they belong to at least two distinct tool-making traditions. West of the Rhine River, Neanderthal hand axes are oval or roughly triangular, while to the east, they are rounded on one edge and flat on...

Cutting-edge technology has been used to redate the world-famous Schöningen spears that were discovered in the mid-1990s, according to a statement released by the University of York. At the time, experts estimated that 10 wooden weapons were around 400,000 or 300,000 years old, making them among the oldest hunting weapons ever found. However, scientists recently used a dating method known as amino acid geochronology, which analyzes amino acids locked in snail shells buried in sediment layers, to determine that the spears were around 100,000 years younger. This likely means that the weapons were created and wielded by Neanderthals and not...

Earth's Northern Lights typically dance near the poles, but 41,000 years ago, they lit up skies over North Africa and Australia. New research reveals how dramatically Earth's magnetic field weakened and shifted during an event called the Laschamps geomagnetic excursion, potentially influencing human evolution at a pivotal moment in our history...During the Laschamps excursion, Earth's magnetic field weakened to just 10% of its current strength, while the magnetic poles shifted dramatically away from the geographic poles...Using advanced computer modeling, the research team reconstructed Earth's magnetosphere during five key periods of the excursion. At its peak around 40,977 years ago, Earth's...

...Dubbed the "Lapedo Child" after its discovery in the Lapedo Valley in central Portugal in 1998, the skeleton of the child, who was likely no more than five years old at the time of death, has fascinated scientists due to its combination of features from these two distinct human lineages...When scientists first studied the skeleton of the Lapedo Child, they noted the unusual combination of physical characteristics that seemed to indicate the child could be the offspring of one Neanderthal parent and one anatomically modern human parent.According to the researchers who performed the initial analysis, the temporal bone, mandible, teeth,...

Some 100,000 years ago, a group of hominins shared hunting strategies, tool manufacturing tips and how to honor the dead, performing complex and highly symbolic rituals, according to a recent analysis of rare findings from Israel’s Tinshemet Cave. Located in central Israel, near Shoham, the Tinshemet Cave was active for millennia during the period known as Middle Paleolithic, 130,000 to 80,000 years ago. The findings include the first complete prehistoric human skeletons uncovered in Israel since the 1960s, which researchers say are among the best preserved in the world. “This is one of the most interesting sites for Paleolithic research...

Circular mammoth bone structures have been recovered across western Russia and the Ukraine. Most have been dated to around ~26,000–14,000 cal BP (calibrated years before present) and are usually found along the Desna/Dnpr river systems."The circular mammoth bone structures are from the height of the last Ice Age, a period of intense cold, and are widely considered to have been dwellings for shelter during long, full glacial winter seasons or possibly year-round," explains Dr. Lorenzen, one of the study's researchers...However, precisely what they looked like is yet unknown...Previous radiocarbon dates indicate the site was likely built around 24,000–25,000 ya. Making...

Early humans of Homo juluensis had a large head shape, with measurements notably larger than those of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. Scientists have announced the discovery of a new human species, Homo juluensis, following extensive research published in Nature Communications. Professor Christopher J. Bae from the University of Hawaii and Xiujie Wu from the Chinese Academy of Sciences led the study, which sheds light on the diversity of ancient human populations in East Asia.

A replica of an approximately 50,000-year-old Neanderthal cranium from La Ferrassie, France, compared to a recent Homo Sapiens cranium. Credit: Trustees of the Natural History Museum A study suggests that by the time H. sapiens expanded, the differentiation between the two species had progressed to the extent that they were distinct and recognizable as separate species. A recent study conducted by researchers from London’s Natural History Museum and the Institute of Philosophy at KU Leuven has strengthened the argument that Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens) should be classified as distinct species to more accurately trace our evolutionary history. Different...

