Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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New Discoveries About Human Prehistory are Opening Up Revolutionary Possibilities
by Jan Ritch-Frel
and
October 13, 2022

Introduction:
(Alternet) Discoveries in the fields of human origins, paleoanthropology, cognitive science, and behavioral biology have accelerated in the past few decades. We occasionally bump into news reports that new findings have revolutionary implications for how humanity lives today—but the information for the most part is still packed obscurely in the worlds of science and academia.

Some experts have tried to make the work more accessible, but Deborah Barsky’s new book, Human Prehistory: Exploring the Past to Understand the Future (Cambridge University Press, 2022), is one of the most authoritative yet. The breadth and synthesis of the work are impressive, and Barsky’s highly original analysis on the subject—from the beginnings of culture to how humanity began to be alienated from the natural world—keeps the reader engaged throughout.

Long before Jane Goodall began telling the world we would do well to study our evolutionary origins and genetic cousins, it was a well-established philosophical creed that things go better for humanity the more we try to know ourselves.

Barsky, a researcher at the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution and associate professor at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC) and Rovira i Virgili University in Tarragona, Spain, who came to this field through her decades of studying ancient stone tool technologies, writes early in her book that lessons learned from the remote past could guide our species toward a brighter future, but “that so much of the information that is amassed by prehistoric archeologists remains inaccessible to many people” and “appears far removed from our daily lives.” I reached out to Barsky in the early stage of her book launch to learn more.
Read more here: https://www.alternet.org/2022/10/disco ... bilities/

caltrek’s comment: There are so many areas of study in which I have an interest that I am not sure I will actually get around to reading Barsky’s new book. From the interview contained in the link above, I think that her book is a very nice fit for this forum. It not only studies the past, but seeks to actively link those studies to understanding our future. What closer match could you ask for to this forum?
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Study Finds Ancient Humans Were Apex Predators For 2 Million Years
by Mike McRae
October 17, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) Paleolithic cuisine was anything but lean and green, according to a study on the diets of our Pleistocene ancestors.

For a good 2 million years, Homo sapiens and their ancestors ditched the salad and dined heavily on meat, putting them at the top of the food chain.
It's not quite the balanced diet of berries, grains, and steak we might picture when we think of 'paleo' food.

But according to a study last year by anthropologists from Israel's Tel Aviv University and the University of Minho in Portugal, modern hunter-gatherers have given us the wrong impression of what we once ate.

"This comparison is futile, however, because 2 million years ago hunter-gatherer societies could hunt and consume elephants and other large animals – while today's hunter gatherers do not have access to such bounty," researcher Miki Ben‐Dor from Israel's Tel Aviv University explained in 2021.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/ancient-h ... udy-finds

For a lengthy presentation on the results of the study as published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10 ... jpa.24247
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Yuli Ban
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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And remember my friend, future events such as these will affect you in the future
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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Ancient DNA Analysis Sheds Light on the Early Peopling of South America
November 1, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert)The Americas were the last continent to be inhabited by humans. An increasing body of archaeological and genomic evidence has hinted to a complex settlement process. This is especially true for South America, where unexpected ancestral signals have raised perplexing scenarios for the early migrations into different regions of the continent.

Many unanswered questions still persist, such as whether the first humans migrated south along the Pacific coast or by some other route. While there is archaeological evidence for a north-to-south migration during the initial peopling of the Americas by ancient Indigenous peoples, where these ancient humans went after they arrived has remained elusive.

Using DNA from two ancient human individuals unearthed in two different archaeological sites in northeast Brazil – Pedra do Tubarão and Alcobaça – and powerful algorithms and genomic analyses, Florida Atlantic University researchers in collaboration with Emory University have unraveled the deep demographic history of South America at the regional level with some unexpected and surprising results.

Not only do researchers provide new genetic evidence supporting existing archaeological data of the north-to-south migration toward South America, they also have discovered migrations in the opposite direction along the Atlantic coast – for the first time. The work provides the most complete genetic evidence to date for complex ancient Central and South American migration routes.

Among the key findings, researchers also have discovered evidence of Neanderthal ancestry within the genomes of ancient individuals from South America. Neanderthals are an extinct population of archaic humans that ranged across Eurasia during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/969421
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Earliest human fossils in the UK reveal how ancient Europeans were connected
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-earliest- ... eveal.html
by Emma Caton, Natural History Museum
Piecing together the story of human evolution is an undeniably complex task.

However, new research has brought us closer to understanding how early humans in Britain may have been related to other European populations over 400,000 years ago.

In the 1990s, part of a lower leg bone and two fossil teeth were unearthed at an archaeological site in Boxgrove, West Sussex.

Dating to around 480,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene, the Boxgrove fossils are the oldest human remains discovered in the U.K. and were identified as most likely belonging to the ancient human species Homo heidelbergensis.

Scientists are now trying to determine if the Boxgrove humans belong to the same population as other early human fossils discovered at the archaeological site Sima de los Huesos (meaning "pit of bones") in Spain which date to a similar time period.

