Beyond bones & stones
Israel's Qesem cave is approx. 12 km east of Tel Aviv. At 420,000 to 220,000 years old, it is a lower Paleolithic site. Qesem cave has flint blades, scrapers, knives, as well as flakes and hammer stones. All stages of stool tool making has been found from the site. In 2010, archaeologists called it the the oldest... Continue Reading →
What happens when you get a archaeologist, an ecologist, and a paleontologist to in the same room to look at old data with a new lens? You get, "Productivity, biodiversity, and pathogens influence the global hunter-gatherer population density," published in PNAS, where the influence of environmental conditions on the abundance of pre-industrial humans is investigated.... Continue Reading →
A study published today in the journal Nature analyzed more than 7,200 stone tools from middle Paleolithic Attirampakkam creekside site in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Archaeologists from the Sharma Centre for Heritage Education have been unearthing these tools for the last 20 years from the site. There aren't any human remains, yet,... Continue Reading →
The internet has been buzzing about a potential 11,500-12,000 year old skull cult from Göbekli Tepe in Turkey. Göbekli Tepe was just discovered several years ago. The site is decorated with pillars depicting carvings of headless humans, snakes, and scorpions. It is thought be world's oldest known Neolithic monumental religious complex. Yesterday, in Science Advances German... Continue Reading →
Claudine Gravel-Miguel, archaeology doctoral student at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, research has taken her to the Caverna delle Arene Candide in Italy. In the 1940's this cave was discovered. 20 individuals were buried there. The site is about 11,000 - 13,000 years old. For decades, as excavations progressed,... Continue Reading →
A lot of discussion is constantly had about what is the healthiest diet; low fat or low carb. An interesting study was published in the Lancet recently where anthropologists teamed with cardiologists to study cardiac health of Amazon's Tsimane. The Tsimane are Bolivian. They live off and around the Maniqui River located in the Amazon... Continue Reading →
British anthropologist Arthur Thomson, in the late 1800's published his observations on nose size and shape. He noted that humans from humid, warm climates have wider, shorter noses than humans from colder, dryer climates who have more narrow, longer noses. He carried on his observation postulating that the shape of the nose was influenced by the... Continue Reading →
Over at the Washington Post, there's an interesting article documenting how two Amazonian Awá tribeswomen have escaped the modern life after being forced out of their traditional life styles. The Awá are one of many endangered tribes, threatened out of existence due to deforestation and modernization. Theye estimated to be about 450 people who now mostly... Continue Reading →
