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Paleoindians Made Needles from Fox, Cat, and Hare Bones

May 29, 2025

Humans could not colonize regions with cold climates until they learned how to sew furs together into warm clothes. Needles could be made from stone, but bone is easier to work into needles, so bones were more commonly used to manufacture needles during pre-historical times. The earliest evidence of humans using needles dates to 40,000 years ago in Europe. Neanderthals lived in Europe earlier than this, and they must have also had this technology. Needles are proxy evidence of humans making clothes from furs sewn together. Ancient evidence of bone needles is rare and fur clothes even rarer because they are organic and unlikely to be preserved. Evidence of needles has been found at the La Pele site in Wyoming dating to 12,900 years ago. Scientists recently analyzed these bone needles and identified which types of animals they came from.

Humans in Wyoming used fox, cat, and hare bones to make bone needles. These are the likely species, but they didn’t actually identify them to the species level. Chart from the below referenced study.

Archaeologists found 32 bone needle fragments from 11 specimens. They were able to determine which types of animals they came from by studying the peptides in the bone needles. Different animals have different combinations of peptides and can be identified. A peptide consists of 2 or more amino acids, and they are shorter than proteins which consist of 50 or more amino acids. The scientists who participated in this study identified 3 red fox, 4 hares, and 1 cat. They couldn’t identify the others. The hare was either a snowshoe hare or a jack rabbit. The cat might have been bobcat, Canadian lynx, cougar, or the extinct pseudo-cheetah. The canid was probably a red fox. People likely trapped these animals. Although they may have been eaten, the primary use of these animals was for their fur. Their bones were also used to manufacture needles. These animals have tightly spaced hairs that trap warm air next to skin and are exceptionally good for making warm clothes. The Folsom Culture, a people whose lives revolved around hunting bison during the early Holocene, utilized hare almost as much as bison.

Reference:

Pelton, S. et. al.

“Early Paleoindian Use of Canids, Felids, and Hares for Bone Needle Production at the La Pele Site, Wyoming, USA”

PLOS ONe November 2024

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Neolithic Lake Villages in Europe

February 6, 2025

I wonder what life was like in Neolithic Europe when it was still mostly wilderness. People began practicing agriculture, and they became more sedentary, but this must have been difficult. They grew wheat, rye, barley, peas, flax, and poppy seeds. These crops had to be defended from wild boar, deer, bear, crows, and other seed-eating birds. Livestock had to be protected from wolves and bears. Moreover, village outcasts likely rummaged through the crops as well. Perhaps the biggest threat to not only their food supply, but their lives, came from nomadic tribes traveling on horseback from distant lands. These strangers pillaged, raped, and robbed. Motivations varied but clearly some tribes participated in these heinous acts from a sense of joyous cruelty. As a defensive adaptation, some sedentary people built their villages on stilts or piles over marshes or lakes. They surrounded these villages with walls of upright logs, and they used canoes to access the village from land. Gates could keep the villages relatively safe from invading barbarians traveling on horses. They weren’t impregnable, but invaders would need to build a fleet of canoes and also find a way to breech the walls.

In Europe archaeologists often find the remains of houses built over lakes that people lived in thousands of years ago.

Location of some lakes in Europe where the remains of villages built on stilts have been found. The Jura region of Switzerland has the most sites, but this defensive adaptation was used all over Europe. Map from the below referenced study.

Artist’s representation of a Neolithic lake village. During winter when the lake froze they could just walk over the ice. Nomadic raiders may have roamed less during brutal European winters.

Lake villages must have been neat places to live with a beautiful view of the lake. Hearths kept the insides of homes warm. Archaeologists have found collapsed walls where tools were hung. Houses had trap doors where people crapped, pissed, and dumped their garbage. The waste likely attracted fish and turtles–an easily accessed form of protein. If crops failed or were destroyed, the lakes offered these 2 sources of protein as well as ducks and geese and edible aquatic plants. Archaeologists sift through the organic matter from these former sites and find remains of some of the wild plants they ate. Crabapple and hazelnut are the most common items found, but lake dwellers also ate strawberries, black berries, raspberries, elderberries, beechnuts, acorns, common reed seeds (Phragamites), spinach relatives, turnip, garlic mustard, pine nuts, and blackthorn (a relative similar to sour plums).

