blessmycottonsocks
Beloved of Ra
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- Dec 22, 2014
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Amazing to reflect that floral tributes at a funeral have been a tradition marking humankind for such an unimaginably long time.
Following the death of the Asterix creator Albert Uderzo, I did a little Googling about the history of the Gauls.
On the Wiki page, I spotted this Roman Denarius from 48 BC, depicting a Gallic captive/slave.
It struck me as a remarkably Neanderthal-like profile, with its heavy brow-ridges, large eyes and prominent nose. Whoever the unfortunate enslaved Gaul was whose profile was chosen to adorn the coin, we'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if his Neanderthal DNA % was significantly higher than the European average for the time.
Of course, it could be something of a caricature, but it still looks like the archetypal caveman to me - but some 50,000 years too late.
View attachment 24462
nah - a bit of a reach.
...it's entirely conceivable there'd have been a bit of bias toward accentuating coarse features in depicting a person from the empire's hinterlands and a "mere" slave at that.
FULL STORY: https://gizmodo.com/fascinating-discovery-suggests-neanderthals-invented-st-1842774242Fascinating Discovery Suggests Neanderthals Invented String
Scientists working in the south of France have discovered a small Neanderthal cord fragment dating back to over 41,000 years ago. It’s now the oldest evidence of fiber technology in the archaeological record, and further testament to the remarkable cognitive abilities of these extinct humans.
Neanderthals manufactured glue, wore eagle talons as jewelry, decorated themselves with feathers, started their own fires, made cave paintings, and fashioned tools from seashells. We can now add fiber technology to this impressive list, thanks to new research published today in Scientific Reports.
Archaeologist Bruce Hardy, a researcher from Kenyon College in Ohio and the first author of the new study, said it’s further evidence that Neanderthal brain power was comparable to anatomically modern humans. ...
Prior to this discovery, the oldest direct evidence of textile and cord technology came from the Ohalo II site in Israel. These cords, dated to 19,000 years old and linked to modern humans, were made from several fibers that were given a clockwise twist. ...
At the Abri du Maras site in southern France, archaeologists had previously found evidence of Neanderthal textile use in the form of single twisted fibers, but it wasn’t enough for scientists to be sure. The newly discovered cord fragment, also at Abri du Maras, is different because it’s composed of multiple fibers twisted into yarn that were then twisted back to form a cord. ...
New, more substantial, discoveries indicate Neanderthals rather than "modern" humans first developed fiber technologies.
FULL STORY: https://gizmodo.com/fascinating-discovery-suggests-neanderthals-invented-st-1842774242
Following the death of the Asterix creator Albert Uderzo, I did a little Googling about the history of the Gauls.
On the Wiki page, I spotted this Roman Denarius from 48 BC, depicting a Gallic captive/slave.
It struck me as a remarkably Neanderthal-like profile, with its heavy brow-ridges, large eyes and prominent nose. Whoever the unfortunate enslaved Gaul was whose profile was chosen to adorn the coin, we'll never know, but I wouldn't be surprised if his Neanderthal DNA % was significantly higher than the European average for the time.
Of course, it could be something of a caricature, but it still looks like the archetypal caveman to me - but some 50,000 years too late.
View attachment 24462
12% from humanoids unknown, interesting.Don't blame your looks and moods on your Neanderthal DNA.
If you think you got your freckles, red hair, or even narcolepsy from a Neanderthal in your family tree, think again.
People around the world do carry traces of Neanderthals in their genomes. But a study of tens of thousands of Icelanders finds their Neanderthal legacy had little or no impact on most of their physical traits or disease risk.
Paleogeneticists realized about 10 years ago that most Europeans and Asians inherited 1% to 2% of their genomes from Neanderthals. And Melanesians and Australian Aboriginals get another 3% to 6% of their DNA from Denisovans, Neanderthal cousins who ranged across Asia 50,000 to 200,000 years ago or so.
A steady stream of studies suggested gene variants from these archaic peoples might raise the risk of depression, blood clotting, diabetes, and other disorders in living people. The archaic DNA may also be altering the shape of our skulls; boosting our immune systems; and influencing our eye color, hair color, and sensitivity to the Sun, according to scans of genomic and health data in biobanks and medical databases.
But the new study, which looked for archaic DNA in living Icelanders, challenges many of those claims. Researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark scanned the full genomes of 27,566 Icelanders in a database at deCODE Genetics in Iceland, seeking unusual archaic gene variants. The researchers ended up with a large catalog of 56,000 to 112,000 potentially archaic variants—and a few surprises.
They found, for example, that Icelanders had inherited 3.3% of their archaic DNA from Denisovans and 12.2% from unknown sources. (84.5% came from close relatives of the reference Neanderthals.)
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/neanderthal-dna-you-carry-may-have-surprisingly-little-impact-your-looks-moods
Longer overlap for modern humans and Neanderthals
Modern humans began to edge out the Neanderthals in Europe earlier than previously thought, a new study shows.