The new study, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, found that the incisor teeth from Boxgrove fit comfortably within the range of fossil teeth found at the Sima site in Spain. Therefore, they could potentially represent similar populations. However, the Boxgrove leg bone, or tibia, differed significantly from those discovered in Spain, suggesting it could be from entirely separate populations.
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Scientists discover southward migration of Arctic Ocean species during the last glacial period
https://phys.org/news/2022-11-scientist ... ocean.html
by The University of Hong Kong
In order to survive, a species must find the most favorable habitat to pass on its genes. Therefore, learning how species migrated with climate change is very important for protecting species from environmental threats.

In light of this, a research team led by Dr. He Wang and Dr. Moriaki Yasuhara from the School of Biological Sciences (SBS) and the Swire Institute of Marine Science (SWIMS) of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) studied the impact of East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM).

They identified two southward migration events of polar species of Arctic ostracods during the last glacial period and determined the ages of these two events for the first time. The results will help researchers better understand Asian monsoon dynamics and their impacts on the marine ecosystem and polar species, thereby reducing the risk of species extinction. The study has recently been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Oldest Known Dog Bone Hints Our Best Friends Were With Us Earlier Than Thought
by Michele Starr
November 30, 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) An ancient bone is helping scientists refine the timeline of humanity's relationship with our best friends – the canine companions that have brightened our lives for millennia.

How many millennia? Well, no one knows for sure. But precision carbon dating is helping narrow it down.

A canine humerus recovered from Erralla cave in the Basque Country, Spain in 1985 has now been dated to between 17,410 and 17,096 years ago. And multiple lines of analysis confirm it's not from a wolf, but a dog: Canis familiaris. This means that old, cracked humerus represents the oldest dog bone to date.

That's an incredible datapoint for contextualizing dog domestication, and opens up new discussions about the timeline and the nature of remains of "dog-like wolves" thought to be an intermediate stage between wolves and dogs.

When and how dogs diverged from their wolf (Canis lupus) ancestors, and when they became domesticated, are subjects of some debate.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/oldest-kn ... n-thought
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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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An Unknown "Ghost" Human Species Has Been Found By Computers
by Tom Hale
November 29, 2022. (The original version of this article was published in 2020)

Introduction:
(IFL Science) The ancient ancestors of people living in West Africa appear to have interbred with a mysterious “ghost” hominin – another missing character in the story of humans.

The research suggests that some populations living in West Africa today have traces of an archaic hominin species laying within their DNA, much like how Neanderthal DNA can still be found in many populations of non-African descent and Denisovan DNA lives on in people of Asian heritage. However, unlike these two relatives of Homo sapiens, no physical remains of this ancient hominin have ever been found by modern science.

Reported in the journal Science Advances in 2020, researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles' School of Medicine looked to find segments of archaic ancestry within the genomes of over 400 people from four West African populations from the 1,000 Genomes Project, including the Yoruba and Mende populations.

Using a computer-modeling technique, they found that between 2 and 19 percent of their genetic ancestry was derived from an unaccounted-for source, creating the big question: "who" was this?

The researchers argue the best bet is that the genes of an unknown hominin entered the gene pool through introgression, the flow of genes that occurs when members of two populations mate and the resulting hybrid individuals then breed with members of the parent populations. It’s perfectly feasible that the hominin in question could even be a whole new species of early human, say the researchers, whose ancestors most likely split off from the human family tree before the ancestors of Neanderthals and Denisovans.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/an-unknown- ... ers-66427
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Jawbone may represent earliest presence of humans in Europe
https://phys.org/news/2022-12-jawbone-e ... urope.html
by Binghamton University
For over a century, one of the earliest human fossils ever discovered in Spain has been long considered a Neandertal. However, new analysis from an international research team, including scientists at Binghamton University, State University of New York, dismantles this century-long interpretation, demonstrating that this fossil is not a Neandertal; rather, it may actually represent the earliest presence of Homo sapiens ever documented in Europe.

In 1887, a fossil mandible was discovered during quarrying activities in the town of Banyoles, Spain, and has been studied by different researchers over the past century. The Banyoles fossil likely dates to between approximately 45,000–65,000 years ago, at a time when Europe was occupied by Neandertals, and most researchers have generally linked it to this species.

"The mandible has been studied throughout the past century and was long considered to be a Neandertal based on its age and location, and the fact that it lacks one of the diagnostic features of Homo sapiens: a chin," said Binghamton University graduate student Brian Keeling.
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caltrek
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Re: Human Prehistory (3.3 million years BC – 3500 BC)

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Switch to Farming Led to First Domestication of Cats
by Brian Consiglio
December 5, 2022

Introduction:
(Futurity) Cat genes reveal how invention of agriculture bonded cats with people in ancient Mesopotamia, leading to worldwide feline migration with humans, researchers report.

Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers.

They developed close bonds with the rodent-eating cats that conveniently served as ancient pest-control in society’s first civilizations.

The researchers’ new study finds this lifestyle transition for humans was the catalyst that sparked the world’s first domestication of cats, and as humans began to travel the world, they brought their new feline friends along with them.

Leslie A. Lyons, a feline geneticist and Gilbreath-McLorn, professor of comparative medicine in the University of Missouri College of Veterinary Medicine, collected and analyzed DNA from cats in and around the Fertile Crescent area, as well as throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, comparing nearly 200 different genetic markers.
Read more of the Futurity article here: https://www.futurity.org/cats-domestic ... -2840272/

Read a presentation of the study results in Heredity here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-022-00568-4
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