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Aurignacian Lunar Calendar Photo ­- Anonymous / Don’s MapsThe Oldest Lunar Calendars and Earliest Constellations have been identified in cave art found in France and Germany. The astronomer-priests of these late Upper Cultures understood mathematical sets, and the interplay between the moon annual cycle, ecliptic, solstice and seasonal changes on earth. The First (Lunar) Calendar – The archaeological record’s earliest data that speaks to human awareness of the stars and ‘heavens’ dates to the Aurignacian Culture of Europe, c.32,000 B.C. Between 1964 and the early 1990s, Alexander Marshack published breakthrough research that documented the mathematical and astronomical knowledge in the...

PARIS -- Cave drawings thought to be older than those in the famed caves of Lascaux have been discovered in a grotto in western France, officials from the Charente region said Sunday. A first analysis by officials from the office of cultural affairs suggests the drawings were made some 25,000 years ago, Henri de Marcellus, mayor of the town of Vilhonneur where the cave is located, told France-Info radio. He said, however, that the date could only be confirmed by further investigations. Cavers exploring a part of a grotto in the Vilhonneur forest made the discovery in December, the local...

Baby's first word filled Stone Age Papa with pride By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent (Filed: 22/07/2004) One of the first words to be uttered by Stone Age babies was probably "papa", according to scientists trying to piece together the origins of human language. Researchers believe the word may have been passed down through the generations from a "proto-language" spoken 50,000 years ago. However, other linguists have argued that "papa", "dada" and "mama" are common in many languages simply because they are the first noises made by babbling babies. A new French study has found that the word "papa" is used...

Scientists believe they have made a fascinating discovery which reveals some hidden detail about the diet of Neanderthals around 70,000 years ago. They have unearthed remains of what is believed to be the world's oldest flatbread made by Neanderthals in the foothills of Iraq. The charred remnants were recovered from the Shanidar Cave site - a Neanderthal dwelling around 500 miles north of Baghdad. The archaeologists said the findings, published in the journal Antiquity, show for the first time that bread was part of the diet among these hominid species....

In evolutionary terms, the human population has rocketed in seconds. The news that it has now reached 8 billion seems inexplicable when you think about our history.For 99% of the last million years of our existence, people rarely came across other humans. There were only around 10,000 Neanderthals living at any one time. Today, there are around 800,000 people in the same space that was occupied by one Neanderthal. What's more, since humans live in social groups, the next nearest Neanderthal group was probably well over 100km away. Finding a mate outside your own family was a challenge.Neanderthals were more...

...He and his colleagues managed to extract DNA from 15 out of 17 pieces of bone or teeth recovered from the Chagyrskaya cave in the Altai mountains in Siberia, Russia. The DNA showed that some pieces came from the same individuals, so the findings represent 11 individuals in total, including several teenagers and children.Dating of sediments and bison bones at the site suggests the Neanderthals lived in the cave between 51,000 and 59,000 years ago, while the DNA shows that many of the individuals were related...Peter thinks it is possible that these individuals all died around the same time, but...

Gibraltar finally joined the official list of British cities on Monday (Aug 29), after 180 years in which its status, granted by Queen Victoria, had been overlooked due to an administrative error. The British overseas territory bid to become a city earlier this year as part of the celebrations for Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, but research in the National Archives established it had in fact been granted city status in 1842. "It is excellent to see official recognition given to the City of Gibraltar, a huge accolade to its rich history and dynamism," British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in...

For this study, the researchers collected data on craniofacial morphology from the published literature. This ultimately resulted in a data set including 13 Neandertals, 233 prehistoric Homo sapiens, and 83 modern humans.The researchers focused on standard craniofacial measurements, which are reproducible, and used those measurements to assess the size and shape of key facial structures. This then allowed the researchers to do an in-depth analysis to determine whether a given human population was likely to have interbred with Neandertal populations, as well as the extent of that likely interbreeding.

...Before high-throughput sequencing became commonplace, the aDNA field relied on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) techniques to sequence a few specific DNA fragments. Researchers could only extract a very limited amount of DNA information with this technology and had trouble distinguishing genuine aDNA from contaminant DNA.To complement advances in sequencing, aDNA researchers have also developed improved methods of DNA library construction to better reflect the characteristics of aDNA. Among these methods, partial uracil-DNA glycosylase (UDG) treatments and single-stranded DNA library construction are two of the most important...The application of aDNA technology goes far beyond the ancient human genome, of course. Paleomolecular...

For months, Germany has feared having to ration energy amid Russia’s increasing willingness to turn off the tap. Now those fears are becoming a reality as Germany prepares for a return to 1970s-style energy rationing, when the OPEC oil embargo forced governments to mandate measures like dimmer lights and car-free Sundays. Only, the energy crisis of 2022 isn’t limited to oil. Last year, Germany relied on Russia for 55% of its natural gas imports. Germany has since been able to reduce that number to 35%, but with Russia seemingly prepared to further cut gas shipments to Europe, German officials are...

