All posts tagged: ancient humans

Neanderthal infants were enormous compared with modern humans

Neanderthal infants were enormous compared with modern humans

Published by skeptic

Reconstruction of a family of Neanderthals P.PLAILLY/E.DAYNES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Neanderthal babies may have physically dwarfed their Homo sapiens counterparts, according to a new study that examined an infant skeleton of one of our ancient hominin relatives. “We cannot say how advanced Neanderthal babies were in their behaviour,” says Ella Been at Ono Academic College in Israel. “We do not know whether they started walking at a different time than modern human babies do.” But, she says, they were big and “not necessarily chubby”. Been and her colleagues conducted a detailed anatomical analysis of the almost-complete skeleton of a Neanderthal baby who lived in what is now Israel sometime between 51,000 and 56,000 years ago. The infant, known as Amud 7, was discovered in a cave 4 kilometres from the western shore of the Sea of Galilee in Israel in 1992. Their sex cannot be determined. Amud 7 is one of only a handful of young Neanderthals that have ever been recorded. Neanderthals were the dominant species of hominin throughout Eurasia for several hundred thousand years until …

Are Neanderthals descendants of modern humans?

Are Neanderthals descendants of modern humans?

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A reconstruction of a Neanderthal based on the fossils from La Chapelle-aux-Saints fossils S. ENTRESSANGLE/E. DAYNES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. Among the many other human species that once inhabited Earth, the Neanderthals are the most famous. They lived until relatively recently and in many ways, they were like us. Just in the past few months, we’ve seen tentative evidence of them treating wounds using tar with antibiotic properties made from birch bark. An ancient yellow crayon, made of ochre, gave us a hint of their artistic practices. A well-preserved skull suggested that their noses weren’t adapted for cold climates, as many had thought. Elephant bones from Germany show signs of having been butchered by Neanderthals. There is even suggestive evidence of Neanderthals crossing wide expanses of water. All in all, we have a rich picture of Neanderthals’ lives, and that picture gets fleshed out more every year. But what we don’t have is …

Disappearing megafauna may have prompted a stone tool revolution

Disappearing megafauna may have prompted a stone tool revolution

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The changing abundance of prey animals may have forced early humans to invent new tools RAUL MARTIN/MSF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A drop in the number of huge animals 200,000 years ago may have forced ancient humans to abandon heavy-duty stone tools in favour of lightweight toolkits to hunt smaller animals. That’s according to a new study that supports the idea that switching to smaller prey may have boosted our ancestors’ intelligence. For over a million years, several early human species used similar kinds of heavy stone tools, such as axes, cleavers, scrapers and stone balls. Evidence suggests such tools were used for killing and butchering massive plant-eating prey, or megaherbivores, including now-extinct relatives of elephants, hippopotamuses and rhinos. Then, between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, smaller, more sophisticated tools began to appear alongside heavy tools. Our species, Homo sapiens, emerged in the middle of this period. Around 200,000 years ago, heavy tools curiously disappeared from the archaeological record in the Levant. Meanwhile, there was an increase in the number of small, lightweight stone toolkits, including blades …

Disappearing megafauna may have prompted a stone tool revolution

Why early humans radically changed their toolkits 200,000 years ago

Published by skeptic

The changing abundance of prey animals may have forced early humans to invent new tools RAUL MARTIN/MSF/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY A drop in the number of huge animals 200,000 years ago may have forced ancient humans to abandon heavy-duty stone tools in favour of lightweight toolkits to hunt smaller animals. That’s according to a new study that supports the idea that switching to smaller prey may have boosted our ancestors’ intelligence. For over a million years, several early human species used similar kinds of heavy stone tools, such as axes, cleavers, scrapers and stone balls. Evidence suggests such tools were used for killing and butchering massive plant-eating prey, or megaherbivores, including now-extinct relatives of elephants, hippopotamuses and rhinos. Then, between 400,000 and 200,000 years ago, smaller, more sophisticated tools began to appear alongside heavy tools. Our species, Homo sapiens, emerged in the middle of this period. Around 200,000 years ago, heavy tools curiously disappeared from the archaeological record in the Levant. Meanwhile, there was an increase in the number of small, lightweight stone toolkits, including blades …

Oldest known dog extends the genetic history of our canine companions

Oldest known dog extends the genetic history of our canine companions

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Evidence from Pınarbaşı in Turkey shows that hunter-gatherers were looking after dogs about 15,800 years ago Kathryn Killackey Ancient remains in Turkey from 15,800 years ago have been confirmed as coming from a dog, the earliest one ever found. Genetic evidence also reveals that our best friends were already widely distributed across Europe 14,300 years ago, when humans were hunter-gatherers and agriculture hadn’t yet emerged. When dogs were domesticated is a knotty question, given the physical and genetic similarities between dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and grey wolves (Canis lupus). Previously, the oldest remains genetically identified as being from a dog date to around 10,900 years ago. However, there are dog-like bones from as far back as 33,000 years ago from animals that weren’t quite dogs yet genetically, known as incipient dogs. To get a better handle on how the history of dogs played out, Lachie Scarsbrook at the University of Oxford and his colleagues have examined the genomes obtained from several early, dog-like remains at archaeological sites around Europe. The earliest remains confirmed as being …

