Posted on 08/21/2014 9:55:57 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Researchers have carried out the biggest ever comparative study of stone tools dating to between 130,000 and 75,000 years ago found in the region between sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia. They have discovered there are marked differences in the way stone tools were made, reflecting a diversity of cultural traditions. The study has also identified at least four distinct populations, each relatively isolated from each other with their own different cultural characteristics.
The research paper also suggests that early populations took advantage of rivers and lakes that criss-crossed the Saharan desert. A climate model coupled with data about these ancient water courses was matched with the new findings on stone tools to reveal that populations connected by rivers had similarities in their cultures. This could be the earliest evidence of different populations 'budding' across the Sahara, using the rivers to disperse and meet people from other populations...
The researchers from the University of Oxford, Kings College London and the University of Bordeaux took over 300,000 measurements of stone tools from 17 archaeological sites across North Africa, including the Sahara. For the first time they combined the stone tool data with a model of the North African environment during that period, which showed that the Sahara was then a patchwork of savannah, grasslands and water, interspersed with desert. They also mapped out known ancient rivers and major lakes, building on earlier research by Professor Nick Drake, one of this paper's co-authors. By modelling and mapping the environment, the researchers were then able to draw new inferences on the contexts in which the ancient populations made and used their tools...
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
I am not reacting to anything except the fact that the entire piece is pure conjecture. Take that to the bank.
“Cool lunch box, by the way. From a time when parents would buy one for a kid and even fill it with something to eat. Every day!”
That practice has been made a felony, since it is unfair to lazy parents. Also unfair to students who’s parents can’t afford peanut butter and jelly because their high data plans on their phones, and extended movie packages on their cable for their 72” widescreens.
” It’s unfortunate that the temptation to retrofit modern notions of diversity was too great for the author to resist, as it debases all that was written.”
Well stated.
“There were obviously diverse cultures present though, despite the freighted meaning.”
But now you are doing it!
What does diverse cultures even mean? Modern jargon is all it is.
If they mean tools that differed were found in different geographic areas, then they should say that.
cavewymon, lol. The Ohio valley has had many cultures come and go. It seems most last a maximum of 500 hundred years. It makes me wonder if our own culture will make it that long. I’ve found everything from mammoth hunter’s knives to elk teeth from fairly recent in Ohio’s history.
“Cool lunch box, by the way. From a time when parents would buy one for a kid and even fill it with something to eat. Every day! “
Yea, brings back GOOD MEMORIES. My mom used to do that - back when parents WERE ALLOWED to choose what foods their kids got to eat.
And sometimes there would be “CHOCOLATE” milk in the Thermos! CALL THE FOOD POLICE!
Still trying to push the “out of Africa” theory?
LOL!
Yes, that phrasing would not have been political. But, every science it seems has come to be politicized to the point that I just refer to this sort of thing as political science.
I guess if you are a homo it would be Jonny or Hadji, Spanky or Buckwheat, Moe or Curly, Greg or Peter...
yes.
Ancient Arabian Stones Hint at How Humans Migrated Out of Africa
By Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor
http://www.livescience.com/47555-stone-artifacts-human-migration.html
> The northeast African stone tools the researchers analyzed were similar to ones previously found near modern-human skeletons. The scientists found that stone artifacts at two of the three Arabian sites were “extremely similar” to the northeast African stone tools, Scerri told Live Science. At the very least, Scerri said, this finding suggests that there was some level of interaction between the groups in Africa and those in the Arabian Peninsula, and might hint that these Arabian tools were made by modern humans.
Surprisingly, Scerri said, tools from the third Arabian site the researchers analyzed were “completely different.” “This shows that there was a number of different tool-making traditions in northern Arabia during this time, often in very close proximity to each other,” she said.
One possible explanation for these differences is that the artifacts were made by different human lineages. Future research needs to uncover skeletal remains with ancient tools unearthed from the Arabian Peninsula to help solve this mystery, Scerri noted. Unless skeletal remains are found near such artifacts, it will remain uncertain whether modern humans or a different human lineage might have made them.
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