[SunkenCiv]

• Recently at Discovery News I told you about Neanderthal-made shell jewelry that suggests these hominids were as smart and creative as modern humans were at the time the jewelry was made, 50,000 years ago. University of Bristol archaeologist Joao Zilhao, who led the project, told me about some other interesting discoveries he and his team made about Neanderthals. One concerns how they harvested shellfish for consumption... Note that the Neanderthals didn't wear their dinner discards, just as we don't today. (Or usually don't. Maybe someone out there has made a necklace out of last night's oyster or lobster remains.) The Neanderthals instead chose different shells based on beauty for use as jewelry/body ornamentation. These species included Pecten (pilgrim shell), Glycymeris (dog cockle) and Acanthocardia (Moroccan cockle). The shells accumulate on sea bottoms "where wave action throws them onto the beaches where Neanderthals could harvest them, must as you or I would when holidaying in the summer," Zilhao said. Getting back to the shellfish as food and not art, for consumers even today, shellfish pose challenges. As Zilhao and his team point out, "They rot very rapidly and must be eaten or cooked extremely fresh." By packaging the harvested shellfish in water-soaked algae, the Neanderthals helped to preserve the shellfish from the point of collection to the place where they ate them, such as Aviones Cave in Spain. This cave is right near the entrance of Cartagena harbor, so it provided "rooms" with a view as well as water resources. Algae remains were found among the shells within the cave. We always hear about the big game hunting talents of Neanderthals, but this new research suggests that at least some groups enjoyed surf and turf meals. Or surf one night and maybe turf the next.

  Because they were worth it? Research finds Neanderthals enjoyed makeup

• Neanderthal make-up containers discovered
• 2010 preview: Arise, Neanderthal brother

[Paine in the Neck]

Huh. I was told that mercury in fish was because of runoff from evil human industry...

[teeman8r]

cadmium? you mean the easter egg candies? yum

[Carpe Cerevisi]

[Wuli]

I am wondering if the same process - breakdown of the metals in rocks through long erosion of the rocks via water - is true for deep groundwater that supplies wells used for human water supplies.

It at least makes me wonder how well and how often residential well water is tested, in general, on average.

[aynrandfreak]

Like they had the luxury of thinking, “how many times have I had tuna this week?”

[Mr Ramsbotham]

They were as smart as we are; maybe smarter. They just didn’t know as much.

[Candor7]

During the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago, sea levels were more than 900 feet (300 meters) lower, exposing large parts of the shelf areas of the continents Weathering and erosion caused rocks to break down, releasing heavy metals into the soil. At the end of the last ice-age, between about 14,000 and 6,000 years ago, the sea levels rebounded. The previously exposed areas were inundated and the metals became dissolved in the seawater. Over time the heavy metals will accumulate in the marine food chain, with humans acting as apex predator and getting the highest potentially toxic levels.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

This is a bit of a reach. This level of toxicity had to come from huge amounts of toxins being leached into the earths water, but more likely would have to come from precipitants out of the atmosphere. This could only come from explosions or large scale scouring of the earth by plasma gouging of the earth’s surface as described by Electric Universe theory:

https://www.everythingselectric.com/product/michael-steinbacher/

[GreyFriar]

From this article I’ve drawn this conclusion: The higher the sea level, the lower levels of natural contaminants in sea food. Thus we have a benefit from the rising of the oceans.

[Balding_Eagle]

Neanderthals were MUCH healthier than we are today, they just didn’t live as long.

[fso301]

I doubt they lived long enough for it to have mattered.

[GOP Poet]

Bookmark

[DannyTN]

Pre-stone age industrialists, dumping mercury in the ocean.

[marktwain]

20 times the maximum level of cadmium and up to four times the highest level of lead that today food safety authorities consider safe.

It shows our estimates of what is "safe" are extremely low, far lower than what is reasonable.

They are only as low as they are, because we have the ability to measure insanely low amounts. It has nothing to do with what has been shown to be dangerous.

[webheart]

So they are saying that mercury pollution is natural and not man made.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

So... the solution for pollution was dilution.

[Berlin_Freeper]

This is why I don’t travel back in time.

[PIF]

Back then it was good for you, now things have changed and we must bow to the politically correct ways and foods.

And looks like Neanderthals invented the restaurant with a view!

[cpdiii]

This article is scientific garbage. 6000 years ago sea levels were only moderately lower than today. 20,000 years ago they were over 350 feet lower.

Hell, in the article they define the end of the age as 6000 to 14000 years ago. What total crap is the article. Their lack of scientific knowlege also makes me wonder how good their quantitative chemical analysis of those bones were. Did they account for the heavy metals in the soil the bones were buried in. Did they account for the local waters content of heavy metal. Do they realize that calcium in bones can be slowly replaced by heavy metals in the ground water? Did they account for the many multiple variables. I believe this article, not!

That article is scientific crap parading as science.

Relative to the end of the ice age by definition we are still in one as the icecaps have not melted. They may or may not and we could go into full blown ice age again and if they melt the seas will rise.

[Deplorable American1776]

Neanderthals were polluting the oceans with Mercury?? Okay, they became extinct because Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's ancestor wanted a Green New Deal, but Donald Trump's ancestor wanted to keep Bedrock Great without the Green New Deal. 😋

Hey, I just gave Dems a new talking point about what will happen to us if we don't pass the Green New Deal..😋.

[ExGeeEye]

Unpossible.

All toxic levels of toxic thingies has happened in the last 50 years, and were made worse by Republican Presidents.

Before America, indeed, the world was a good and happy place of socialist monarchies and tribal nature-harmonists.

We need to kill off 90% of the world population, starting with white people, in order to restore the earth to sustainability.

And I’m just the one to lead, benevolently, the remaining 10%.

(Do I really need a /sarc tag?)