Anthropology And Archeology

[Guest]

Don't you dare leave me alone, this is a ruff crowd ~

Tim

Hey, I'm ALWAYS looking for a reason to launch the 50 MEGATON KITE....

[Guest]

http://www.statesman.com/news/texas/groups-identify-trees-bent-by-american-indians-2274447.html

Native American use of altered / bent trees as landmarks

[Guest KentuckyApeman]

No offense, but there is evidence that human civilizations have been here for over 200,000 years.

They rise and they fall. Impossible? Rome fell. And Egypt, Greece, Persia, Mayan, Asian empires.

Look into Michael Cremo's Forbidden Archeology.

[JDL]

Antedeluvian civilization is my second interest, but I haven't gotten fully up to speed on it yet.

I figure there's a lot of human history sitting on what we now consider the continental shelves. During the last ice age, it was also likely that the oceans were less of a barrier to travel (you could coast along the northern sea ice), than interior glaciers on land.

I also have a theory that hot air balloons were a known technology of the time. Sea levels were lower, coastal civilizations were living in colder weather at an elevation possibly a couple of hundred feet lower than today's sea level. The air would have been denser both from the cold and from the greater compression of the air at a -200' sea level. Any heating of the air would have resulted in even greater lift than we see at today's sea level. I'll bet more than one ice age engineer figured out how to apply the phenomenon.

[Guest]

Kentucky Apeman, what are you referring to? No offense to whom about what? Civilizations "here"--where is here?

Hm. Interesting theory. Hot air balloons.... I guess they would have had to have cloth or large areas of hide or an intact whale stomach or something like that....Not out of the question at all. Are there indications anyone had this?

I always think a lot of evidence of human lives and culture was scraped off or ground into dust by the glaciers, all traces wiped clean from the land.

Use of fire, back a million years

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-04/uot-sfe_1032812.php

[JDL]

I can't cite anything specific on the balloons, but it makes sense. A well waterproofed tent with a fire inside would likely tend to rise from the ground a little. Not too much of a stretch to work out how to use the effect in a variety of ways.

[Guest]

here's a link to whet some of your appetites.

http://pleistocenecoalition.com/

[JDL]

Way Cool Lord Piney.

[Guest]

http://discovere.binghamton.edu/news/quam-2-4623.html

DNA analysis shakes up Neandertal theories

[Guest]

News in Brief: Highlights from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists annual meeting, Portland, Ore., April 11-14

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/339959/title/News_in_Brief_Highlights_from_the_American_Association_of_Physical_Anthropologists_annual_meeting%2C_Portland%2C_Ore.%2C_April_11-14

Stone Age finds in Southeast Asia, chat among Neandertal ancestors and early cannibalism

By Bruce Bower

Web edition : Tuesday, April 17th, 2012

Stone Age Southeast Asians

Researchers have discovered the oldest known human remains in Southeast Asia, a partial human skull dating to at least 40,000 years ago. Excavations at Tam Pa Ling cave in northern Laos produced a dozen pieces from a Stone Age person’s skull, including a skullcap and a lower jaw, anthropologist Laura Shackelford of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign reported April 14. Small front teeth, a rounded brain case and other traits identify the reassembled fossil as a modern Homo sapiens, Shackelford said. The find supports proposals that at least some human migrations out of Africa around 100,000 years ago followed a southern route that led to Southeast Asia.

Neandertal ancestors speak up

A proposed ancestor of Neandertals and Homo sapiens that lived around 500,000 years ago in a mountainous part of what’s now Spain may have had the gift of gab. A new analysis of a Homo heidelbergensis individual’s skull and upper spine bones, as well as a horseshoe-shaped neck bone called the hyoid, suggests that this long-extinct species could have produced speech sounds, paleontologist Ignacio Martínez of the University of Alcalá, Spain, reported on April 12. Humanlike inner ear bones made it possible for H. heidelbergensis to hear conversational speech, Martinez said. “We don’t know if H. heidelbergensis spoke, but it possessed anatomical characteristics for efficient production and perception of speech,†he concluded.

Cannibals and cave graves

Neandertals cannibalized three of their own and buried them in a European cave around 40,000 years ago, anthropologist Hélène Rougier of California State University Northridge reported April 14. Rougier’s team discovered 75 Neandertal bones and teeth that had been stored with animal bones following excavations at Belgium’s Goyet cave more than a century ago. Incisions on the Neandertal fossils match those on bones from animals butchered by Neandertals at the cave. Goyet Neandertals may have been consumed as part of a ritual or purely for food, Rougier proposed. Evidence suggests that simple burials occurred at Goyet and nearby caves visited by Neandertals, she said.

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/339950/title/Ancient_walking_gets_weirder

Ancient walking gets weirder

Fossils from two human ancestors suggest diversity in gait, stance

By Bruce Bower

Web edition : Monday, April 16th, 2012

new analysis of 1.5-million-year-old fossil footprints uncovered at Kenya’s Ileret site suggests that they were made by a human ancestor with a gait different than that of modern humans.Courtesy of Matthew Bennett/Bournemouth Univ.