Archaeologists in the Iberian Peninsula have discovered a 65,000-year-old tar-making "factory" engineered by Neanderthals — a feat pulled off 20,000 years before modern humans (Homo sapiens) set foot in the region, a new study finds. The sticky tar helped Neanderthals produce glue to make weapons and tools. The so-called factory — a carefully designed hearth — enabled the Neanderthals to precisely control the fire and manage the temperature of the flame that produced their gooey creations.... ...the newfound hearth, seemingly dug into the floor of a cave in what is now Gibraltar, shows that Neanderthals were skilled engineers who had...

A collection of 15 marine fossils has been found in northern Spain’s Prado Vargas Cave, which was occupied by Neanderthals, according to an IFL Science report. The deposit has been dated to between 39,800 and 54,600 years ago, before modern humans lived in the region, by a team of researchers led by Marta Navazo Ruiz of the University of Burgos. Collecting is understood to reflect abstract thought, indicating the fossils may be evidence of an artistic interest or curiosity about nature among Neanderthals, she explained. The scientists suggest that the fossils may have been gathered by Neanderthal children, just as...

A study published in L'Anthropologie by Professor Ella Been from Ono Academic College and Dr. Omry Barzilai from the University of Haifa sheds new light on the burial practices of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals in the Levant region during the Middle Paleolithic (MP).The research, which examined a total of 17 Neanderthal and 15 Homo sapiens burials from various archaeological sites, revealed both similarities and differences in how these two species treated their dead, including differences in burial location, body posture and specific grave goods.The MP in Western Asia, specifically the Levant, is of particular interest in the study of human...

Discovered in 2015 at the entrance to the Grotte Mandrin rock shelter in the Rhône River valley of southern France, Thorin — nicknamed after a dwarf in J. R. R. Tolkien's "The Hobbit" — has sometimes been called the "last Neanderthal" because he may have lived as recently as 42,000 years ago, close to when our closest human relatives disappeared. Although only his teeth and portions of the skull have been recovered so far, Thorin's genome was analyzed to better understand when and how Neanderthals disappeared.In a study published Wednesday (Sept. 11) in the journal Cell Genomics, a team of...

Treated with hostility in the past and considered witches or vampires in the Middle Ages, redheads in the modern world are thriving and celebrating their unique traits; the Redhead Days Festival marks one of the occasions to embrace the distinctive nature of gingers. Redhead Days Festival; celebrating the unique traits Held annually on the last full weekend of August, this year the Redhead Days Festival will take place on August 23-25 in the city centre of Tilburg, the Netherlands. Growing in size every year, the festival anticipates tens of thousands of redheads from more than 80 countries to unite in...

More than 146,000 years ago, Neanderthals hunted birds and other game during short stays at a Spanish cave called Cova Negra. Anthropologists studying the bones they left behind came across one that stood out: a part of the skull that contains the inner ear bones just a few centimeters long, from a child who lived to about age 6.The bone displays a handful of tiny anomalies most commonly found in people with Down syndrome today. The child likely had this condition and had hearing loss, scientists report today in Science Advances—the oldest known example of the condition. If confirmed, the...

A team of archaeologists in Spain has applied a new dating technique to more precisely determine the intervals between hearth fires from the Paleolithic Age.This research, published in the journal Nature, reveals that the hearths at El Salt, a Paleolithic site, were used over 200 years with intervals of decades between uses. This suggests that Neanderthals returned to this site over multiple generations, challenging previous assumptions about their mobility and settlement patterns...a novel combination of archaeomagnetic and archaeostratigraphic analyses... leverages the magnetic properties of minerals in the fire pits to record the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at the...

The oldest human viruses, including herpes, have been uncovered in 50,000-year-old Neanderthal bones - and experts could soon recreate them. Researchers at Brazil's Federal University of São Paulo identified remnants of the herpesviruses, which causes cold sores, the sexually transmitted papillomavirus and adenovirus, also known as the common cold, in two male Neanderthals' DNA found in a Russian cave. Previous theories suggested that Neanderthals may have gone extinct because of viruses and the latest study may be the first to provide evidence for this idea. Now, the team hopes to synthesize the viruses and infect human cells in a lab...