Anthropology.net

Although Svante Pääbo and John Hawks both agree that if even if the entire Neanderthal genome is successfully sequenced, we’re not likely to see these archaic people making a return to this world, as ‘intact cells’ would be needed to create a viable clone; however, sooner or later, someone will doubtless crack this problem, and the Neanderthals, the woolly mammoth, the mighty cave bear and who knows what else, will once more roam freely, though this time round ‘freely’ would not equate to the freedom they once enjoyed in a world unmodified by the civilising influences of humans.

Scientific American have a report updating us on the work of Pääbo and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, as they attempt to reconstruct that Neanderthal genome,

…(they) examined ground-up Neanderthal bone as well as 43,000-year-old mammoth bone and 42,000-year-old cave bear bone to determine whether the genomes of such ancient creatures could be sequenced. Although researchers, including Pääbo, have been able to extract DNA from such bones, the entire genetic blueprint remains difficult to map due to confusing gaps in the long strand and potential contamination.

But by analyzing the available DNA, Pääbo found that such damage is most likely to occur at certain junctures in the strand near the end of molecules and, further, that such breakages are most likely to be misread as cytosine (C) for thymine (T) or guanine (G) for adenine (A)—the chemical bases that make up DNA. Read the rest of this entry »

News from Tamil Nadu, courtesy of ‘Frontline‘ magazine, relating how rock art that has been dated to between 3,500 and 4,000 years ago, was found there as recently as May this year. The sites were found after the four man research team asked amongst others, students and local people in outlying villages, particularly pastoral workers, if they had come across any cave paintings or rock art in the course of their daily travails.

Mavadaippu is the latest discovery by the team. It had discovered a prehistoric rock art site at Porivarai (2003), and ancient rock paintings at Salekkurai and Sundasingam (2005), near Karikkiyur, about 40 km from Kothagiri in the Nilgiris. In fact, the team was totally unprepared for what awaited it at Porivarai. It turned out to be the largest rock art site in South India with about 500 paintings in an area that is 53 m long and 15 m wide. Experts say the rock paintings at both Mavadaippu and Karikkiyur could be dated to 2000 B.C. to 1500 B.C.

The paintings in white ochre include a procession of bison, monkeys clambering up a tree branch, a herd of deer grazing, human beings welcoming one another with outstretched arms, a battle scene with men aiming at each other with bows and arrows, men on horseback engaged in battle, a shoulder-clasping dance after a successful boar-hunt, a man with a mask, the depiction of sun and its rays, a spiral, a tiger fighting another animal, and a man and his dog sleeping.

The site of Mavadaippu has been the subject of artists’ attentions for an estimated 3,000 years, and in some cases there is evidence of older paintings being modified by artists visiting the same site – applying their own touches of colour here and there. Now that these sites have been found there is some concern that members of the modern day public will further deface some of the images, by adding their own grafitti over the top of some of the petroglyphs, and there are calls for the sites to be given adequate protection against further damage. Technically, those people who have added the recent graffiti are merely carrying on a tradition which as we saw earlier, had been extant for some 3,000 years, but obviously such ancient sites are of a greater significance than the doodlings of ourselves, and should be protected and curated accordingly. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a theory proposed by Professor Helmut Ziegert, and reported in today’s ‘Times’ our ancient forebears, Homo erectus, constructed the first settlements known to mankind, at a time when such behaviour has popularly been considered too advanced for Acheulian equipped people, who lived 400,000 years ago.

Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.

Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.

He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.

Professor Ziegert used potassium argon isotopic dating, stratigraphy and tool typology to compile his evidence. He will publish his findings this month in Minerva, the archaeology journal.

Although at first this news might seem surprising, it has become apparent in recent years that Homo erectus, both in Africa and Asia, was far more technologically and culturally enterprising and sophisticated than thought possible. Moreover, there are other sites dating to a similar age where it can be demonstrated that people were capable of erecting shelters, with the site of Terra Amata, near Nice in France, dating to between 200,000 and 400,000 years, and there is evidence from post holes at the German site of Bilzingsleben, which may date back to between 350,000 – 400,000 bp.

Other evidence from Lake Fezzan pointing to advanced and sophisticated behaviour by Homo erectus is detailed here,

Of a substantially greater antiquity are the three similar ostrich eggshell beads from El Greifa site E, in Wadi el Adjal, Libya (Bednarik 1997d). They come from a substantial sequence of Acheulian occupation deposits representing many millennia of continuous occupation of a littoral site, on the shore of the huge Fezzan Lake of the Pleistocene. This site has exceptionally good preservation conditions, with insect remains and seeds found together with bone. The typical Late Acheulian stone tool forms, including ‘handaxes’, confirm the dating of the occupation strata by Th/U analysis to about 200 ka. These are the earliest known secure disc beads in the world, and there can be no reasonable doubt that they are indeed man-made beads, and not some chance product of nature (Figure 3d-f). In addition to the three found initially, several more beads have most recently been recovered from the same site and period (M. Kuckenburg, pers. comm. Jan. 2000). ‘Beads And The Origins Of Symbolism‘ R. Bednarik

