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MADRID, Spain - A small piece of jawbone unearthed in a cave in Spain is the oldest known fossil of a human ancestor in Europe and suggests that people lived on the continent much earlier than previously believed, scientists say. The researchers said the fossil found last year at Atapuerca in northern Spain, along with stone tools and animal bones, is up to 1.3 million years old. That would be 500,000 years older than remains from a 1997 find that prompted the naming of a new species: Homo antecessor, or Pioneer Man, possibly a common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern...

Researchers have identified what they say are the oldest-known musical instruments in the world.The flutes, made from bird bone and mammoth ivory, come from a cave in southern Germany which contains early evidence for the occupation of Europe by modern humans - Homo sapiens. Scientists used carbon dating to show that the flutes were between 42,000 and 43,000 years old. The findings are described in the Journal of Human Evolution. A team led by Prof Tom Higham at Oxford University dated animal bones in the same ground layers as the flutes at Geissenkloesterle Cave in Germany's Swabian Jura. Prof Nick...

Found in a German cave, suggesting humans were piping tunes from bone and ivory flutes more than 35,000 years ago, new research has shown. Scientists discovered remains of the instruments in a German cave once populated by some of the first modern humans to settle in Europe after leaving Africa. Instrument has five finger holes and two deep V-shaped notches at one end The finds suggest that our oldest ancestors in Europe had a well-established musical tradition. The most significant discovery was a complete flute made from a griffon vulture bone. Measuring 21.8cm, with a diameter of about 8mm, the...

AP Photo/Daniel Maurer A bird-bone flute unearthed in a German cave was carved some 35,000 years ago and is the oldest handcrafted musical instrument yet discovered, archaeologists say, offering the latest evidence that early modern humans in Europe had established a complex and creative culture.

A study of a rock engraving discovered within Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar finds that the cross-hatched impression was likely created by Neanderthals and excluding the possibility of an unintentional or utilitarian origin, would represent Neanderthals' capacity for abstract expression. Previously-discovered cave art has been exclusively attributed to modern humans, who arrived in Western Europe around 40,000 years ago. In July 2012, researchers discovered the abstract pattern engraved in the rock of Gorham's Cave which is located on the southeast face of the Rock of Gibraltar. The cross-hatched pattern was overlain by undisturbed sediment in which Neanderthal artefacts had previously been...

Ancient and Modern Europeans Have Surprising Genetic Connection by Charles Q. Choi, Live Science Contributor | November 06, 2014 There is a surprising genetic unity between the earliest known Europeans and contemporary Europeans, ancient DNA reveals. This finding suggests that a complex network of sexual exchange may have existed across Europe over the past 50,000 years, and also helps to pinpoint when modern humans interbred with Neanderthals, the closest extinct relatives of modern humans, the researchers said. The origin of contemporary Europeans continues to be debated. The modern human ancestors of contemporary Eurasians are believed to have left Africa about...

The study also uncovers a more accurate timescale for when humans and Neanderthals interbred, and finds evidence for an early contact between the European hunter-gatherers and those in the Middle East – who would later develop agriculture and disperse into Europe about 8,000 years ago, transforming the European gene pool. Scientists now believe Eurasians separated into at least three populations earlier than 36,000 years ago: Western Eurasians, East Asians and a mystery third lineage, all of whose descendants would develop the unique features of most non-African peoples - but not before some interbreeding with Neanderthals took place. Led by the...

A genetic analysis of a 45,000-year-old thigh bone narrows down the time when modern humans and Neanderthals first interbred.A 45,000-year-old leg bone is raising questions about just how close modern-day humans are to our thick-browed Stone Age ancestors. DNA from the femur of a Siberian man is helping to pinpoint when modern humans and Neanderthals first interbred, researchers say. But what does this mean for the human connection to a species that disappeared nearly 30,000 years ago? The thigh bone, spotted six years ago on the banks of the Irtysh River in Siberia by a Russian artist who carves jewelry...

Nicholas Wade, a British-born science reporter and editor for more than 30 years with The New York Times, is no longer with the newspaper — just days after the release of his latest book, in which he depicts blacks with roots in sub-Saharan Africa as genetically less adapted to modern life than whites and Asians. Was The New York Times uncomfortable with Wade’s science or his conclusions? It’s unclear. Neither Wade nor his former employer returned requests for comment. Wade’s last Times article appeared April 24. His Penguin Press book “A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race and Human History” arrived in...

".. The orthodoxy's equivalent of the Nicene Creed has two scientific tenets. The first, promulgated by geneticist Richard Lewontin in "The Apportionment of Human Diversity" (1972), is that the races are so close to genetically identical that "racial classification is now seen to be of virtually no genetic or taxonomic significance." The second, popularized by the late paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould, is that human evolution in everything but cosmetic differences stopped before humans left Africa, meaning that "human equality is a contingent fact of history," as he put it in an essay of that title in 1984." "Since the sequencing...

