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The discovery by researchers led from the University of Toulouse–Jean Jaurès was made in the 'Grotte Mandrin', 1.5 miles south of Malataverne, in the Rhône Valley.Previously, the oldest proven examples of modern human settlements in Europe were dated back to 45,000–43,000 years ago — 10,000 years earlier.Furthermore, the Mandrin cave also provides the first clear example of a site that was alternately occupied by Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens).

Paris (AFP) – Cro-Magnon man had a face covered in lumps including a large one on his forehead — likely benign tumours caused by a genetic disease, according to a team of French researchers in new findings published Friday. The skeleton of Cro-Magnon 1, a male Homo sapiens dating back 28,000 years, was discovered in 1868 in the Eyzies cave in France’s southwestern Dordogne region. To mark 150 years since the discovery of the bones, a team of researchers including anthropologist Philippe Charlier reexamined the remains. At the end of their investigation, “we proposed a new diagnosis: he had suffered...

Compared to other animals, humans have very little genetic diversity, e.g. http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/genetics/skin-color/modern-human-diversity-genetics People today look remarkably diverse on the outside. But how much of this diversity is genetically encoded? How deep are these differences between human groups? First, compared with many other mammalian species, humans are genetically far less diverse – a counterintuitive finding, given our large population and worldwide distribution. For example, the subspecies of the chimpanzee that lives just in central Africa, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, has higher levels of diversity than do humans globally, and the genetic differentiation between the western (P. t. verus) and central (P. t....

Thunderbolts.info and Red Ice both deal in strange stuff. This may be the strangest thing you'll find on either or both of them any time soon. At least the Red Ice interview seems logically coherent. http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=12145 http://www.redicecreations.com/radio/2013/04/RIR-130421.php Definitely a different take on human origins...

There's a cave in France where no humans have been in 26,000 years. The walls are full of fantastic, perfectly-preserved paintings of animals, ending in a chamber full of monsters 1312-feet underground, where CO2 and radon gas concentrations provoke hallucinations. It's called the the Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc Cave, a really weird and mysterious place. The walls contain hundreds of animals—like the typical Paleolithic horses and bisons—but some of them are not supposed to be there, like lions, panthers, rhinos and hyenas. A few are not even supposed to exist, like weird butterflyish animals or chimerical figures half bison half woman. These may...

In 1992, I was a conservative, Republican college student fighting for George H. W. Bush's re-election. I could not understand how he was losing after being so popular during the Iraq war. Sure, he had gone back on the whole "Read my lips" thing, but hey, what politican didn't break his word once in a while. Then, I spoke to my grandfather, a seaman in the navy during World War II and a blue collar Republican his whole life. He told me he was voting for Perot. I was shocked and dismayed. I tried everything I could think of to...

Abstract: The Châtelperronian is a Neandertal-associated archeological culture featuring ornaments and decorated bone tools. It is often suggested that such symbolic items do not imply that Neandertals had modern cognition and stand instead for influences received from coeval, nearby early modern humans represented by the Aurignacian culture, whose precocity would be proven by stratigraphy and radiocarbon dates. The Grotte des Fées at Châtelperron (France) is the remaining case of such a potential Châtelperronian–Aurignacian contemporaneity, but reanalysis shows that its stratification is poor and unclear, the bone assemblage is carnivore-accumulated, the putative interstratified Aurignacian lens in level B4 is made up...

PARIS -- Cave drawings thought to be older than those in the famed caves of Lascaux have been discovered in a grotto in western France, officials from the Charente region said Sunday. A first analysis by officials from the office of cultural affairs suggests the drawings were made some 25,000 years ago, Henri de Marcellus, mayor of the town of Vilhonneur where the cave is located, told France-Info radio. He said, however, that the date could only be confirmed by further investigations. Cavers exploring a part of a grotto in the Vilhonneur forest made the discovery in December, the local...

Jewel of the Magdalenian period A necklace and pendants made 15,500 years ago have been discovered in the Praile I cave; it is the most important Upper Paleolithic find in the Basque Country in recent years Mikel Lizarralde – DONOSTIA (San Sebastian) A Magdalenian treasure of the Upper Paleolithic has lain hidden for the last 15,500 years in the Praile I cave in Deba (Gipuzkoa). Excavations done over the last few years by a team led by the archaeologist Xabier Peñalver of the Aranzadi Society of Sciences have uncovered spectacular jewellery. Four stunning necklaces of smooth black stone, another one...

Illustration by Michael Rothman Before An Australopithecus, sporting full-bodied fur about four million years ago. After An archaic human walked fur-free about 1.2 million years ago, carrying fire on the savanna ONE of the most distinctive evolutionary changes as humans parted company from their fellow apes was their loss of body hair. But why and when human body hair disappeared, together with the matter of when people first started to wear clothes, are questions that have long lain beyond the reach of archaeology and paleontology. Ingenious solutions to both issues have now been proposed, independently, by two research groups analyzing...

Narrow skulls clue to first Americans 11:24 04 September 03 NewScientist.com news service Skull measurements on the remains of an isolated group of people who lived at the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California has stirred up the debate on the identity of the first Americans once again. The earliest inhabitants of North America differed subtly but significantly from modern native Americans. The difference is clearly seen in the skull shapes of the first people to colonise the continent, who had longer, narrower skulls than modern people. One theory says it is because two distinct groups of people migrated to...

Baby's first word filled Stone Age Papa with pride By David Derbyshire, Science Correspondent (Filed: 22/07/2004) One of the first words to be uttered by Stone Age babies was probably "papa", according to scientists trying to piece together the origins of human language. Researchers believe the word may have been passed down through the generations from a "proto-language" spoken 50,000 years ago. However, other linguists have argued that "papa", "dada" and "mama" are common in many languages simply because they are the first noises made by babbling babies. A new French study has found that the word "papa" is used...

Jan. 27, 2004 ? In a prehistoric battle for survival, Neanderthals had to compete against modern humans and were wiped off the face of the Earth, according to a new study on life in Europe from 60,000 to 25,000 years ago. The findings, compiled by 30 scientists, were based on extensive data from sediment cores, archaeological artifacts such as fossils and tools, radiometric dating, and climate models. The collected information was part of a project known as Stage 3, which refers to the time period analyzed. he number three also seems significant in terms of why the Neanderthals became extinct....

Ladies and gentlemen of the Senate, and you too Tom Daschle, I'm just a simple cro-magnon caveman Senator. I fell in some water in 1969 which froze over and years later I was dug up and thawed out by DNC party loyalists searching for new Democrat voters. Your world frightens and confuses me! Sometimes the honking horns of your traffic makes me want to swim out of my BMW and run for the hills. Sometimes when I get a message on my fax machine I wonder, did little freeping demons get inside and type it? I don't know! My...