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Did Early Man Have a Soul?April 8, 2009 — Some recent discoveries are surprising paleoanthropologists by how much some early ancestors seem – well, human.  We’re talking about ancestors half a million years old in the evolutionary scheme.  They were supposed to be prior to Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals, but they seem to exhibit intelligence and compassion. A report on New Scientist inferred that these early humans cared for the disabled.  The skull of a child found in Spain suggests it was mentally retarded.  To be able to live to age 12 indicates its parents or the social group...

...In 1991, researchers first revealed that the fossilized bones of Neanderthals had high ratios of nitrogen 15 compared with nitrogen 14 -- usually the signature of a high-meat diet... bigger meat eaters than even hypercarnivorous hyenas and lions. Butchered animal bones at archaeological sites reinforced the view that our close relatives relied heavily on meat from big game hunting....archaeologist John Speth of the University of Michigan... described accounts by missionaries and Arctic explorers of people who fell sick with "rabbit starvation" -- an illness that afflicts those who eat mainly lean, high-protein game meat and too little fat...Speth's paper offered...

Who killed Tagliente Man, a Cro-Magnon who lived in Italy 17,000 years ago? New analysis reveals evidence of violent intragroup conflict and targeted violence. Using archaeology and skeletal analysis, the video pieces together a story of prehistoric humans. Scientists JUST Unearthed a 17,000-Year-Old CRO-MAGNON Mystery | 18:00Mysterious Origins | 51.3K subscribers | 1,163 views | July 22, 2025 | Premiered 6 hours ago

What if Human Civilisation rose before, in Ancient pre-history? Is it possible? The evidence would suggest yes...The previous interglacial warming period, known as the 'Eemian' period, was 130 to 115,000 years ago. This period was longer than the current warm period, known as the Holocene, has been so far. Considering modern humans had already been around for at least 175,000 years by the start of the 'Eemian', why couldn't civilisation have flourished then as it has now? The conditions were optimal, it lasted more than enough time, we'd been around for 100s of 1000s of years already and according to...

Earth's famous Hubble Telescope has just revealed the first images of a mysterious interstellar object racing through our solar system. Spotted on Monday, Hubble has helped astronomers confirm that the massive, high-speed visitor is a comet from a distant part of the Milky Way galaxy. First spotted in late June, the comet named 3I/ATLAS has been on an 800-million-year journey to reach this solar system. The new images from Hubble captured what appears to be an icy tail that's ejecting rocky material from its 12-mile-long core. Those observations were reinforced by a new study published Tuesday morning which revealed 3I/ATLAS...

The Pleistocene-Holocene transition is a very significant period of time, because it marks what I believe is the true foundartions for the origins of civilisation, when we see the first permanent settlements in the Fertile Crescent followed by the onset of agriculture, and from then on humanity has developed exponentially.From an archaeological point of view, it’s truly a fascinating time period, with so many incredible sites discovered in the past century, from Ancient Jericho in the West Bank, to Mureybet and Tell Qaramel in Syria, and Kortik Tepe, Gobekli Tepe and Karahan Tepe in Turkey.The foundations of these sites were...

Evidence continues to mount that Neanderthals were a much more intelligent species than scientists originally suspected. Popular Science reports that archaeologists uncovered a remarkable, multifunctional tool from Belgium's Scladina Cave. The utensil was fashioned from the tibia of an extinct cave lion 130,000 years ago and had four different functional components. Researchers believe that it may have originally been created for use in tasks such as chiseling, but as some of the points wore down, they were reshaped and repurposed for other jobs, such as sharpening and retouching flints. According to the report, the team stated that "the intentional transformation...

Palaeontologists excavating a dump outside Barcelona have found a skull dating back 14m years that could belong to a common ancestor of apes and humans. The nearly intact skull, which has a flat face, jaw and teeth, may belong to a previously unknown species of great ape, said Salvador Moya, the chief palaeontologist on the dig. "We could find a cradle of humanity in the Mediterranean," he said. A routine land survey for a planned expansion of the Can Mata dump in Els Hostalets de Pierola turned up the first surprise in 2002: a primate's tooth. Since then, scientists from...

Archaeologists working at the Magna Roman Fort in northern England have made a series of huge discoveries, in the very literal sense. Recent excavations at the ancient Roman fortification have unearthed several examples of gigantic shoes, with one representing what could be among the largest examples of historic footwear ever found. The unusual discoveries are offering researchers fresh new insights into the diversity of the people who worked along Hadrian’s Wall close to 2,000 years ago. A Gigantic Discovery The discoveries are among the latest that have made their way into the Vindolanda Charitable Trust’s remarkable collection, with similar examples...

Ancient humans were building large wooden structures -- possibly houses -- almost half a million years ago. The discovery, the earliest evidence of wooden construction, suggests that some ancient communities were far less nomadic than we have assumed...One of the first artefacts they found was a wooden tool, probably a digging stick. "The number of sites where wood is preserved is small," says researcher Geoff Duller at Aberystwyth University, UK......a 1.4-metre-long log overlying an even larger log that was too big to fully excavate during their month-long project. They saw that the overlying log had been worked with tools to...

