Archeology
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Lost City Revealed Under Centuries of Jungle Growth
Hidden for centuries, the ancient Maya city of Holtun, or Head of Stone, is finally coming into focus. Three-dimensional mapping has "erased" centuries of jungle growth, revealing the rough contours of nearly a hundred buildings, according to research presented earlier this month. Though it's long been known to locals that something—something big—is buried in this patch of Guatemalan rain forest, it's only now that archaeologists are able to begin teasing out what exactly Head of Stone was. Using GPS and electronic distance-measurement technology last year, the researchers plotted the locations and elevations of a seven-story-tall pyramid, an astronomical observatory, a ritual ball court, several stone residences, and other structures. "Oftentimes archaeologists are looking at the biggest pyramids or temples to find the tombs of early kings, but during this Late-Middle Preclassic period"—roughly 600 B.C. to 300 B.C.
Disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilization With a culture that stretched from western India to Afghanistan and a population numbering over five million, the ancient Indus Valley people—India's oldest known civilization—were an impressive and apparently sanitary bronze-age bunch. The scale of their baffling and abrupt collapse rivals that of the great Mayan decline. But it wasn't until 1922 that excavations revealed a hygienically-advanced culture which maintained a sophisticated sewage drainage system and immaculate bathrooms. Strangely, there is no archaeological evidence of armies, slaves, social conflicts or other vices prevalent in ancient societies.
History's Most Overlooked Mysteries | LiveScience
Archaeologists have found what they say is the oldest brain ever discovered in Britain, or at least the shriveled remnant of one, in a decapitated skull that dates back more than 2,000 years. Inside the skull, the scientists found "a yellow substance which scans showed to be shrunken, but brain-shaped," according to a University of York statement. "I'm amazed and excited that scanning has shown structures which appear to be unequivocally of brain origin," said Philip Duffey, a neurologist at York Hospital who scanned the skull.
Britain's Oldest Brain Found | LiveScience
Mummified Iceman's Ancient Job Determined | LiveScience
Before his body froze and mummified, a now-famous Neolithic guy dubbed the Iceman took his last steps while donned in a coat and leggings made of sheep's fur and moccasins made of cattle leather. That was more than 5,000 years ago. The 45-year-old man apparently trekked up the Schnalstal glacier in the Italian Alps before dying, and a new study reveals more about how he lived. The body of the Iceman (also called Ötzi, Frozen Fritz and Similaun Man) was discovered in 1991 by accident by German tourists and made headlines around the world.
The Many Mysteries of Neanderthals | LiveScience
Editor's Note: This is Part 6 in a 10-part LiveScience series on the origin, evolution and future of the human species and the mysteries that remain to be solved. We are currently the only human species alive, but as recently as maybe 24,000 years ago another one walked the earth — the Neanderthals. These extinct humans were the closest relatives we had, and tantalizing new hints from researchers suggest that we might have been intimately close indeed. The mystery of whether Neanderthals and us had sex might possibly get solved if the entire Neanderthal genome is reported soon as expected.King Tut is in the news again--not regarding his supposed "curse," but as the subject of high-tech analyses that debunked his supposed "murder" and provided a more realistic representation of the youthful king's features. In his book, The Murder of Tutankhamen, Egyptologist Bob Brier had claimed to solve the 3,000-year-old mystery of the teenage pharaoh's death. Citing forensic evidence he concluded that Tut was the victim of murder, probably by his chief advisor Aye, a commoner, who then married Tut's widow, Queen Ankhesenamen. According to Brier, "The X-ray of Tutankhamen's skull suggests a blow to the back of the head." Given my background as a former private investigator and investigative writer who has been involved in several death investigations, as well as co-author of the forensic textbook Crime Science, I have followed the "murder" case with interest.
CSI: Egypt | LiveScience
Neanderthals and Humans: Perhaps They Never Met | LiveScience
The number of years that modern humans are thought to have overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe is shrinking fast, and some scientists now say that figure could drop to zero. Neanderthals lived in Europe and western Asia from 230,000 to 29,000 years ago, petering out soon after the arrival of modern humans from Africa. There is much debate on exactly how Neanderthals went extinct. Theories include climate change and inferior tools compared to those made by modern humans. Anthropologists also disagree on whether modern humans and Neanderthals are the same species and interbred.
A new study of the well-known "Iceman" mummy finds that he ate moss, though perhaps not on purpose. In fact, his gut remains contained six different mosses, a new analysis shows. The unappetizing plants shed light on the Neolithic man's lifestyle and travels during the last few days of his life. The remains of the Iceman (also called Ötzi, Frozen Fritz and Similaun Man) were discovered accidentally in 1991 by German tourists in the Eastern Alps. Since then, a suite of tests has opened a window into the guy's life and death.