The oldest known site of a lake village (also known as pile dwellings) is in Albania, and it dates to 7900 years ago. The practice spread across Europe, and sites of former lake villages are found in Germany, France, and Austria. The Jura region in Switzerland has the most sites–more than 50. The practice spread all the way to Great Britain where they are known as crannaries. People ceased building lake villages in Europe about 2000 years ago, and these structures rotted and collapsed into the lake for archaeologists to find thousands of years after they were abandoned.

Reference:

Colledge, S.; and J. Conolly

“Wild Plant Use in European Neolithic Subsistence Economics: A formal assessment of Preservation Bias and the Implication for Understanding Changes in Plant Distribution”

Quaternary Science Review 101 October 2014

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A Genetic Study of Mark Gelbart–My 23 and Me Results

January 12, 2023

My late mother’s cousin researched our family genealogy years ago. and I know quite a bit about our family’s history. Nevertheless, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know what the science reveals. I submitted my DNA to 23 and Me, a service that analyzes a person’s genetics for a fee. The results arrived a few days ago. They determined I was 51.2% British (English and Irish) and 48.8% Ashkenazi Jew. I must have inherited a little more DNA from my mom than from my dad. I already knew I was half of English descent and half Jewish. My mom’s cousin’s genealogy chart on my maternal side goes back 1000 years. Most of the names on my maternal side are very English–Parsons, Penhollow, Howe, etc. However, the oldest names are Norman (the French speaking Vikings who invaded England 1000 years ago). I have no Scandinavian ancestry according to these results. 23 and Me must interpret British ancestry as the indigenous British population + Viking invaders + the Germanic tribes who invaded England even earlier. I also take issue with 23 and Me’s classification of Ashkenazi Jews as European. Ashkenazi Jews originated in the Middle East (primarily the location of modern Israel). They are descendants of the people Romans conquered and forcibly removed from Judea 1900 years ago. The foundling population of Ashkenazi Jews was likely just a few hundred individuals who clung to their traditions. The rest were assimilated or perished.

I have good knowledge of my ancestry, so the results were not a surprise. I’m half British and half Ashkenazi Jew. I take issue though with 23 and Me classifying Ashkenazi as European rather than Middle Eastern. Ashkenazi Jews originated in the Levant.

I was most interested in finding out if I had any relatives I didn’t know about. I found out I have seven 2nd cousins and hundreds of 3rd and 4th cousins who submitted their DNA to 23 and Me. I don’t know any of them. My closest relative who submitted their DNA to 23 and Me supposedly shares a Great Grandparent with me. I know the surnames of 7 out of 8 of my Great Grandparents. They are Gelbart, Shneier, Klarriech, Bailey, Wages, Cobb, and Parsons. The family tree provided by 23 and Me suggests she is related to a Great Grandparent on my Jewish side, but I can’t determine who. She is 1/4th Jewish and 1/4th English. This result is a bit of a mystery, and I think this result might be slightly off. I think it is more likely we share a Great-Great Grandparent, probably from the Klarriech side. I think there was someone from that side who arrived in the U.S. early enough. Her mother was born in 1930. My 2nd closest relative shares a Great-Great-Grandparent, and I think I did figure this one out. He includes the Bailey surname in his list of family surnames. Sam Bailey lived from 1840-1922, and he is one of my Great-Great-Grandparents. I’ve lost touch with my mom’s paternal side relatives, even though many of them live here in Georgia. My Grandfather called one side of his family a “rough bunch” and “horse thieves from Alabama.” I’d be interested in meeting their descendants. I thought I wouldn’t have many Jewish relatives because of the Holocaust, but I was wrong. There are lots of Jewish-sounding names on my paternal side. The list of places where their parents were born is like a map of where Ashkenazi Jews ranged. Birthplaces listed by my 23 and Me relatives include U.S. (359), Poland (217), Russia (193), Ukraine (167), Romania (71), Hungary (67), Lithuania (67), Austria (61), Germany (61), Belarus (59), U.K. (37), Canada (28), Latvia (20), Czeck Republic (11), South Africa (10), Moldavia (10), Italy (9), Israel (7), France (7), and the Netherlands (5).