According to a statement released by The Australian National University (ANU), researchers have identified the earliest known evidence of rice in the Pacific Islands. Rice was originally domesticated in central China 9,000 years ago, but it took thousands of years for it to reach the Marianas Island in western Micronesia. Phytolith analysis of microscopic plant debris found on pottery from the Ritidian Beach Cave in northern Guam indicated that rice arrived there at least 3,500 years ago. Previously, the earliest known evidence of rice in the remote Pacific dated to between 1,000 and 700 years ago, so this discovery pushes...

The southern coast of the French region of Brittany is home to one of Europe's highest concentrations of mysterious megalithic standing stones. More than 10,000 are strewn around a six-mile stretch in the Carnac region, from La Trinité-sur-Mer to Erdeven. Unlike other megalithic monuments, such as Stonehenge, these do not typically form a circle, but are linear or curvilinear in nature. In the past, it has been difficult for archaeologists to accurately ascertain their age. According to a statement released by the University of Gothenburg, new research suggests that that not only are they even older than expected, but they...

The world's oldest boomerang is older than previously thought, casting new light on the ingenuity of humans living at the time.The tool, which was found in a cave in Poland in 1985, is now thought to be 40,000 years old.Archaeologists say it was fashioned from a mammoth's tusk with an astonishing level of skill.Researchers worked out from its shape that it would have flown when thrown, but would not have come back to the thrower.It was probably used in hunting, though it might have had cultural or artistic value, perhaps being used in some kind of ritual....new, more reliable radiocarbon...

Fossils from China's Turpan-Hami Basin reveal it was a rare land refuge during the end-Permian extinction, with fast ecosystem recovery driven by stable climate conditions.A new study has found that a region in China's Turpan-Hami Basin acted as a refugium, or "life oasis", for terrestrial plants during the end-Permian mass extinction, the most severe biodiversity crisis since the Cambrian period.Published in Science Advances, the research challenges the common belief that land-based ecosystems were as heavily impacted as marine environments during this extinction event.The team's findings suggest that some land areas were shielded from the worst effects of the extinction, creating...

Scientists discovered a 480-million-year-old phosphatic sponge in South China, making it the oldest known stromatoporoid and extending its fossil record by 20 million years.International scientists have discovered the oldest known phosphatic stromatoporoid sponge in South China, dating back approximately 480 million years to the Early Ordovician period.Stromatoporoid sponges were major reef builders during the Paleozoic era, playing a foundational role in forming reef structures—much like modern corals do today. Their significance peaked from the late Middle Ordovician to the Devonian period, a time when reef ecosystems transitioned from being dominated by microbial communities to those built primarily by skeletal organisms.Until...

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have analyzed the soft tissue of a fossilized plesiosaur for the first time, revealing that the long-necked marine reptile had both smooth and scaly skin. This combination likely helped it swim efficiently while also allowing movement along rough seabeds.Plesiosaurs inhabited the world's oceans throughout much of the Mesozoic Era (203–66 million years ago). These reptiles, which could grow up to 12 meters long, fed primarily on fish and propelled themselves using four paddle-like flippers, similar to sea turtles. Until now, little has been known about their external anatomy...However, in a new study published in...

Six images of galaxies taken from nearly 800,000, from upper left to lower right: the present-day universe, and 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10 billion years ago. Credit: M. Franco / C. Casey / COSMOS-Web collaboration ************************************************************ A new cosmic deep field map from the COSMOS collaboration, powered by the James Webb Space Telescope, is rewriting what scientists thought they knew about the early universe. Spanning nearly the full history of cosmic time and featuring nearly 800,000 galaxies, the data shows a universe forming stars and supermassive black holes far earlier—and in greater numbers—than previously predicted. This unprecedented scope offers...

Are ancient alien theories pure fantasy or a lost truth? From pyramids to myths, history is full of mysteries that defy explanation. Could we have had a little extraterrestrial help? The 'Ancient Aliens' Idea is More Realistic Than You'd Expect... | 11:49 Sideprojects | 1.21M subscribers | 832,868 views | January 31, 2025

Mammaliaforms encompass both living and extinct species that share a close relationship with mammals. Research on mammaliaforms aids scientists in deciphering the evolutionary developments responsible for various mammalian features.In two consecutive studies in Nature, Dr. Mao Fangyuan and Dr. Zhang Chi from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with colleagues from Australia and the United States, recently reported two Jurassic mammaliaforms from China, revealing the earliest dental diversification, mandibular middle ears, and articular-quadrate joint transformation of mammaliaforms.The studies provide key information about the evolutionary shift from reptilian jaw bones to early...

There is no single answer to this puzzle. Dinosaurs dominated the planet for around 179 million years and during that time, evolved into an enormous array of different shapes and sizes. Some were tiny, like the diminutive Albinykus, which weighed under a kilogram (2.2lbs) and was probably less than 2ft (60cm) long. Others were among the biggest animals to have ever lived on land, such as the titanosaur Patagotitan mayorum, which may have weighed up to 72 tonnes. They ran on two legs, or plodded on four. And along with these diverse body shapes, they would have produced an equally...