Back in March 2ooo, the BBC carried a story, detailing the discovery of what was claimed to be the ‘world’s oldest building‘, dating back to 500,000 years bp. (N.B.  Thanks to Doug who commented below,  pointing out the whole Japanese ‘discovery’ was nothing more than a not very elaborate hoax) Read the rest of this entry »

Just a very quick post to let everyone know there’s a 7 part update on Homo floresiensis available at YouTube, as mentioned over at The Panda’s Thumb; this from Jim Foley…

A few months ago I attended a talk by Professor Colin Groves of the Australian National University: ‘An update on Homo floresiensis, a.k.a. the “Hobbit”’ (available on YouTube in seven installments: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7). As is well known, there has been an unusually bitter scientific debate over the last couple of years as to whether the hobbit is indeed a new species, or just a small microcephalic human. The term ‘microcephaly’ covers a range of conditions which cause unusually small brain sizes. (Disclaimer: Groves is not a disinterested participant in this debate, having coauthored a paper which argues against the microcephalic interpretation.)

Groves went over a long list of unusual features of the hobbit. The limb bone ratios are unlike those of any apes or humans. They are also very robust: in spite of their small size, hobbits would have been remarkably strong. The arms are too long for humans, and they had unusually large feet (like Tolkien’s hobbits!). The lower jaw lacks a chin, a feature found in all humans (even people who look chinless), and that is also true of a second jaw which has been found. The upper end of the humerus has a twist not found in modern humans, but which was then found in the Turkana BoyHomo erectus/ergaster skeleton once it was looked for. Groves’ conclusion: all of these features make it overwhelmingly unlikely that the hobbit was just a small microcephalic human.

The second paragraph is particularly relevant – most of the controversy so far has centred around the cranial elements of LB1, but the post-cranial features are if anything, more complex and enigmatic than might be apparent from the mainstream coverage – the Hobbit’s evolutionary past is as yet far from clear, and it looks certain that there will be further twists and turns in this strangest of discoveries; as far as I know, work at Liang Bua should be in progress right now, and the world will be waiting with bated breath for further revelations from within its depths.

I’m currently reading Professor Mike Moorwood and Penny van Oosterzee’s book, ‘A New Human‘, which is definitely worth the read – Kambiz made mention in an earlier post of the dispute that erupted concerning the way in which the skull was allegedly mishandled whilst in the care of Professor Jacob, and although I haven’t read that part yet, the rest of what I have read is fascinating stuff. (TJ)

(via Afarensis)

ps: I’m having a few issues with formatting at WP, which means one or two posts might look a bit untidy, especially ‘quotes’, but hopefully I’ll iron these out in due course – Kambiz usually sorts these out for me, but in his absence, one or two errors might creep in.

On-line Iranian Anthropological and Documentary Film Archive and Database

Society for Iranian Anthropology, SIRA (www.anthropology-iran.org) with the collaboration of Ethnodoc create jointly a new online database and archive for Iranian anthropological and documentary films.

We accept anthropological and documentary films (regarding Iran) made by academic scholars and independent filmmakers who trained in anthropology and cinematography. But films interesting for the subject and originality are also welcome.

Films received by SIRA will be included in the Ethnodoc film archive on the web site www.ethnodoc.org and will be add to Visualanthropology.net newsletter too. This online database is searchable.

For more information about submitting your film(s) or any other inquiries, please
contact directly:

Dr.P.Khosronejad

Junior Research Fellow at The Middle East Centre

St.Antony’s College, University of Oxford.

pedram.khosronejad@sant.ox.ac.uk

News of a notable find from a remarkable cave, comprising no less than five pieces of portable art, dating as far back as the Aurignaican, which have recently been unearthed from the Swabia region of Germany, home of the famous Vogelherd Cave, wherein finds have been made in the past…

Archaeologists at the University of Tübingen have recovered the first entirely intact woolly mammoth figurine from the Swabian Jura, a plateau in the state of Baden-Württemberg, thought to have been made by the first modern humans some 35,000 years ago. It is believed to be the oldest ivory carving ever found. “You can be sure,” Tübingen archaeologist Nicholas J. Conard told Spiegel Online, “that there has been art in Swabia for over 35,000 years.”

In total, five mammoth-ivory figurines from the Ice Age were newly discovered at the site of the Vogelherd Cave in southwestern Germany, a site known to contain primitive artefacts since it was excavated in 1931 by the Tübingen archaeologist Gustav Reik. Over 7,000 sacks of sediment later, archaeologists were again invigorated by the discoveries.

Among the new finds are well-preserved remains of a lion figurine, fragments of a mammoth figurine and two as-yet-unidentified representations. These, the University of Tübingen Web site explains, “count among the oldest and most impressive examples of figurative artworks from the Ice Age.” Read the rest of this entry »

Many thanks to Jason over at Hominin Dental Anthropology for hosting what I’m pretty sure is issue number 17. It’s a busy time of year for many, so we don’t have a huge number of submissions this time round, though as I mentioned yesterday, this probably wasn’t helped by my very late call for contributions at this site.