Iceman Mummy Had Moss in His Tummy | LiveScience
Humans and their close Neanderthal relatives began diverging from a common ancestor about 700,000 years ago, and the two groups split permanently some 300,000 years later, according to two of the most detailed analyses of Neanderthal DNA to date. Using different techniques, two teams of scientists separately sequenced large chunks of DNA extracted from the femur of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal specimen found in a cave [image] 26 years ago in Croatia. One team sequenced more than one million base pairs and the other 65,000 pairs of the genome. The achievements could help shed light on the evolution of our own species, and it paves the way for building a complete library of the Neanderthal genome, the scientists say. No evidence of interbreeding In popular imagination, Neanderthals are often portrayed as prehistoric brutes who became outsmarted by a more advanced species, humans, emerging from Africa.
Neanderthal: 99.5 Percent Human | LiveScience
Neanderthals Were High-Tech For Their Era | LiveScience
Neanderthal tools found in England suggest our early human relatives hunted with blades and spear tips that were pretty sophisticated, rivaling those made by modern humans, a new analysis suggests. The research, however, has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal. Neanderthals inhabited the plains of Europe and parts of Asia as far back as 230,000 years ago. They disappeared from the fossil record more than 20,000 years ago, a few thousand years after modern humans appeared on the scene. Researcher Matthew Pope, an archaeologist at the University College London, and his colleagues examined stone tools from a site first discovered in 1900 during the construction of a monumental house known as Beedings in West Sussex, England. "The tools we've found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species, Homo sapiens ," Pope said.
Neanderthal Brains Grew Like Ours | LiveScience
Score one more for Neanderthals. A new study has found that Neanderthal brains grew at much the same rate as modern human brains do, knocking down the idea that they grew faster in a style considered more primitive. The recent discoveries of two very young Neanderthal skeletons, as well analysis of a little-studied infant Neanderthal skeleton, allowed the researchers to trace how quickly the species' skulls grew. The results showed a greater similarity than expected between modern humans and Neanderthals, a hominid species that lived in Europe and Asia between 130,000 and 30,000 years ago. Originally some scientists thought Neanderthals grew up faster than modern humans, reaching their adult size sooner, as, for example, chimpanzees do. Chimps, our closest living relatives, mature much faster than we do, but also die younger.Neanderthals Were Cannibals, Study Confirms | LiveScience
Neanderthals suffered periods of starvation and may have supplemented their diet through cannibalism, according to a study of remains from northwest Spain. Paleobiologists studied samples from eight 43,000-year-old Neanderthal skeletons excavated from an underground cave in El Sidrón, Spain since 2000. The study sheds light on how Neanderthals lived before the arrival of modern humans in Europe. Researchers found cut marks and evidence that bones had been torn apart, which they say could indicate cannibalism . "There is strong evidence suggesting that these Neanderthals were eaten," said the study's lead author, Antonio Rosas of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales in Madrid.Like bringing to life a naked mannequin, scientists are using genetic and physical evidence found in fossils to clothe the skeletal remains of our closest hominid relatives, the Neanderthals. More and more, they seem familiar . Bones from two Neanderthals yielded valuable genetic information that adds red hair, light skin and perhaps some freckling to our extinct relatives.
Some Neanderthals Were Redheads | LiveScience
Neanderthals are often thought of as the stray branch in the human family tree, but research now suggests the modern human is likely the odd man out. "What people tend to do is draw a line from our ancestors straight to ourselves, and any group that doesn't seem to fit on that line is divergent, distinct, unusual, strange," researcher Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told LiveScience today. "But in terms of evolution of our family tree, the genus Homo , we're the outliers and the Neanderthals are more toward the core."
Scientist: Humans Strange, Neanderthals Normal | LiveScience
Anthropologists have built a "Frankenstein" Neanderthal skeleton, the first and only full-body reconstruction of the species. The result, announced today, is a shape no one expected. Sawyer, an anthropologist at the American Natural History Museum in New York, and his colleague Blaine Maley of Washington University, pieced together the skeleton using bones mostly from an individual known as La Ferrassie 1. La Ferrassie 1 was missing its rib cage, pelvis, and a few other parts, so Sawyer and Maley had to scrounge around to find some parts. "The missing parts had to come from another classic Neanderthal that was similar, if not identical, in size to the La Ferrassie man," Sawyer told LiveScience in a phone interview. The spare parts came from Kebara 2, a 60,000-year-old skeleton discovered in Israel in 1983.