A group of scientists in Germany have studied a type of black pitch named birch tar (sometimes called birch bark pitch), claimed to be the “oldest synthetic substance made by early humans”. This substance has been found in Neanderthal sites and was used as an adhesive in tools and artefacts. It also has waterproofing and […]
An international team of scientists have compiled data from studies of human remains in 180 archaeological sites in Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden, dated between around 8000 – 4000 years ago – believed to be the time when farming replaced hunter-gathering in Europe. They found evidence of many head injuries from blunt […]
In the mid-1970s a team of palaeontologists led by Mary Leakey found numerous footprints in a layer of solidified volcanic ash at Laetoli, Tanzania. Those found in a location called Site G have been studied in detail. They are so like human footprints that some scientists have commented they could have been made by people […]
Famous ape-man diagram must goclaims geneticist Adam Rutherford, from the University College London, according to an article in Daily Mail 21 June 2021. He claims that the well-known textbook diagram depicting the evolution of ape to man represents an inaccurate view of evolution and should be ditched from school textbooks and popular science media. In […]
New Philippino human species found, claim scientists in BBC News, Science (AAAS) News, ScienceDaily and Nature 11 April 2019 doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1067-9. A team of scientists led by Armand Mijares of University of the Philippines, Quezon City explored a cave in the Philippine island of Luzon and found seven teeth, two finger bones, two toe bones, […]
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, […]