PORTLAND, Ore. — The simple act of walking continues to take strange detours among ancient human ancestors.

To wit, 1.5 million-year-old footprints excavated in Africa, initially thought to reflect a thoroughly modern walking style, were instead made by individuals that walked differently than people today do, researchers reported April 13 at the annual meeting of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. And findings presented April 12 at the meeting revealed the surprisingly apelike qualities of foot fossils from a 2 million-year-old species that some researchers regard as the root of the Homo genus.

These reports come on the heels of evidence that a previously unknown member of the human evolutionary family 3.4 million years ago possessed a gorillalike grasping big toe and an ungainly stride (SN Online: 3/28/12).

Depth measurements of the African footprints, discovered at Kenya’s Ileret site, differ at 10 landmarks from the footprints of people who live in that area today, said graduate student Kevin Hatala of George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

“We can infer that the ancient Ileret individuals had a normal, functional gait, but they may have walked differently than we do,†Hatala said. For now, it’s uncertain just how these hominids walked and whether they belonged to Homo erectus, a possibly direct human ancestor, or to the side-branch species Paranthropus boisei.

Technologies that produce 3D images of footprints preserved in different types of soil should soon yield insights into how hominids walked at Ileret and at other ancient sites, commented graduate student Sarita Morse of the University of Liverpool in England.

Hatala and his colleagues compared five preserved Ileret footprints to those of 38 Daasanach herders in Kenya, none of whom wear shoes. Participants walked across a pressure pad before walking across moistened Ileret soil that approximated the conditions under which the ancient footprints were made. Pressure measurements at 10 spots across the bottom of the foot closely corresponded to depth measurements at the same spots on volunteers’ footprints.

Disparities in depth measurements between Daasanach and ancient Ileret footprints signaled that the hominids walked unlike people today do.

Other comparisons to Daasanach footprints indicated that two sets of Ileret tracks were made by individuals who were walking, not running, and who stood about 5 feet, 6 inches tall and weighed 110 pounds. That’s in the general size range of Daasanach people today.

Meanwhile, new analyses of foot bones from two partial Australopithecus sediba skeletons, excavated in South Africa (SN: 5/8/10, p. 14), show that this hominid had an upwardly curved, mobile mid-foot built for tree-climbing, reported anthropologist Jeremy DeSilva of Boston University. Previous work had identified thin, apelike heels combined with humanlike ankles and arches in these fossil skeletons.

“This is a really weird foot,†DeSilva said. “Diversity in upright stances must have extended for a long time during hominid evolution.â€

Edited April 19, 2012 by Kings Canyon

[Guest vilnoori]

I agree, that is a very weird foot: look at the distance between the ball of the foot and the smaller toe imprints. Those were long, long toes, held a bit curled up so they give those normal toe imprints, all a bit higher than the big toe. Look at the shape of them, and the size of the littlest toe compared to the biggest toe. Not a normal print. Plus, the individual was walking on tip-toe in mud. If the trackway is estimated to be 1.5 million years old, a 5.5 ft. tall individual it probably isn't H. habilis, or an Australopithecus as was previously thought because they were much smaller. Yet erectus prints and remains have much more human-like feet. Maybe we are looking at a previously undiscovered species.

For those of us that find BF tracks, do try to look for these kinds of very odd characteristics! As far as I can see, BF tracks I have seen remind me of neanderthal tracks, with the extra width and the "peas in a pod" placement of the toes.

[Guest MikeG]

I also have a theory that hot air balloons were a known technology of the time.

This has often been suggested about the Nazca lines in Peru. They had finely woven cloth, they made ropes and baskets, and they had fire. All they needed was someone with the bright idea to put them all together.

Mike

[Guest BFSleuth]

I think this must be a 1.5 million year old hoax.

[Guest]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120419132556.htm

How Social Interaction and Teamwork Led to Human Intelligence

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2012) — Scientists have discovered proof that the evolution of intelligence and larger brain sizes can be driven by cooperation and teamwork, shedding new light on the origins of what it means to be human. The study appears online in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B and was led by scientists at Trinity College Dublin: PhD student, Luke McNally and Assistant Professor Dr Andrew Jackson at the School of Natural Sciences in collaboration with Dr Sam Brown of the University of Edinburgh......

[Guest KentuckyApeman]

Kentucky Apeman, what are you referring to? No offense to whom about what? Civilizations "here"--where is here?

Sorry KC, I lost track of this thread. Here's a site that covers a lot of ground on many topics. Take a look at the Ancient Civilizations part:

http://davidpratt.info/homepage.htm

There have been discoveries made of human artifacts and human remains in locations that predate the accepted timeline by hundreds of thousands of years. However, they are dismissed by main stream science since it does not fit their 'current paradigm'.

Throughout current history, everytime a 'theory' is accepted, any challenge to it is vigirously denied. Then over time, the new ideas are slowly accepted as facts.

Not too long ago the world was flat. Then it wasn't, then came plate tectonics. Yet the idea that all the continents were once one large land mass was laughed at. Now it's accepted. But now even those latest theories are being questioned. Man is a very dogmatic species, who doesn't accept new concepts readily.