Tests on remains from a cave in northern Bulgaria suggest Homo sapiens was there as early as 46,000 years ago.
This is up to 2,000 years older than evidence from Italy and the UK.
Around this time, Europe was populated by sparse groups of Neanderthals - a distinct type of human that vanished shortly after modern humans appeared on the scene.
There's considerable debate about the length of time that modern humans overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe and other parts of Eurasia.
This has implications for the nature of contact between the two groups - and perhaps clues to why Neanderthals went extinct.
Two new scientific papers ... describe the finds at Bacho Kiro cave. ...
Prof Chris Stringer, research leader for human evolution at the Natural History Museum in London, who was not involved with the latest study, said: "In my view, this is the oldest and strongest published evidence for an IUP (Initial Upper Palaeolithic) presence of H. sapiens in Europe, several millennia before the Neanderthals disappeared." ...
At the least, the new finds suggest there was around 5,000 years of chronological overlap between Neanderthals and modern humans in Europe. ...
Neanderthals, Denisovans, humans genetically closer than polar bears, brown bears
Several genomic studies have previously shown that Neanderthals, Denisovans and anatomically modern humans interbred. Now, new research suggests the trio of populations were so genetically similar that they most certainly produced healthy, fertile hybrids.
In a new study, published Wednesday in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, scientists quantified the genetic differences between early humans and their closest relatives, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The analysis showed the genetic distance values separating the three human species were smaller than the differences between modern animal species -- like brown bears and polar bears -- known to produce healthy hybrid offspring. ...
If its lifelike it certainly seems to be of someone who is from that direction.
(How do they know it is a self portrait? Did the artist have a mirror???)
Thats really cool. 8 cm tall apparently.This remarkable carving in mammoth ivory from the Dolni Vestonice region in the Czech Republic, has been dated to around 26,000 years.
It depicts an early European (Cro-Magnon) with some noticeably atavistic robust features.
If this is a Palaeolithic "selfie" as many have speculated, just possibly the brow ridges, large eyes and nose and heavy jaw could suggest a degree of Neanderthal ancestry in this obviously talented artist.
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Neanderthals of Western Mediterranean did not become extinct because of changes in climate
Homo Neanderthaliensis did not become extinct because of changes in climate. At least, this did not happen to the several Neanderthals groups that lived in the western Mediterranean 42,000 years ago. A research group of the University of Bologna came to this conclusion after a detailed paleoclimatic reconstruction of the last ice age through the analysis of stalagmites sampled from some caves in Apulia, Italy.
The researchers focused on the Murge karst plateau in Apulia, where Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens coexisted for at least 3,000 years, from approximately 45,000 to 42,000 years ago. This study was published in Nature Ecology & Evolution. Data extracted from the stalagmites showed that climate changes that happened during that time span were not particularly significant. "Our study shows that this area of Apulia appears as a 'climate niche' during the transition from Neanderthals to Homo Sapiens" explains Andrea Columbu, researcher and first author of this study. "It doesn't seem possible that significant climate changes happened during that period, at least not impactful enough to cause the extinction of Neanderthals in Apulia and, by the same token, in similar areas of the Mediterranean". ...
Modern humans arrived in Western Europe 5,000 years earlier than thought
Modern humans were occupying parts of Western Europe at least 38,000 to 41,000 years ago, 5,000 years earlier than previously thought.
The discovery and analysis of ancient stone tools in a Portuguese cave -- detailed Monday in the journal PNAS -- suggests modern humans were along Europe's Atlantic Coast at the same time that Neanderthals occupied the region. ...
During recent digs, researchers unearthed stone tools similar to those associated with early human populations at the other end of the continent, where Europe becomes Asia. ...
The latest findings lend support to the theory that the earliest groups of anatomically modern humans moved from east to west across Europe, in addition to offering a bit of clarity on the timing of early pan-European dispersals.
Researchers remain in the dark, however, on whether early groups from Eurasia moved mostly across inland Europe, following the continent's major rivers, or preferred to migrate along the southern coast. ...
The new findings also lend support to the results of genomic surveys that have shown limited interbreeding between modern humans and Neanderthals.
"The findings agree with the latest genetic evidence for the assimilation of Neanderthals into modern human populations," Haws said. "The Neanderthal input into the modern human genome is very slight suggesting limited contact and interbreeding."
"Our findings suggest that modern humans moved so rapidly across Eurasia and into what is now Portugal because Neanderthal populations were very sparse," Haws said. "The lack of evidence of technology transfers from incoming modern humans to Neanderthals also supports the conclusion that interactions were rare." ...
Just watched part 1 of the BBC programme Neanderthal - Meet Your Ancestors.
Very good overall (albeit annoying that the presenter kept pronouncing what should be the silent H in Neanderthal). Came to the conclusion that they were much more like modern humans than previously thought. The painstakingly reconstructed 40,000 year old "Ned" would barely merit a second glance, if he passed you in the street (and was groomed and dressed in modern clothes of course).
Looking forward to part 2.