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Keyword: homoerectus

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  • "Cosmic clock" dates earliest human presence in Europe

    03/07/2024 3:35:36 AM PST · by zeestephen · 13 replies
    CNN ^ | 06 March 2024 | Katie Hunt
    Stone tools unearthed in a quarry in [southwest] Ukraine belonged to ancient humans...The researchers determined they were 1.4 million years old...No human fossils have been found at the open-air site...the study suggested it would have been Homo Erectus...The earliest human fossils unearthed in Europe are from...Spain and date back 1.1 million years...In Georgia [Caucasus], human fossils found near Dmanisi are thought to be 1.8 million years old.
  • Two Million Years Ago, This Homo Erectus Lived the High Life

    10/22/2023 10:08:32 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 33 replies
    Smithsonian Magazine ^ | October 13, 2023 | Brian Handwerk
    Study co-author Margherita Mussi, an archaeologist at Sapienza University in Rome, and colleagues combined two techniques: argon-argon dating and a recently completed paleomagnetic dating analysis to fine-tune the site's ages. The fossil and Oldowan artifacts with it had previously been dated to 1.7 million to 1.8 million years ago, but revised ages now place them at some two million years old. The team also used advanced imaging technology to study the fossil and suggest which species it represents..."Now we know, back to two million years ago, it's part of the array of environments that H. erectus occupied in Africa at...
  • A New Human Species? Mystery Surrounds 300,000-Year-Old Fossil

    09/21/2023 12:15:32 PM PDT · by nickcarraway · 16 replies
    Nature ^ | 18 September 2023 | Dyani Lewis
    A chinless jawbone from eastern China that displays both modern and archaic features could represent a new branch of the human family tree.A fossilized jawbone discovered in a cave in eastern China bears a curious mix of ancient and modern features, according to a detailed analysis that compares it with dozens of other human specimens. The finding, published in the Journal of Human Evolution, indicates that the 300,000-year-old bone could have belonged to an as-yet undescribed species of archaic human1. Scientists excavating a cave called Hualongdong, located in Anhui province in eastern China, have unearthed remains of 16 individuals...
  • Giant asteroid rocked Antarctica

    10/17/2004 9:26:51 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 20 replies · 1,011+ views
    The collision happened around 870 000 years ago, a time when Homo erectus, man’s early ancestor, was still roaming the planet. Molten asteroid slabs melted through more than 1.5 kilometres of ice and snow to reach the underlying bedrock... Billions of tons of ice, snow and rock would have been vaporised and thrown into the atmosphere. Rock particles that fell to the ground have been located more that 5 000 kilometres away in Australia. The impact was so immense that it is being considered as the cause of a reversal of the Earth’s magnetic polarity around this time. One...
  • Remains found in China may belong to third human lineage

    08/11/2023 12:59:37 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 26 replies
    Phys dot org ^ | August 4, 2023 | Bob Yirka
    A team of paleontologists... analyzed the fossilized jawbone, partial skull and some leg bones of a hominin dated to 300,000 years ago.The fossils were excavated at a site in Hualongdong, in what is now a part of East China. They were subsequently subjected to both a morphological and a geometric assessment, with the initial focus on the jawbone, which exhibited unique features—a triangular lower edge and a unique bend.The research team suggests that the unique features of the jawbone resemble those of both modern humans and Late Pleistocene hominids. But they also found that it did not have a chin,...
  • Early humans: Tooth enamel reveals life histories

    01/23/2023 6:50:05 AM PST · by SunkenCiv · 2 replies
    Phys dot org ^ | January 16, 2023 | Goethe University Frankfurt am Main
    In order to analyze the tooth enamel, the researchers embedded the teeth in resin and then cut them into wafer-thin slices some 150 micrometers thick. These extremely precious tooth samples are part of the Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald Collection at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, a permanent loan from the Werner Reimers Foundation.In turn, they used a special laser to ablate material from the thin slices, which was chemically analyzed with a mass spectrometer for, among other elements, strontium and calcium, which are found in both bones and teeth (Laser Ablation Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass...
  • Java Man's First Tools

    04/21/2006 11:14:50 AM PDT · by blam · 78 replies · 1,470+ views
    Science Magazine ^ | 3-26-2006 | Richard Stone
    Java Man's First Tools Richard Stone INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20-26 MARCH 2006, MANILA About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early "Java Man" has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found--until now. At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found...
  • The Human Race

