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Neanderthals: New Findings & Theories

ramonmercado said:
More about the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician technocomplex and the debate about when humans first entered Europe.

Researchers on the hunt to settle a long-standing debate ended up rewriting the timeline of ancient human history in the process.

For years, archaeologists have argued over an ancient culture with the unwieldy title: the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician technocomplex. Even scientists know that's a mouthful, so they call it the LRJ for short.

The LRJ is characterized by the creation of specific blades and leaf points, which share aspects of both Neanderthal and Homo sapien craftsmanship.

two stone tips of ancient projectiles


LRJ stone tools newly excavated from Ranis. (Josephine Schubert/Museum Burg Ranis)

The debate is over who made them, and the answer could help offer clues as to what happened about 45,000 years ago – when Neanderthals, one of our closest human relatives, mysteriously went extinct across Europe while Homo sapiens, ultimately, thrived.

"The usual wisdom was to consider that they were made most likely by late Neanderthals," said study co-author Jean-Jacques Hublin, a professor of paleoanthropology at the College of France.

But Hublin and his colleagues wanted to settle the debate once and for all. This led them to Ilsenhöhle cave in Ranis, Germany, one of several sites across Northwestern Europe where LRJ artifacts have been found. ...

https://www.sciencealert.com/pioneer-humans-entered-europe-thousands-of-years-earlier-than-thought
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I came across this broken part of a flint knife 'of the time,' in my back garden many years ago ~ (not where I presently live).
I was digging a hole in order to plant something in a flower bed, and I was intrigued to find it there.
*Bottom:
1707861444443.jpeg

*One edge carried an incredibly sharp single cutting edge,
and on the other edge, as you can see had a serrated edge.
*Top@
1707861738293.png
 
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Thank goodness for observant people - I would've just thrown that out as junk, having missed the clues.
 
Steven said:
Thank goodness for observant people - I would've just thrown that out as junk, having missed the clues.
Click to expand...

It does take practice :) @Sid obviously has an eye for these things!
 
Did Neanderthals achieve a higher level of cognition by sniffing this glue.

Neanderthals created stone tools held together by a multi-component adhesive, a team of scientists has discovered. Its findings, which are the earliest evidence of a complex adhesive in Europe, suggest these predecessors to modern humans had a higher level of cognition and cultural development than previously thought.

The work, reported in the journal Science Advances, included researchers from New York University, the University of Tübingen, and the National Museums in Berlin.

"These astonishingly well-preserved tools showcase a technical solution broadly similar to examples of tools made by early modern humans in Africa, but the exact recipe reflects a Neanderthal 'spin,' which is the production of grips for handheld tools," says Radu Iovita, an associate professor at New York University's Center for the Study of Human Origins.

The research team, led by Patrick Schmidt from the University of Tübingen's Early Prehistory and Quaternary Ecology section and Ewa Dutkiewicz from the Museum of Prehistory and Early History at the National Museums in Berlin, re-examined previous finds from Le Moustier, an archaeological site in France that was discovered in the early 20th century.

The stone tools from Le Moustier—used by Neanderthals during the Middle Paleolithic period of the Mousterian between 120,000 and 40,000 years ago—are kept in the collection of Berlin's Museum of Prehistory and Early History and had not previously been examined in detail. The tools were rediscovered during an internal review of the collection and their scientific value was recognized. ...

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-neanderthals-usage-complex-adhesives-reveals.html
 
Frideswide said:
It does take practice :) @Sid obviously has an eye for these things!
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Here is another item I found while having a look at a Dolman. As I walked away from the stone age Dolman along a stony pathway, I happened to notice this round stone which looked out-of-place amongst the 'normal' stones.

So, I brought it home as a keepsake of the trip and thought no-more of it, other than having it as a paperweight.

Then I happened to come across similar pictures of stone age items that were found on a dig some years ago, along by the A9 in Scotland, and I noticed the similarity of one in particular, which turned out to be almost identical to the one I have. I believe it to being a Stone Age Hand Hammer. . .

*Notice only this edge of the stone is chipped and worn in this way, fits the hand beautifully, may also be a geode inside as it seems exceptionally heavy for it's size.

1714471051975.jpeg
1714471429378.jpeg
 

Face of 75,000-year-old Neanderthal woman revealed​

_133251963_3d_model_on_black_background_credit_bbc-studios-jamie_simonds.jpg

By Jonathan Amos, Rebecca Morelle and Alison Francis
BBC Science News

What would it be like to meet one of our closest human relatives from 75,000 years ago in the flesh?
Scientists have produced a remarkable reconstruction of what a Neanderthal woman would have looked like when she was alive.
It is based on the flattened, shattered remains of a skull whose bones were so soft when excavated they had the consistency of "a well-dunked biscuit".
Researchers first had to strengthen the fragments before reassembling them.
Expert palaeoartists then created the 3D model.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-68922877
 
Frideswide said:
definitely someone I'd offer tea, biscuits and a natter to!
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You might well like to offer her tea, biscuits and have a natter with - but she might well stay over and have you, quite literally, for breakfast! :)
 
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I read a newer theory that the interbreeding with modern man for thousands of years caused the disappearance of the Neanderthal.