Using the latest scientific methods, Tom Higham and Katerina Douka from the University of Vienna want to solve a great mystery of human evolution: Why are we the only humans left? Higham and Douka were the first ones to find a first-generation offspring of two different types of human. They continuously publish new results in high impact journals, most recently in Science Advances.Our ancient cousins are more present in modern human DNA than we thought: Modern humans possess a small proportion of genes from archaic groups like Neanderthals. Every person having a European or Asian background has an average of...

Cueva de Ardales is a hugely important Paleolithic site in Malaga, Spain, owing to its rich inventory of rock art. According to new research, Neanderthals entered this cave in the Middle Paleolithic, over 65,000 years ago and left traces of symbolic practices on the cave walls; thereafter the cave was repeatedly visited by Homo sapiens all the way to the Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic period.Cueva de Ardales is the most outstanding cave with Paleolithic rock art in southern Iberia.The cave is located near the village of Ardales, in a mountain know as Cerro de la Calinoria, at 565 m above sea level...

Deep in the forests of Laos, in a cave in the Annamite Mountains, lay a single child's tooth. That tooth – an unassuming molar - could be from a mysterious species of human we know little about, and of which few remains are known to exist. "Analyses of the internal structure of the molar in tandem with palaeoproteomic analyses of the enamel indicate that the tooth derives from a young, likely female, Homo individual," researchers write in a new study. The tooth, from the Tam Ngu Hao 2 cave, "most likely represents a Denisovan", the researchers say. Denisovans are an...

Bacho Kiro Cave. (Nikolay Doychinov/AFP via Getty Images) Last year, a genetic analysis of bone fragments representing our earliest known presence in Europe raised a few questions over the steps modern humans took to conquer every corner of the modern world. Whoever the remains belonged to, their family background was more entwined with the East Asian populations of their day than with today's Europeans, hinting at a far more convoluted migration for our species than previously thought. Now, researchers from the Universities of Padova and Bologna in Italy have proposed what they think might be the simplest explanation for the...

We’re all human: Scientists create world’s biggest family tree linking 27 million people OXFORD, United Kingdom — The world’s biggest family tree linking around 27 million people has been created by scientists. The genetic model combines thousands of modern and prehistoric genomes, providing new insight into key events in human history. The breakthrough is a major step towards mapping the entirety of human relationships, with a single lineage that traces the ancestry of all people on Earth. The family tree also has widespread implications for medical research, identifying genetic predictors of disease. “We have basically built a huge family tree,...

The discovery by researchers led from the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès was made in the 'Grotte Mandrin', 1.5 miles south of Malataverne, in the Rhône Valley.Previously, the oldest proven examples of modern human settlements in Europe were dated back to 45,000–43,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier.Furthermore, the Mandrin cave also provides the first clear example of a site that was alternately occupied by Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Footprints on the Ciampate del Diavolo. (edmondo gnerre/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY 2.0) ============================================================================================= According to legend, the devil once took a walk down the side of a volcano in southern Italy, each step preserved forever in solid rock. The tracks are known as the "Ciampate del Diavolo"' or "Devil's Trail" – but details published in 2020 reveal a less diabolical yet far more interesting story on how they came to be. The mysterious footprints are well known to those living near Roccamonfina, an extinct volcano in southern Italy that hasn't erupted in tens of thousands of years. Since 2001, researchers have...

Another sort of human once lived in the Altai Mountains as well... the Neanderthals. In a study titled “Neanderthals and the cult of the Sun Bird,” published this month in Quaternary Science Reviews, a team of anthropologists reveals that Neanderthals trapped and hunted golden eagles at least 130,000 years ago. Arguably, this means that Neanderthals were the first humans to practice catching these eagles with seven-foot wingspans, a behavior that the researchers think modern humans later learned from Neanderthals.After combing through previous research on sites where Neanderthals lived, the four-person team — three of which are a family of scientists...

A 125,000-year-old site in Germany known as Neumark-Nord reveals the earliest evidence of one of our hominin relatives, Neanderthals, leaving a lasting mark on their landscape. Located about 22 miles east of Leipzig, Neumark-Nord was dotted with small lakes during an era 130,000 to 115,000 years ago when glaciers had retreated from Europe. Archaeological evidence suggests Neanderthals, who hunted and gathered, moved into the area to capitalize on the milder climate during that time, and altered their landscape through increased use. These hominins hunted and butchered animals, produced tools, collected firewood and built campfires in the Neumark-Nord region for about...

According to a statement released by the University of Kent, Neanderthal infants may have developed faster than modern human babies, based upon the study of a 120,000-year-old Neanderthal milk tooth discovered in what is now Croatia by an international team of researchers led by Patrick Mahoney of the University of Kent. The enamel that covers baby teeth has lines demarcating enamel produced before and after birth, and the space between the lines indicates how much enamel was grown in a single day, according to prior research. Analysis of the lines in this tooth indicates that the tooth erupted from the...