Neanderthals had human spines, according to ScienceDaily 25 February 2019 and PNAS 25 February 2019, doi: 10.1073/pnas.1820745116. Researchers at the University of Zurich have used high resolution 3D scans to study an almost complete skeleton found in La Chapelle-aux-Saints in France in the early 20th century. Neanderthals have traditionally been shown has having a stooped […]
Neanderthals had precision hands, according to Science (AAAS) News 26 September 2018 and Science Advances 26 September 2018, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aat2369. Human hands are made for gripping and manipulating objects. There are two basic ways of gripping objects depending on whether the task involves fine precise movements, such as writing, painting or sewing, or brute force, […]
Lucy’s child’ climbed trees, according to articles in ScienceDaily and National Geographic 4 July 2018 and Cosmos 6 July 2018 and Science Advances 4 July 2018, doi: 10.1126/sciadv.aar7723. A team of scientists in the USA have studied a foot fossil found with a partial skeleton in Ethiopia in 2002. The skeleton has been identified as […]
Neanderthals were artists, according to reports in BBC News, Nature News, Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 22 February 2018, and Science doi: 10.1126/science.aap7778, 23 February 2018, and Science Advances DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aar5255, 22 February 2018. Over the past few years scientists studying rock art and artefacts in several caves in Spain. Some of it is just […]
Crocodiles, not Lucy, butchered bones, according to Science (AAAS) News and PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1716317114, published online 6 November 2017. In 2010 anthropologists claimed that marks on bones found in the Afar region in Ethiopia were the earliest evidence of human ancestors using stone tools to butcher animals. The bones were dated as 3.4 million years, […]
Neanderthals grew like us, according to articles in Science (AAAS) News and ScienceDaily 21 September 2017, and Science vol. 357, pp. 1282-1287 doi: 10.1126/science.aan6463, 22 September 2017. A team of scientists led by A. Rosas at Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (MNCN)-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC) in Madrid, Spain, have studied the partial skeleton […]
Tiny teeth tell of hobbit evolution, according to a report in New Scientist 6 March 2013. The Hobbit, is the nickname given to an extinct species named Homo floresiensis that is claimed to be a dwarf human by some anthropologists. However, its teeth and brain size are disproportionally small for a typical human dwarf. So […]
Stone tools increase Hobbit age, according to reports in ScienceNOW 17 March 2010 and ABC (Australia) News in Science 18 March 2010. In 2004 the bones of a creature nicknamed the Hobbit were found in a cave on the Indonesian island of Flores. Even though it had a chimp sized brain and ape-like body size […]
Sophisticated, fearless Neanderthals described in an article in AlphaGalileo and ScienceDaily 14 May 2009. Neanderthals are usually portrayed as brutish muscle men who were unable to compete with smarter modern men in the struggle for existence. Gerrit Dusseldorp of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research has analysed archaeological sites of Neanderthals and concluded they were […]
Smart Neanderthals had feelings, according to articles in ScienceDaily21 September 2010 and Fossil Science 23 September 2010 and 6 October 2010. Anthropologist Julien Riel-Salvatore of UC Denver has challenged the idea that Neanderthals were “thick-skulled, primitive ‘cavemen’ overrun and out-competed by more advanced modern humans arriving in Europe from Africa”. Riel-Salvatore has spent seven years […]