23 and Me also estimates the chances of certain traits. I do prefer salty snacks over sweet. They gave that a 57% chance. Against the odds, I do like broccoli and Brussel sprouts and cilantro. Unfortunately, also against the odds I have a bald spot and back hair.

I do have back hair and a bald spot, so that is against the odds, but I don’t have dimples.
I do have blue eyes. My hair thinning didn’t occur until after 40.

23 and Me goes way back and can tell which haplogroup I belong to. My mom is from maternal haplogroup H1 which originated from one woman who lived 18,000 years ago and spread throughout Europe and Asia after the Last Glacial Maximum. My paternal haplogroup is much older originating 47,500 years ago in North Africa. They are known as haplogroup E-M5021. They eventually became farmers. The report also claims I’m less than 2% Neanderthal, but I am more Neanderthal than 76% of the population.
My maternal line is haplogroup H1 which originated about 18,000 years ago. We all descend from the same mother who lived in Africa between 150,000-200,000 years BP.
My paternal haplogroup is E-M5021. They are thought to have become farmers.

I was glad I submitted my DNA results, and I hope more of my relatives eventually submit theirs.

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The Fascinating Mystery of Homo naledi

October 12, 2022

Homo naledi, an extinct species of human not ancestral to Homo sapiens, is known from just 1 fossil site in the entire world–Rising Star Cave in South Africa. The remains consist of 15 individuals that apparently were buried in the same location over time. They were discovered during 2013 and anthropologists believe they were deliberately buried, though Homo naledi had a much smaller brain that modern humans. The discovery spawned a fascinating mystery. Why did a primitive species of human bury their dead in the same location? Anthropologists don’t believe humans with such a small cranial capacity could have a concept of an afterlife. The burial pit is pitch dark. They must have used torches to see inside the chamber, but anthropologists don’t think humans this primitive could have mastered fire. Some anthropologists don’t think the site is a deliberate burial pit. They suggest the bodies were simply thrown down a shaft or were carried by flood water. However, the majority of anthropologists who have examined the evidence do believe the bodies were deliberately buried.

Scientists used a variety of dating techniques to determine the age of the Homo naledi remains including uranium-thorium decay, optically stimulated luminescence, electron spin resonance, and paleo-magnetic analysis. They determined the bones range in age from 414,000 years BP-236,000 years BP. This means Homo naledi co-existed for a while with our ancestors: Homo erectus or maybe even Homo heidelbergensis. An anatomical analysis determined they shared characteristics with Australopithecus and Homo genuses, but they should be placed in the latter genus. They could walk upright just like us, though they were better climbers than modern humans. On average adults were less than 5 feet tall and weighed less than 100 pounds. Dental evidence suggests they are dirt-covered roots and bulbs. The location is some distance away from an area rich in game, so they may have existed in a spot where predators such as leopards were less common. They probably used tools. No other evidence of this species may ever be discovered. They diverged from our ancestors at least 900,000 years ago, and we likely will never know very much about our distance cousins.

References:

Dirks, P., et. al.

“The Age of Homo naledi and associated sediments in the Rising Star Cave, South Africa”

Evolutionary Biology May 2017

Irish, J., et. al.

“Ancient teeth, Phenetic Affinities, and African Hominins: Another Look at where Homo naledi fits in”

Journal of Human Evolution 122 September 2015

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Pleistocene Paw, Hoof, and Footprints in New Mexico (redux)

August 17, 2022

I already wrote an article with this title 2 years ago, but a minor disaster last week inspired me to rewrite it. In the original article I wrote the fossilized human footprints found at White Sands National Park were at least 11,000 years old. A new study published last year determined the footprints were between 23,000 years-21,000 years old. I tried to edit in a note to the old article explaining the results of the new study, and some kind of glitch erased the last 2 paragraphs and the image I used for the original article. I could look for the old handwritten first draft in a stack of old notebooks I keep in a dusty, old, cardboard box, then retype it, but I decided to start all over and rewrite it completely.

