236 replies to this topic

[wjfox]

Archaeologists uncover Palaeolithic ceramic art

Ceramics found on the coast of the Adriatic attest to a hitherto unknown artistic culture which flourished during the last Ice Age, thousands of years before pottery was commonly used.

http://www.cam.ac.uk...ic-ceramic-art/

[SG-1]

Very cool! Maybe, in the future he could be brought back? I don't know but it would be the closest thing to time travel if that were to happen. Either way, this is big news.
http://drudgegae.iav...and-110406.html

A human skull dated to about 2,684 years ago with an "exceptionally preserved" human brain still inside of it was recently discovered in a waterlogged U.K. pit, according to a new Journal of Archaeological Science study.
The brain is the oldest known intact human brain from Europe and Asia, according to the authors, who also believe it's one of the best-preserved ancient brains in the world.
"The early Iron Age skull belonged to a man, probably in his thirties," lead author Sonia O'Connor told Discovery News. "Cause of death is rarely possible to determine in archaeological remains, but in this case, damage to the neck vertebrae is consistent with a hanging."

[kjaggard]

bringing back a hanged man, to a world of scorcery and demi-gods. That would be interesting.

[zEVerzan]

Oh man, that's incredible. Could be a bigger discovery than "ice man" or that frozen mammoth. At least, I think it could be. We could learn if ancient brain biology was subtly different than today's! How would an ancient Briton react to the future?

[Guyverman1990]

It's only from approx 600 BC, a bit to soon to be considered "Prehistoric".

[shane_allen]

The scientists found no evidence for bacterial or fungal activity, and described the tissue as being "odorless…with a resilient, tofu-like texture."

Well, I suppose a taste test is still technically science.

[hellgorama]

well any chance of growing a brain with the same DNA material to see how the ancient humans thought and acted?

[SG-1]

Well it isn't really prehistoric I guess. They are the same species they wouldn't act differently. Maybe it would be possible to resurrect him or extract some memories in the future. Maybe even upload its mind. That is, if they haven't cut it up yet or damaged it by not preserving it.

[kjaggard]

"Prehistoric Human Brain Found"


uhoh, is somebody missing a senator?

[Time_Traveller]

The Neanderthals are both the most familiar and the least understood of all our fossil kin.



For decades after the initial discovery of their bones in a cave in Germany in 1856 Homo neanderthalensis was viewed as a hairy brute who stumbled around Ice Age Eurasia on bent knees, eventually to be replaced by elegant, upright Cro-Magnon, the true ancestor of modern Europeans.

From http://news.national...reeding-humans/

Now they say Neanderthals were just like us.

Edited by Time_Traveller, 13 October 2012 - 01:42 PM.

[zEVerzan]

I wouldn't say Neanderthals were "just like us"... they were actually the most carnivorous of all apes, which put them at a disadvantage. They had to regularly resort to cannibalism, which was yet another blow to their survivability. However, in terms of personality and intelligence I'd say they were probably very similar, but they probably lacked imaginations because their environment didn't call for it. The closest they got to art was handprints.

[Dead Redshirt]

To say they're just like us is quite a stretch. They're the earliest beings that are most like us, but there are too many differences between them and us to say that they're just like us.

[Zeitgeist123]

is it true that the Basque people of Spain have the highest number of neanderthal genes in them?>

[UFG]

The article is not claiming, despite the headlined designed to draw attention (journalism 101), that they are just like us. What's clear from the article is that there is no consensus on the extent of breeding between Neanders and ourselves, or that it actually occured. I suppose it's possible that an older, common ancestor existed. With the "The even larger percentage of Neanderthal DNA found in Asians and South Americans, announced in Science in August, " One can see that "These are complexities in the out-of-Africa story that certainly I would not have anticipated two or three years ago," I think it possible that more findings will show us that were indeed creative and artistic, more so then we suppose at this time.

Edited by UFG, 14 October 2012 - 04:22 AM.

[Time_Traveller]

A team of scientists has created what it believes is the first really accurate reconstruction of Neanderthal man, from a skeleton that was discovered in France over a century ago.

http://youtu.be/Svdvm-i0mek

From http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-19960748

Edited by Time_Traveller, 23 October 2012 - 08:30 PM.

[zEVerzan]

That guy who said a Neanderthal was in his direct ancestry... tsk. We may have a bit in us, but we're not descended from Neanderthals, we coexisted with them for like 5,000 years. Neanderthal is our sister race, we both evolved from Homo heidlebergensis.

SO! When do we get to clone one? I really wonder how a Neanderthal growing up in our modern world would act. Would his/her behavior be different in a fundamental way? How would the specimen react to being told that it's the only one of its kind, and its blood relatives had died out thousands of years ago? Would we release him/her into the wild world of today, or would we keep him/her isolated for study?

Edited by EVanimations, 23 October 2012 - 08:19 PM.

[SG-1]

I would bet that they would be cared for at a lab while they were young and then released with someone or a couple and they do checkups often. It would be a life with little privacy though. How intelligent were these Neanderthals? Were they even intelligent at all? Did they even have language?

[Time_Traveller]

I would bet that they would be cared for at a lab while they were young and then released with someone or a couple and they do checkups often. It would be a life with little privacy though.

How intelligent were these Neanderthals? Were they even intelligent at all? Did they even have language?

See here: - http://en.wikipedia....iki/Neanderthal

[zEVerzan]

Neanderthals were certainly at least as intelligent as modern humans, but being a different species some cultural differences were probably very prevalent. I would guess their language would include a lot of nasal noises like "mmm" and "nnn", judging by the size of that honker. People from colder climates tend to speak with a lot of nasality, and especially since their noses were designed for cold, they must have had some powerful, spaceous sinuses for processing all that frigid ice age air. Also, their vocal folds were positioned in the throat differently, so they would have considerable trouble making some of the sounds we can make with ease, like "ooh". They could have had a language, it would have just been very different than any language we would make.

Edited by EVanimations, 23 October 2012 - 08:41 PM.

[Zeitgeist123]

well, there are some moral implications of cloning a neanderthal since these creatures are sentient like us. ive read somewhere that it may be possible that neanderthals are even smarter than us, though they do not have complex ability on art or the like. anyway, the neanderthal looks like ron weasley when hes gonna be 40.

Edited by Zeitgeist123, 24 October 2012 - 01:01 AM.