It was first thought that Neanderthal and modern man keep to their separate ways, but this theory says they cohabited.
 
Art for art's sake - the Cultured Neanderthal.

130,000-year-old Neanderthal-carved bear bone is symbolic art, study argue​

The carved bear bone is one of the earliest human-made artifacts with "symbolic culture" unearthed in Europe.​

Neanderthals made parallel marks on this bear bone

Different views of a roughly 4-inches-long (10.6 centimeters) bear bone that has Neanderthal-made cut marks on it. (Image credit: T. Gąsior, Płonka et al; (CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED))

A nearly 130,000-year-old bear bone was deliberately marked with cuts and might be one of the oldest art pieces in Eurasia crafted by the Neanderthals, researchers say.

The roughly cylindrical bone, which is about 4 inches long (10.6 centimeters), is adorned with 17 irregularly spaced parallel cuts. A right-handed person most likely crafted the piece, probably in one sitting, a new study finds.

The carved bone is the oldest known symbolic art made by Neanderthals in Europe north of the Carpathian Mountains. It gives scientists a glimpse into the behavior, cognition and culture of modern humans' long-dead cousins, who lived in Eurasia from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago, when they disappeared.

"It is one of the quite rare Neanderthal objects of symbolic nature," Tomasz Płonka, professor of archaeology at the University of Wrocław, told Live Science. "These incisions have no utilitarian reason." For instance, the bone does not appear to be a tool or an object of ritual importance, the study found.
Researchers discovered the bone in 1953 in Dziadowa Skała Cave in southern Poland and initially believed it was the rib of a bear. They excavated the bone from a layer dating to the Eemian period (130,000 to 115,000 years ago), one of the warmer periods of the last ice age. However, Płonka's team found that the bone is an arm bone (radius) that came from the left forelimb of a juvenile bear, most likely a brown bear (Ursus arctos).

In the new study, the researchers examined the bone with a 3D microscope and computed tomography (CT) scans, which enabled them to make a digital model of the bone. Based on this model, the researchers suggested that the marks showed several characteristics of intentional organization. For instance, the marks were repetitive, meaning that the incisions were repeated in a similar fashion; similar, because they all belong to the same basic shape despite some size differences; limited, as the markings were confined to a specific area, even though there was room for more; and organized, as the cut marks were placed in a systematic way, even though their spacing varies slightly. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...carved-bear-bone-is-symbolic-art-study-argues
 
ramonmercado said:
Art for art's sake - the Cultured Neanderthal.

130,000-year-old Neanderthal-carved bear bone is symbolic art, study argue​

The carved bear bone is one of the earliest human-made artifacts with "symbolic culture" unearthed in Europe.​

Neanderthals made parallel marks on this bear bone

Different views of a roughly 4-inches-long (10.6 centimeters) bear bone that has Neanderthal-made cut marks on it. (Image credit: T. Gąsior, Płonka et al; (CC BY-NC 4.0 DEED))

A nearly 130,000-year-old bear bone was deliberately marked with cuts and might be one of the oldest art pieces in Eurasia crafted by the Neanderthals, researchers say.

The roughly cylindrical bone, which is about 4 inches long (10.6 centimeters), is adorned with 17 irregularly spaced parallel cuts. A right-handed person most likely crafted the piece, probably in one sitting, a new study finds.

The carved bone is the oldest known symbolic art made by Neanderthals in Europe north of the Carpathian Mountains. It gives scientists a glimpse into the behavior, cognition and culture of modern humans' long-dead cousins, who lived in Eurasia from about 400,000 to 40,000 years ago, when they disappeared.

"It is one of the quite rare Neanderthal objects of symbolic nature," Tomasz Płonka, professor of archaeology at the University of Wrocław, told Live Science. "These incisions have no utilitarian reason." For instance, the bone does not appear to be a tool or an object of ritual importance, the study found.
Researchers discovered the bone in 1953 in Dziadowa Skała Cave in southern Poland and initially believed it was the rib of a bear. They excavated the bone from a layer dating to the Eemian period (130,000 to 115,000 years ago), one of the warmer periods of the last ice age. However, Płonka's team found that the bone is an arm bone (radius) that came from the left forelimb of a juvenile bear, most likely a brown bear (Ursus arctos).

In the new study, the researchers examined the bone with a 3D microscope and computed tomography (CT) scans, which enabled them to make a digital model of the bone. Based on this model, the researchers suggested that the marks showed several characteristics of intentional organization. For instance, the marks were repetitive, meaning that the incisions were repeated in a similar fashion; similar, because they all belong to the same basic shape despite some size differences; limited, as the markings were confined to a specific area, even though there was room for more; and organized, as the cut marks were placed in a systematic way, even though their spacing varies slightly. ...

https://www.livescience.com/archaeo...carved-bear-bone-is-symbolic-art-study-argues
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I notice that on enlarging the photograph (above) of the marked bone, not all the cuts are parallel as is stated?
Seems more like some kind of a useful tool of the time, rather than anything else?
 
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