During the late Pleistocene climate patterns were much different in the American Southwest than they are today. The region enjoyed higher rainfall and a cooler more temperate climate, resulting in abundant lakes. Lake Otero, now a completely dry lakebed, was filled with water then and surrounded with lush prairie and scattered trees. A drier climate phase struck, and the lake began to recede, leaving a muddy shoreline where many species of mammals left trackways, including humans, mammoths, camels, bison, Harlan’s ground sloths, saber-toothed cats, giant lions, and dire wolves. Some of the human trackways crisscross those of a ground sloth, and it appears as if the sloth paused and stood, so the animal could better detect the human scent. 61 fossilized human footprints have been found here, and they are mostly of teenagers and children. Apparently, the teenagers were going back and forth, as if they were carrying objects. Children appear to be playing. Scientists hypothesize the adults were fishing and/or collecting edible aquatic plants, and the teens were carrying the items to a camp (not yet found by archaeologists). One teenager was babysitting a toddler and carrying it around.

Human trackways at White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Some scientists estimate these footprints are about 21,000 years old. Human trackways are interspersed with the prints of Pleistocene megafauna.
Artist’s rendition of White Sands National Park 21,000 years ago. Image is a courtesy of the National Park Service.

Of course, fossilized footprints can’t be radiocarbon dated, so how did scientists date the trackways? They radiocarbon dated the ditch grass (Ruppia cirrhosa) seeds found in sediment above and below where the trackways are located. They determined the trackways are between 23,000 years BP-21,000 years BP. This evidence contradicts mainstream archaeologists who believe humans didn’t arrive in North America until about 14,000 years ago.

Diagram showing how the conclusions by the above discussed study could be wrong. Gary Haynes believes wind erosion redeposited older sediment over younger sediment or simply displaced younger sediment so 21,000-year-old ditch grass seeds were on the surface when men and megafauna walked in the area 13,000 years ago. Image from the below reference (Haynes 2022).

Gary Haynes, a renowned archaeologist, casts doubt on the purported age of the trackways. In an article he published in the journal PaleoAmerica, he points out 3 factors that could cause the scientists to reach misleading conclusions about the age of the trackways. The presence of hardwater in an environment causes radiocarbon dates to be older than they actually are. The scientists who dated the trackways were aware of this but think this isn’t a problem because local water is currently not hard. However, Haynes points out they didn’t analyze modern ditch grass to see if it absorbs a greater concentration of hard water than is found in the environment. Another factor that could cause misleading dates is redeposition of sandy sediment by wind. One study of a stratigraphic column in the area nearby found roughly half of the dates were out of order with older sediment on top of younger sediment and alternating with it. Haynes thinks the stratigraphic column in the region where the trackways are found date to between 15,000 years BP-11,000 years BP, dates consistent with when the Clovis culture was known to occur in North America. Finally, he thinks the trackways were made 13,000 years ago, but the exposed sediment where the humans and animals walked happened to be older due to wind redeposition. In other words wind blew the younger sediment away, and people and animals were walking on old sediment.

M. Bennett is the lead author of the study determining the trackways were 21,000 years old. His response to Haynes’s alternative explanation was short and rather obtuse. He believes it was unlikely redeposition of windblown sand occurred, but he offers no explanation why. He also stated the trackways couldn’t be of Holocene age because the human trackways were interspersed with Pleistocene megafauna trackways, and Pleistocene megafauna were extinct by the Holocene (beginning about 11,000 years ago). However, Haynes merely quoted another study that mentioned the trackways being of Holocene age was just 1 of 3 possibilities. Bennett didn’t even address Haynes’s belief that the trackways date to 13,000 years BP when Pleistocene megafauna still roamed the region.

References:

Bennett, M. , et. al.

“Evidence of Humans in North America during the Last Glacial Maximum”

Science 373 6562 2021

Haynes, G.