Genetic clues tell the story of Neanderthals’ decline

Genetic clues tell the story of Neanderthals’ decline

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Reconstructions of a Neanderthal man and woman at the Neanderthal Museum in Mettmann, Germany AP Photo/Martin Meissner/Alamy An analysis of Neanderthal DNA has helped piece together the story of many millennia of hard times that finally led to the demise of our ancient human relatives. Faced with a cooling climate, their population shrank and they wound up confined to what is now south-west France. Later, the climate warmed and the Neanderthals began roaming more widely. But most of their genetic diversity had been lost, so even widely dispersed groups had very similar DNA. This situation – small, isolated groups with little genetic diversity – may have contributed to their eventual extinction. The Neanderthals lived in Europe and Asia for hundreds of thousands of years, disappearing from the archaeological record about 40,000 years ago. Previous studies of their DNA had pointed to a drastic shift in their genetics towards the end. Late Neanderthals, meaning those who lived after about 60,000 years ago, were genetically similar to each other and different from those who came before. “There …

Our extinct Australopithecus relatives may have had difficult births

Our extinct Australopithecus relatives may have had difficult births

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Illustration of a female Australopithecus sediba carrying an infant JOHN BAVARO FINE ART/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY Childbirth was difficult and dangerous for our ape-like ancestors, much as it is for women today. A new study of the pelvises of Australopithecus suggests that labour exerted powerful forces on their pelvic floors – meaning Australopithecus mothers risked perineal tearing. “We show that Australopithecines are quite similar to modern humans,” says Pierre Frémondière, a midwife at Aix-Marseille University in France. “If they had lots of deliveries, probably they would have a greater risk of pelvic floor disorder.” For modern humans, vaginal childbirth requires a lot of force, as a large-headed baby is forced through a relatively narrow pelvis. One region that is prone to damage is the pelvic floor, a sheet of muscles that links the left and right halves of the pelvis. Many women tear their pelvic floor during labour, and it’s been estimated that 1 in 4 women experience pelvic floor disorders such as incontinence or organ prolapse. Frémondière and his colleagues wanted to find out if …

How our ancestors used mushrooms to change the course of human history

How our ancestors used mushrooms to change the course of human history

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Seventy-five years ago, in the depths of a peat bog in Yorkshire, UK, archaeologists made a startling discovery: the perfectly preserved remains of dozens of 11,000-year-old mushrooms. Carefully cut and intentionally scorched, it is thought that these polypores were used by nomadic Mesolithic hunter-gatherers as tinder on their travels, acting as the earliest known portable fire kit. The discovery was so unlikely because of the near-impossibility of mushrooms being preserved long enough for archaeologists to analyse them. Fungi are composed mostly of water, meaning they rapidly rot and disappear, and so are almost totally absent from the fossil record, says Hannah O’Regan at the University of Nottingham in the UK. As such, the unexpected ways that mushrooms helped our ancient ancestors survive have long remained secret, seemingly lost to time. Decades passed before we learned more. But in the past few years, new tools have finally allowed us to identify fungal DNA and micro-residues in the mouths, utensils and clothing of prehistoric humans. These breakthroughs are highlighting how a hidden fungi kingdom fed, healed and …

We’ve only just confirmed that Homo habilis really existed

We’ve only just confirmed that Homo habilis really existed

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Homo habilis lived in East Africa up to 2 million years ago Natural History Museum, London/Alamy This is an extract from Our Human Story, our newsletter about the revolution in archaeology. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every month. Homo habilis is a paradoxical species. On the one hand, they have a famous name and hold the status of being the first members of our genus Homo: the first humans, if you like. On the other hand, we have never known that much about them, and what we do know is kind of weird. How can a species be simultaneously well known and little known? We have to start with the name, if only because it’s one of the few things we can be sure about. The species was given its moniker in 1964 by a trio of palaeoanthropologists: Louis Leakey, Phillip Tobias and John Napier. Though, as they acknowledged, it wasn’t their idea – their colleague Raymond Dart had suggested “habilis” from the Latin for “able, handy, mentally skilful, vigorous”. They applied the …

When we interbred with Neanderthals, they were usually the fathers

When we interbred with Neanderthals, they were usually the fathers

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Model of a Neanderthal man at the Natural History Museum in London Mike Kemp/In Pictures/Getty Images When our species and Neanderthals interbred, it may have been mostly female Homo sapiens and male Neanderthals that mated. That’s the conclusion of a study of the genetic traces left in both populations by the intermixing. It isn’t clear why this sex-biased mating pattern would have happened. It may be that male Neanderthals preferred female H. sapiens over females of their own species, or that female H. sapiens females preferred Neanderthal males, or both. There is also no way to determine whether the matings were consensual or forced. “I think we can say very little,” says Alexander Platt at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. “The meaningful thing that we can say is that it was something that took place over generations.” Other geneticists say the evidence is intriguing but inconclusive. “I think we need more evidence, because it’s a big claim about the behaviour,” says Arev Sümer at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. …