Scientists have sequenced the oldest complete human genome. The DNA comes from an anatomically modern man who roamed Western Siberia 45,000 years ago. It provides experts with a more accurate timeline of when modern humans mated with their Neanderthal cousins as they moved from Africa into Europe, between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. Scientists have sequenced the oldest complete human genome. The DNA comes from an anatomically modern man who roamed Western Siberia 45,000 years ago. His remains were fund near the settlement of Ust’-Ishim in western Siberia in 2008. The male lived around the time the populations of Europe...

France - Scientists said Wednesday they had unravelled the oldest DNA ever retrieved from a Homo sapiens bone, a feat that sheds light on modern humans' colonisation of the planet. A femur found by chance on the banks of a west Siberian river in 2008 is that of a man who died around 45,000 years ago, they said. Teased out of collagen in the ancient bone, the genome contains traces from Neanderthals -- a cousin species who lived in Eurasia alongside H. sapiens before mysteriously disappearing. Previous research has found that Neanderthals and H. sapiens interbred, leaving a tiny Neanderthal...

Pre neanderthal bones 200,000 years old have been discovered on a building site, and could shed light on every day behaviour of our extinct relatives It is thought that these pre neanderthal bones could shed light on the everyday behaviour of our closest extinct relative. They were discovered in Northern France by chance on a building site and it is though the arm bones could be as much as 200,000 years old. It is a rare find, only 12 other sites in Europe have discovered such significant archeological remains. The bones are of particular scientific interest because they hint at...

A series of lines scratched into rock in a cave near the southwestern tip of Europe could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent and creative than previously thought. The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art, according to a team of scientists who studied the site. The find is significant because it indicates that modern humans and their extinct cousins shared the capacity for abstract expression. The study, released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, examined grooves in a rock that had been covered with...

FRANK JORDANS, Associated PressMonday, September 1, 2014 BERLIN (AP) — A series of lines scratched into rock in a cave near the southwestern tip of Europe could be proof that Neanderthals were more intelligent and creative than previously thought. The cross-hatched engravings inside Gorham's Cave in Gibraltar are the first known examples of Neanderthal rock art, according to a team of scientists who studied the site. The find is significant because it indicates that modern humans and their extinct cousins shared the capacity for abstract expression. The study, released Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,...

A new study concludes that modern humans arrived in Europe much earlier than previously believed, and clarifies more specifically the long time period they overlapped with Neanderthals. The significant overlap bolsters a theory that the two species met, bred and possibly exchanged or copied vital toolmaking techniques. It represents another twist in an enduring puzzle about human origins: why we triumphed while the better adapted and similarly intelligent Neanderthals died out. The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. Neanderthals are our closest known extinct relatives, with about 99.5% of DNA in common with humans. They had a brain...

New fossil dates show our ancient cousins disappeared 40,000 years ago. The Neanderthals died out about 10,000 years earlier than previously thought, new fossil dating suggests, adding to evidence that the arrival of modern humans in Europe pushed our ancient Stone Age cousins into extinction. (Read "Last of the Neanderthals" in National Geographic magazine.) Neanderthals' mysterious disappearance from the fossil record has long puzzled scholars who wondered whether the species went extinct on its own or was helped on its way out by Europe's first modern human migrants. "When did the Neanderthals disappear, and why?" says Tom Higham of the...

Neanderthals may have caught, butchered and cooked wild pigeons long before modern humans became regular consumers of bird meat, a study revealed on Thursday. Close examination of 1,724 bones from rock doves, found in a cave in Gibraltar and dated to between 67,000 and 28,000 years ago, revealed cuts, human tooth marks and burns, said a paper in the journal Scientific Reports. This suggested the doves may have been butchered and then roasted, wrote the researchers—the first evidence of hominids eating birds. And the evidence suggested Neanderthals ate much like a latter-day Homo sapiens would tuck into a roast chicken,...

A site in southwestern France found to be rich in the bones of horses and other large herbivores has provided important insights into the hunting and scavenging habits of Neanderthals. A team of archaeologists from the French archaeological agency Inrap have unearthed hundreds of bones at the Middle Paleolithic site in Quincieux dating back 35,000 to 55,000 years. The work was started due to roadworks in the area, with the outstanding discovery prompting local authorities to extend the time available for excavations. The excavation of the prehistoric site, on a hill overlooking the old bed of the Saone River, revealed...

Over the centuries, they’ve been scorned, persecuted and marginalized. But it was an example of modern-day disdain towards redheads that prompted an Italian photographer’s mission to safeguard their diversity, The Local has learned. Let’s face it, redheads get a tough time, especially in the early years of their life. I should know, because I am one. But more on that later. Marina Rosso, a 29-year-old fine art photographer and researcher from Udine, is not a redhead as the English translation of her surname might suggest. But after hearing in 2011 that flame-haired men were being rejected from the world’s largest...