“Evidence for Humans at White Sands National Park during the Last Glacial Maximum could be for Clovis People ~13,000 years ago”

PaloeAmerica March 2022

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Aborigines may have Occurred in South America and Southwestern North America Before the Last Glacial Maximum

August 10, 2022

There is tantalizing genetic and archaeological evidence suggesting small ephemeral populations of people related to Australian aborigines occupied parts of South America and southwestern North America thousands of years before Amerindians colonized the continents. The archaeological evidence predates or at some sites is simultaneous with the Last Glacial Maximum, the climate phase when the most recent Ice Age glaciers reached their greatest extent about 21,000 years ago. Mainstream archaeologists long believed the first humans arrived in the Americas about 14,000 years ago, but there are just too many compelling archaeological sites, especially in South America and southwestern North America, that contradict this view. The radio-carbon dates can’t be wrong on all of them. Examples of archaeological sites predating or simultaneous with the Last Glacial Maximum include Monte Verde, Chile (33,000 years BP), Toca de Tara Peia, Brazil (20,000 years BP), Arroyo del Vizcaina, Uruguay (30,000 years BP), fossil footprints in Argentina (30,000 years BP), Chiquihuite Cave, Mexico (26,000 years-19,000 years BP), Conxcatlan Cave, Mexico (30,000 years BP) and fossil footprints in New Mexico (21,000 years BP). Now, a recent study of a site in New Mexico determined humans butchered a mammoth and calf here 37,000 years ago.

The recently studied site located in New Mexico is known as the Harley Mammoth Locality named after the hiker who found it. Scientists examined the mammoth bones using CAT scans and determined the mammoths were butchered by humans. The skulls were broken to extract the calorie-rich brains. Ribs were removed from vertebrae–a logical step when breaking down a large mammal. Calorie-rich marrow was extracted from the bones as well. 6 chert flakes, debitage from toolmaking, were found in situ. And it appears as if some of the bones were used for fuel to cook fish over open campfires. Fish scales were found, though the site is 70 yards from the nearest source of water. There is no sign of carnivore scavenging, but the scientists did find termite and cicada burrows in the bones. Insects likely burrowed into the bones after they were slowly buried when rain over time washed sediment downslope over the bones. Later, wind eroded some of this sediment away, allowing Hartley to find some of this material.

Stones modified by tool-making found at the Hartley Mammoth Site dated to an incredible 37,000 years BP. Image from the below reference.
Mammoth bones with evidence of human butchering. From the Hartley Mammoth Site located in New Mexico. Image also from the below reference.

3 Indian tribes found in the Amazon Basin, including the Surui, Karitiana, and Xavanti, have a genetic marker suggesting some of their ancestry is related to the ancestors of Australian aborigines. This genetic marker is known as the Y population and is found in no other known populations of Indian tribes. The oldest known human skeleton in the Americas, the Anzick child from South Dakota, dates to about 12,900 years ago and does not have this genetic marker. This genetic evidence suggests 2 different populations colonized the Americas. Aborigines colonized Australia about 40,000 years ago, and it seems likely they were capable of long-distance sea travel then–a knowledge that was lost over time. Small groups of them may have discovered South America at about the same time their relatives found Australia. Maybe, they were so traumatized by harrowing sea journeys, they decided to stick to land, and over a generation they forgot how to travel by sea. I hypothesize populations of aborigines in America remained low over millennia and likely were always on the verge of extinction in the harsh environments of the Late Pleistocene. The later invasion of more technologically advanced Indians probably displaced the aborigines across most of their range with the exception of the Amazon Basin where they interbred. Perhaps, Indians were more dependent upon aborigine knowledge in the more challenging environment of the Amazon jungle.

3 tribes in the Amazon basin have a genetic signature shared with Australian aborigines. No other Indian tribes in the Americas have this signature. These tribes may be relics from a more widespread population that was displaced by Indians during the Late Pleistocene. Linguistic evidence also suggests the former existence of aborigines alongside Amerindians.

Apparently, aborigines didn’t have as negative an impact on megafauna populations as the Indians. They were fewer in number and never specialized in hunting megafauna, though they did occasionally kill large animals. They probably preferred exploiting small game and fish because it was less risky. Small aborigine tribes couldn’t risk casualties when hunting larger more dangerous animals.

Reference:

Rowe, T. et. al.