    02/21/2005 3:19:37 PM PST · by Indy Pendance · 68 replies · 2,525+ views
    none, opinion | 2-21-05
    What constitutes the categories of the human race? I've learned from early on, it's Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid, three races. We hear today that racism is of Jews or Arabs or Mexicans or whatever is perceived as a minority group or a political hot topic, ie, Arabs, politicians are quick to use the ‘race’ card when referring to specific groups of people. There are Irish Mexicans, Black Jews and Chinese Arabs. So, what is today’s definition of racism? And how can we correct today's PC perception of the races?
  • 'Homo erectus' from Gongwangling could have been the earliest population in China

    06/19/2022 9:10:23 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 16 replies
    Cenieh ^ | Monday, 13 June 2022 | unattributed
    Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) form part of a team of Chinese, Spanish, and French scientists that has just published a study of what may prove to be China's most ancient human fossil, in the Journal of Human Evolution. The researchers employed microCT, geometric morphometry, and classical morphology techniques to investigate the remains of the maxillary and five teeth from the skull unearthed at the Chinese site of Gongwangling.This site is on the vast plains on the northern slopes of the Quinling Mountains (province of Shaanxi, in central China) and was discovered by...
  • This Ancient Human Relative 'Walked Like a Human, But Climbed Like an Ape'

    11/24/2021 7:54:48 AM PST · by Red Badger · 30 replies
    https://www.sciencealert.com ^ | 24 NOVEMBER 2021 | TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS
    Sometime between 7-6 million years ago, our primate ancestors stood up and began to walk on two legs. A defining moment along the winding evolutionary roads to becoming human, this is the feature researchers use to distinguish hominins from other apes. Although why it occurred remains an intriguing mystery. By about 2 million years ago, we became fully bipedal, but there were many steps along the path to get us there. Some of these steps still elude our fossil records, but a new study analyzing the remains of a female Australopithecus that researchers nicknamed Issa, has found another. "Issa walked...
  • Stone Age axe dating back 1.3 million years unearthed in Morocco

    07/29/2021 7:42:14 PM PDT · by blueplum · 26 replies
    al jazerra Via Msn ^ | 28 Jul 2021 | staff
    Archaeologists in Morocco have announced the discovery of North Africa’s oldest Stone Age hand-axe manufacturing site, dating back 1.3 million years, an international team reported on Wednesday. The find pushes back by hundreds of thousands of years the start date in North Africa of the Acheulian stone tool industry associated with a key human ancestor, Homo erectus, researchers on the team told journalists in Rabat Before the find, the presence in Morocco of the Acheulian stone tool industry was thought to date back 700,000 years. New finds at the Thomas Quarry I site, first made famous in 1969 when a...
  • ‘Dragon Man’ skull may help oust Neandertals as our closest ancient relative

    06/25/2021 12:42:51 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 30 replies
    https://www.sciencenews.org ^ | 25 JUNE 2021 | By Bruce Bower
    The fossil may represent a new Homo species that lived more than 146,000 years ago =================================================================================== A fossil skull nicknamed “Dragon Man” has surfaced in China under mysterious circumstances, with big news for Neandertals. Dragon Man belonged to a previously unrecognized Stone Age species that replaces Neandertals as the closest known relatives of people today, researchers say. A nearly complete male skull now housed in the Geoscience Museum of Hebei GEO University in Shijiazhuang, China, represents a species dubbed Homo longi by Hebei GEO paleoanthropologist Xijun Ni and his colleagues. The scientists describe the skull, which dates to at least...
  • Homo erectus, not humans, may have invented the barbed bone point

    10/28/2020 11:11:16 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 26 replies
    Science News ^ | October 22, 2020 | Bruce Bower
    A set of 52 previously excavated but little-studied animal bones from East Africa's Olduvai Gorge includes the world's oldest known barbed bone point, an implement probably crafted by now-extinct Homo erectus at least 800,000 years ago, researchers say. Made from a piece of a large animal's rib, the artifact features three curved barbs and a carved tip, the team reports in the November Journal of Human Evolution. Among the Olduvai bones, biological anthropologist Michael Pante of Colorado State University in Fort Collins and colleagues identified five other tools from more than 800,000 years ago as probable choppers, hammering tools or...
  • DNA from Denisovans can be found in humans today: DNA from an unknown ancient ancestor of humans that once bred with Denisovans still exists among people today, study reveals

    08/07/2020 11:24:25 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 49 replies
    Daily Mail Online ^ | 06 Aug 2020 | Ian Randall
    [Ghost] DNA from an unknown ancient ancestor of humans that once bred with Denisovans still exists among the genomes of people today, a study has revealed. The different branches of the human family tree have interbred and swapped genes -- a processes known as 'introgression' -- on numerous occasions... Experts from the US found that some three per cent of the Neanderthal genome came from interbreeding with another ancient human group 300,000 years ago... The researchers used the algorithm to look at genomes from two Neanderthals, a Denisovan and two African humans. Alongside finding that a small proportion of the...
  • John Hawks - Who were the ancestors of the Neanderthals?