Besides a couple of posts from myself, Yann Klimentidis has an entry discussing the impact of cooked meat in the diet, and how consumption of cooked versus raw food uses up considerably less energy, substantially aids growth, partly by freeing up the individual to redirect the energy savings into weight gain, and it is claimed, to brain growth as well. This in turn has been extrapolated to suggest that what we consider to be our greatly enhanced cognitive abilities, may have kicked in at the same time as our archaic ancestors tucked into their first cooked meals. It’s a compelling idea, though I’m not sure whether it’s physical brain size alone, or the way in which the brain is ‘wired up’, which allows for increased cognition.

On a related note, there’s an interesting article by Paul Krugman , titled America Comes Up Short, from which the following is a brief excerpt:

The data show that Americans, who in the words of a recent paper by the economic historian John Komlos and Benjamin Lauderdale in Social Science Quarterly, were “tallest in the world between colonial times and the middle of the 20th century,” have now “become shorter (and fatter) than Western and Northern Europeans. In fact, the U.S. population is currently at the bottom end of the height distribution in advanced industrial countries.”

This is not a trivial matter. As the paper says, “height is indicative of how well the human organism thrives in its socio-economic environment.” There’s a whole discipline of “anthropometric history” that uses evidence on heights to assess changes in social conditions.

Very puzzling – apparently the problem also exists in Britain, which like America, works very long hours, and isn’t shy when it comes to crossing the threshold of the nearest ‘burger or kebab shop; indeed it will come as little surprise to many that the high rate of fast food consumption is viewed as a prime suspect in this mystery.

Heading back to Four Stone Hearth, Afarensis regales us with three anthropology lecture clips, which he describes thus…

“The other day I was wandering around the internet and found some video from the Stony Brook Symposium on Human Evolution held in 2005. This is the first of three parts and is about an hour and a half long. Unfortunately, video from the entire five day event is not available. Richard Leakey introduces the symposium. Incidentally, Meave Leakey has one of the more fascinating presentations in this video…”

Once I’ve finished writing this up, I’ll try and catch up on those, though he warns us that they are quite long clips, one lasting for about 2 hours, but they sound worth checking.

And while we’re over at Afarensis, he has another post, “Human Interaction Increases Chimpanzee Cognitive Ability“, culled from Science Daily. Our close relationship with chimpanzees is often highlighted in the media, although from what I understand, we may have more in common with the orang utan – as suggested in this paper by John Grehan, ‘The Orang Utan and the Enigma of Human Evolution‘. This isn’t a field of study with which I’m overly familiar, but makes for some fascinating reading nevertheless.

And that’s it for this edition of 4SH, the next edition of which will be this coming July 4th, over at Alun Salt’s site, ‘Clioaudio‘ – incidentally, Alun has a podcast hosted by himself, available at his site.

Thanks once again to Jason, see you all next time. (TJ)

I know this is very late, especially over here in Europe, to be posting a call for submissions, and apologies to Jason over at Hominin Dental Anthropology, but if there’s something you feel would be appropriate for this blog carnival event, either from your own or elsewhere, please mail links plus brief intro to JacenSolo_1 at yahoo dot com – the edition is due out tomorrow, so if you’re in the US, you still have this evening to send something along. Thanks, and next time round I’ll endeavour to be a bit more on the ball. (TJ)

Nice story from Al-Ahram Weekly, on the recent discovery of a stunning array of engraved rock art at Qurta in Upper Egypt, which may be 15,000 years old, making it contemporary with the Magdalenian era of north western Europe, whose most well known sites from this era are Lascaux and Altamira, amongst a host of others; moreover there is an apparent stylistic similarity with its northern neighbours.

However, this rock art isn’t situated deep within caves, instead being engraved onto large rocks at an open air site; the engraved figures are described as being in pristine condition – it’s worth bearing in mind that although Egypt has been viewed as an essentially sun-drenched realm since the golden days of its dynastic civilisation, there is evidence of significant rainfall and flooding there between about 10,000 bp and 5,000 bp, and again between about 4,000 bp and 3,000 bp., so the preservation of outdoor sites as ancient as this, is all the more remarkable.

Here’s a description of the find made by the team of Belgian archaeologists from the Royal Museum of Art and History, funded out of Yale University, who have announced the news of this find…

“The story of the discovery began two months ago when a Belgian archaeological mission from the Royal Museum of Art and History, financed by Yale University, resumed its intensive archaeological survey on the Nubian-sandstone cliffs at Qurta. While carrying out their routine survey, excavators stumbled upon three rock art sites spreading over a distance of about two kilometres on the eastern side of Qurta. Entitled Qurta I, II and III, each site contains several prehistoric rocks bearing a rich collection of Palaeolithic illustrations featuring a large number of bovids, hippopotami, birds and human figures.”

Bovids are the most common animals depicted in the illustrations, with at least 111 representations in different positions. Of other animals there are seven examples of birds, three hippopotami, three gazelles and two fish. There are also 10 highly stylised human figures shown with pronounced buttocks, but with no other distinct bodily features.

All the rock art images are very darkly coloured and seem to be covered by a substantially developed varnish. Most of the images also have traces of intensive weathering through Aeolian abrasion and water run-off. Read the rest of this entry »