“Human Occupation of the North American Colorado Plateau ~37,000 years ago”

Frontiers of Ecology and Evolution July 2022

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.903795/full#S12

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The Mysterious Pygmy Man of Northern Sumatra and Digital Fakery

November 12, 2021

Cryptozoology is a waste of time. >99% of the time when a mysterious creature is spotted or caught on camera, it is determined to be an existing species or a fake. Bigfoot is a man in an ape suit. The television show, The Unexplained, lately airing on The Travel Channel, included a segment with a video showing a mysterious pygmy-like humanoid running away from motorcycle riders on a dirt road in the jungles of Sumatra. The video was released on social media during March of 2017 by Fred Pastrana who puts videos of his off road motor cycle riding club on Twitter. Allegedly, his club was riding on a dirt road in Sumatra when they encountered a strange pygmy-like man who ran away and disappeared in the tall grass. The lead motorcycle rider tipped over when the pygmy first appeared.

Analysts on the television show speculated the pygmy belonged to a surviving band of the Mante tribe that was thought to have gone extinct through interbreeding with the general population. However, analysts noticed the figure was too small even for a pygmy but could not be a child because it was built like an adult. Instead, they speculated the figure could be an individual related to the extinct species of human known as Homo floriensis. This species is believed to have been a dwarf offshoot of Homo erectus that lived on the Indonesian island of Flores between 190,000 years BP-50,000 years BP when they were probably wiped out by newly arriving Homo sapiens. H. floriensis grew to 3 feet 7 inches tall, and they used stone tools similar to those used by Australopithicus. Some anthropologists speculate H. floriensis might still exist and recent survivors are the source for a local legend, the ebu gogo–the cannibalistic grandmother. According to the legend, the ebu gogo are a tribe of small people who ate everything including farmer’s crops and the farmers themselves. They had a mumbling language, and the women had long breasts that they draped over their shoulders when they ran.

I carefully analyzed the video (watch it here https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2017/04/02/aceh-sighting-ape-or-pygmy-could-have-been-small-person-says-expert.html ), and I suggest it is some form of digital fakery. The video is shot by a man in a trailing motorcycle. He is filming straight ahead and comes upon the lead motorcycle which allegedly crashed when first encountering the pygmy. There is something suspicious about this scene–the pygmy is nowhere to be seen in the frame.

Supposedly the cyclist crashed when he saw the pygmy man come out of the forest, but there is no pygmy man in this frame.

Next, the trailing motorcyclist briefly points the camera at the ground and when he points it straight again, the creature is suddenly in the frame. This is a clever trick because it disguises the insertion of a phony 3-D animated figure into the frame. The figure runs faster than an Olympic sprinter while the motorcyclist follows. The figure is wearing some kind of weird hat reminiscent of a video game character based on the Greek God Mercury. The hat doesn’t fall off, despite his amazingly fast sprint down the road. Finally, the figure disappears into the grass. The Indonesian government actually wasted money looking for this tribe in order to determine how to protect a people who don’t really exist. Maybe someone who plays video games will recognize what game this figure is from.

This is the first shot of the pygmy man. Just before this frame, the camera man cleverly points the camera to the ground before pointing it straight again. This is so the video doesn’t obviously look fake when they insert this image into the video.
Note the size comparison. The figure is too small to be a modern day pygmy, leading some to speculate that it is a surviving individual of an extinct species of dwarf man known as Homo floriensis. Instead, I suggest it is totally fake.
He’s clearly wearing some kind of weird hat. Why doesn’t the hat fall off when he is running this fast?
The figure slips into the tall grass never to be seen again. I suggest the figure is an image from a video game inserted into this video.