    08/02/2020 1:20:04 PM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 51 replies
    Gorham's Cave Gibraltar on YouTube ^ | September 2018, February 11, 2019 | John Hawks
    The last 10 years have transformed the evidence concerning the early origins and evolution of Neanderthal populations. Genetic comparisons of Neanderthal and Denisovan ancient DNA suggest that the common ancestor of these populations separated from African ancestors of modern humans prior to 600,000 years ago, followed by a rapid differentiation in Eurasia. Later, additional episodes of gene flow brought genes into Neanderthal populations, including the mtDNA clade carried by all later Neanderthals. Yet, a number of western Eurasian fossil samples from the time between 600,000 and 100,000 years ago are difficult to accommodate within the category of "Neanderthals", including European...
  • Britons '200,000 Years Earlier Than First Thought'

    12/24/2001 4:51:53 AM PST · by blam · 33 replies · 683+ views
    Ananova ^ | 12-21-2001
    Britons '200,000 years earlier than first thought' Man could have settled in Britain up to 200,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new studies. Prehistorians had thought the predecessors of modern humans began living in Britain between 450,000 and 500,000 years ago. But recent discoveries in eastern and south western England suggest that is wrong, according to an article in the magazine New Scientist. Researchers working in conjunction with the Natural History Museum are basing their new theories on analysis of a flint axe and other tools found on the East Anglian coast and investigation of butchery marks ...
  • The "Stoned Ape" Hypothesis Might Explain Extraordinary Leap in Evolution

    04/05/2020 12:27:49 PM PDT · by wildbill · 49 replies
    Inverse via Pocket ^ | 4/5/2020 | Sarah Sloat
    EVeryone knows the standard explanation of evolution but the rapid jump from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens has no satisfactory answers. A more radical interpretation of these events involves the same animals, dung, and plants but also includes psychedelic drugs. In 1992, ethnobotanist and psychedelics advocate Terence McKenna argued in the book Food of the Gods that what enabled Homo erectus to evolve into Homo sapiens was its encounter with magic mushrooms and psilocybin, the psychedelic compound within them, on that evolutionary journey. He called this the Stoned Ape Hypothesis. McKenna posited that psilocybin caused the primitive brain’s information-processing capabilities...
  • Direct human ancestor Homo erectus is older than we thought

    04/02/2020 12:45:01 PM PDT · by Red Badger · 37 replies
    Phys.Org ^ | April 2, 2020 | by University of Johannesburg
    A Homo erectus skullcap found northwest of Johannesburg in South Africa has been identified as the oldest to date, in research published in Science. The hominin is a direct ancestor of modern humans, experienced a changing climate, and moved out of Africa into other continents. The discovery of DNH 134 pushes the possible origin of Homo erectus back between 150,000 and 200,000 years. Credit: Therese van Wyk, University of Johannesburg. ____________________________________________________________________________________ An unusual skullcap and thousands of clues have created a southern twist to the story of human ancestors, in research published in Science on 3 April. The rolling hills...
  • New fossils and artifacts show Homo erectus crafted a diverse toolkit

    03/12/2020 1:12:17 AM PDT · by SunkenCiv · 15 replies
    Science News ^ | March 4, 2020 | Bruce Bower
    Hardly one-tool wonders, ancient hominids called Homo erectus relied on a toolkit that included relatively simple and more complex cutting devices, new discoveries suggest. Excavations at two Ethiopian sites located about 5.7 kilometers apart uncovered partial H. erectus braincases alongside two types of stone tools, paleoanthropologist Sileshi Semaw of the National Research Center on Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain, and colleagues report March 4 in Science Advances. Some artifacts featured a single sharpened edge, while others consisted of double-edged designs such as pear-shaped hand axes. One H. erectus fossil dates to about 1.26 million years ago, the other to between...
  • Researchers determine age for last known settlement by a direct ancestor to modern humans

    12/23/2019 5:23:24 AM PST · by zeestephen · 34 replies
    Science Daily ^ | 18 December 2019
    Homo erectus, one of modern humans' direct ancestors, was a wandering bunch. After the species dispersed from Africa about two million years ago, it colonized the ancient world, which included Asia and possibly Europe. But about 400,000 years ago, Homo erectus essentially vanished. The lone exception was a spot called Ngandong, on the Indonesian island of Java. But scientists were unable to agree on a precise time period for the site...A new study...dates the last existence of Homo erectus at Ngandong between 108,000 and 117,000 years ago.