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Middle Pleistocene Man (Homo heidelbergensis)

January 29, 2021

Many late Pleistocene animals evolved from middle Pleistocene ancestors that were different enough to be considered separate species.  Columbian mammoths (Mammuthus colombi) evolved from the southern mammoth (M. meridionalis), a shorter elephant with straighter tusks. Jefferson’s ground sloth (Megalonyx jeffersoni) evolved from Wheatley’s ground sloth (M. wheatleyi), and Smilodon fatalis evolved from the more lightly built S. gracilis, among many other examples.  The same is true for humans.  Both Homo sapiens and H. neanderthalis evolved from H. heidelbergensis, also known as Heidelberg man after discovery of the first specimen in Heidelberg, Germany during 1907.  Genetic evidence suggests modern humans diverged from Neanderthals between 750,000 years BP-550,000 years BP.  The population of Heidelberg man that lived in Europe evolved into H. neanderthalis, while the population of Heidelberg man that lived in Africa evolved into H. sapiens.  (The poorly known Denisovans diverged from Neanderthals.) Fossil evidence of Heidelberg man dates to between 600,000 years BP-300,000 years BP, though undoubtedly it occurred earlier than the fossil evidence indicates.  The oldest evidence of humans in Europe dates to 800,000 years ago and was found in Spain, but these specimens are considered an extinct sister species of Heidelberg man known as H. ancessor.

Homo Heidelbergensis: Forbears of Homo Sapiens - The Human Journey

Artist’s depiction of Homo heidelbergensis.  They were about the same height as modern men and had the same average brain capacity, but their jaws were distinctly different.

New insights on the wooden weapons from the Paleolithic site of Schöningen - ScienceDirect

The Schoningen spears, 330,000 year old projectile weapons used by Homo heidelbergensis.  They were found in a strip mine in Germany.  Archaeologists found 9 spears, 1 lance, a stick pointed on both ends, and a burned stick along with the remains of butchered horses next to a lakeshore.

Heidelberg man evolved from H. erectus.  Heidelberg man had a more human-like face and a larger brain capacity (averaging 1200 cc compared to 973 cc).  They had the same average brain size as modern day humans, and the main difference between the 2 is the shape of the jaw which was distinct.  Heidelberg man was the first species of human to colonize regions with cold climates.  To survive in harsher climates, they evolved to eat more meat.  In Europe this diet included elephant, rhino, bear, deer, boar, and horse; and in Africa they ate antelope and zebra.  They surely ate many different kinds of plants, but nothing is known of the vegetal part of their diet.  Heidelberg man had control of fire and used tools such as stone hand axes and wooden spears. In 1994 nine spears made of spruce wood were found in a German strip mine, and they dated to 330,000 years BP.  They are known as the Schoningen spears, and they were found associated with butchered horse bones.  Rapid rise of a lake level covered all this evidence in sediment and helped preserve it.

I have no doubt Heidelberg man could speak, though a minority of scientific opinion believes they could not.  The hyoid bone, important for speech, is well developed as are the middle ear bones used for understanding speech.  There is also evidence for right brain/left brain lateralization–one side of the brain is more dominant.  Brain lateralization suggests a brain used to speak and understand speech.  Heidelberg man hunted large mammals, an activity requiring cooperative hunting and therefore speech.

Specimens of Heidelberg man have been found in sites located in Germany, England, France, Greece, India, Zambia, Kenya, Ethiopia, and South Africa.  I tried to find out exactly how many specimens have been discovered worldwide, but as far as I can determine no study has catalogued them all.

Heidelberg man likely occurred in low population numbers, fluctuating with boom and bust climatic conditions, and whole tribes often perished  when important members died.  One site in Germany where Heidelberg remains were found also yielded bones of saber-tooths (Homotherium), lions, leopards, hyenas, bear, elephant, red deer, and horse.  Unlike modern humans, Heidelberg man didn’t always win in competition with the predators they shared the landscape with.

Reference:

Schoch, W.; G. Bigga, W. bohner, P. Richter, and T. Terberger

“New Insights on the Wooden Weapons from the Paleolithic Site of Schoningen”

Journal of Human Evolution 89 December 2015

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The Pleistocene Christmas Tree

December 24, 2020

I’m hosting family this week for Christmas, and I don’t have time to work on a new blog article. Here is a rerun.

markgelbart's avatarGeorgiaBeforePeople

Christmas is a pagan holiday that probably originated during the Pleistocene.  Many of the pagan traditions associated with Christmas are rooted in northern European mythology, and they predate written records, so historians have no way of knowing for sure when they began. However, the celebration of the winter solstice was widespread throughout the ancient world, and people enjoyed this holiday thousands of years before the Judeo-Christian bible was ever written.  The wise men of the primitive world believed that the sun was a God.  This actually makes more sense than what the Abrahamic religions claim because life on earth does depend upon the sun.  The Abrahamic religions propose that a Supreme Being created the sun, but this belief leaves one to wonder who created the Supreme Being.  In a culture without scientific knowledge paganism seems just as logical if not more so than Judeo-Christianity.

The ancient thinkers noticed the days became shorter during…

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Cave Paintings of Megafauna in the Amazon Rain Forest

December 5, 2020

Archaeologists have been studying ancient paintings on cave and rock shelter walls in Cheribiquete National Park for over 30 years, but last year they discovered an 8 mile stretch that includes rare images of extinct megafauna.  Cheribiquete National Park is located in Colombia and covers 17,000 square miles–the largest tropical forest park in the world.  The newly discovered rock shelter walls are illustrated with images of a giant ground sloth and young, horse, llama, macrauchenia, gompothere, and perhaps bear.  An extinct species of horse known as hippidion lived in South America over 10,000 years ago.  The llama depicted on the wall maybe an extinct or extant species.  All the images are crudely drawn and don’t depict adequate details to distinguish species identification.  These may be the only images of a gompothere and macrauchenia that have ever been drawn by people who actually saw them alive.  Gompotheres were a mastodon-like animal, similar to elephants, but nothing like a macrauchenia lives today.  Their closest living relatives are rhinos, horses, and tapirs; but genetic evidence suggests they diverged from those odd toed ungulates 66 million years ago when dinosaurs became extinct.  Macrauchenia were adaptable animals capable of living in many different kinds of habitats, and they likely occupied a giraffe-like ecological niche because they had long necks.  Fossil remains of macrauchenia are not found anywhere near Cheribiquete National Park, showing how inadequate the fossil record is.

Image

Rock art paintings of pre-historic megafauna.  The art work is poor, but I think they depict a ground sloth and young, gompothere (an animal similar to a mastodon), a llama, an horse, and a bear or another ground sloth?, and a macrauchenia.  It looks like a man is hunting the gompothere (a juvenile?) with a club or atlatl.  It also looks like a man has his armed raised at the ground sloth, but the atlatl isn’t drawn.  In another image it looks like the man is stabbing the bear in the side.

Colombia expands Chiribiquete National Park

The Natives must have used ladders to paint these figures on some of the rock shelters.  They are much higher than a human can reach.  Archaeologists used drones to photograph some of them.

Archaeologists suggest the natives scaled the high rock shelter walls to paint these images.  I think it is more likely they used ladders to reach these heights.  The paintings are thought to vary in age from about 15,000 years BP to the 16th century.  Apparently, natives stopped painting walls shortly after European contact perhaps because the culture shock of this interaction destroyed American civilizations.  The paintings themselves can’t be radio-carbon dated because the substance used was inorganic.  European cave paintings were drawn with charcoal and can be radio-carbon dated.

Some of the articles reporting this discovery are written by people who assume the presence of the animals depicted on the rock shelter walls is evidence of a different local environment during the Late Pleistocene than occurs there today.  This is not necessarily true.  Macrauchenia was a generalist species, and gompotheres likely preferred dense forests.  Clearings in the forest created by gompothere foraging may have sustained populations of horses and llamas.

In addition to the extensive rock shelter drawings, Cheribiquete National Park is home to 82 species of mammals (52 of them bats), an astonishing 410 species of birds, 60 species of reptiles, 57 species of amphibians, 238 species of fish, and over 200 species of butterflies.  Notable animals include jaguars, cougars, monkeys, armadillos, peccaries, tapirs, scarlet macaws, emerald hummingbirds, and harpy eagles.  The park has great potential as a tourist destination.  Unfortunately, it is also an hideout for thousands of FARC rebels.  FARC is an organization that basically is a bunch of communist gangsters who kidnap people for ransom and sell cocaine.  FARC battled the Colombian government for 40 years before finally signing a peace agreement recently, but the region is still not safe enough for tourism.

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Posted in anthropology, Pleistocene Mammals | 1 Comment »

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