A troop of chimps has learned how to build a better termite trap.
Going back in time, 13,000 year old, blood-stained tools were found in a guy’s back yard in Colorado.
Tag: archaeology
Better tools
Hyenas ate humans
Paleobiologists recently found a coprolite from a Hyena from 20,000 years ago. And what was in the fossilized poop? Human remains!
Was this just one poor sap who got on the menu, or was this a trend among the hyenas of old? Were we scavenged? Hunted for our delicious organs?
Today’s theme: Housing
The effects of global climate change are real for one village in Africa. They have had to move their village three or more times because of rising ocean levels.
Some cool ideas about “organic” housing, or as I like to think about it a real tree house.
Archaeologists in the Amazon have found old urbanization patterns.
In the good ol’ days…
When I was your age, grandkids, we lived in caves, and we walked everywhere in the snow, uphill, both ways. Why, back in my day, Neolithic women had fashion sense (study from 2007), not like today. Neanderthals created tools just as good as the cro magnon’s. Okay, maybe they weren’t as creative in their tools, but good work, they did.
Ah, *spit* you kids these days are all weak, you don’t get enough “dangerous” exercise, like chasing saber tooth cats around. Boy, those were the days.
The outer limits…of humans
I’ve been collecting some weird stuff that doesn’t necessarily correlate directly to humans and culture, but they all do in a roundabout, sideways, too-cool-to-not-mention sort of way.
For starters, some researchers have found evidence that humans have taste buds for calcium. I wonder if there is a difference between cultures who practically live off milk compared to those who don’t.
Also, there is a cool YouTube video about parasitic worms that can actually recreate or at least mimic the genes of their host insect to the extent that they can send messages to the insect’s “brain” and make the insects do what they want, including commit suicide by jumping into a body of water so the worm can escape, essentially turning the bug into a zombie. As the researcher mentions in the video, this has implications for human parasitic diseases (which I can’t remember right now but if you watch the video he will explain it better).
Getting back into the traditional “Anthropology” stuff, German anthropologists have been able to genetically trace bones from the Bronze Age to a pair of men living in a village nearby the cave where the bones were found, making this the longest family tree in history.
As a cool example of the power of motherhood and how much dogs have evolved to be co-habitants of humans, a dog in Argentina rescued a newborn baby abandoned in the ghettos/favelas. The dog was a new mother herself, and after the dog’s owner discovered the baby cuddled in with the pups, he alerted authorities and the baby’s 14-year-old mother came forward. Unfortunately the media attention is actually freaking the dog out a bit, so leave her alone!
Also, for all you star gazers out there, a Top 10 of ancient astronomy observatories throughout the world (interestingly, the Mayan pyramids made it on there, the Egyptian pyramids did not).
Finally, for all you visual or historical anthropologists, a cool article on the history of the daguerrotype, and links to other articles about cool photographic inventions.
News highlights from last week
Scottish penguin knighted as part of 30-year service to Norwegian military. Technically it’s the third penguin to serve as the Norwegian mascot, but still, well earned I’m sure (too bad it’s not an emperor penguin).
Cemetery remains of two different cultures separated by several thousand years found in the same spot in the Sahara Desert (apparently much greener once). One woman and her two kids were buried on a bed of flowers; how sweet is that? Awww…
Mayan portal to the world of the dead FOUND! No, really.
Roman empress’ head found too ( not the actual head, just the oversized marble carving of it).
Mothering style can turn on nurturing genes in female mice. First off, who knew there were genes for nurturing?
Bombardment of Anthro News
July has been busy and I’ve been storing them up, so here goes:
In 2007, thai police officers had to start wearing Hello Kitty armbands if they were caught doing something against the law. I want to know if they’re still forced to do that (my suspicion is no). Anyone with the answer to that gets a brownie (point)!
Mexican mummies were stressed out too; ulcer bacteria found in mummy tummies.
90% of people can sing, really, according to this study.
If there are more male lemurs than female lemurs in a troop, female lemurs have a better chance of being the dominant leader of the whole group.
An interesting study of normal, middle-class people who live frugally, including by dumpster diving.
Archaeologists in Jerusalem and Korea have both found sites that have the tuberculosis bacterium and hope to use this ancient specimen (thousands of years old, we’re talking) to help fight modern TB.
And finally, just for kicks, a study has found that guys’ fertility drops off at a certain age, not just in women, so men too could be susceptible to a biological clock.
Noisy Caves
Man, I am on an archaeological roll! Again, also posted in my other blog:
Another article today that discusses Upper Paleolithic peoples’ understanding of acoustics, and how cave art is often placed at the exact locations where acoustics are best in a cave. Archaeologists have also found flutes in the caves and are trying to determine if the flutes were connected to the cave paintings and their placement in any way.
Iegor Reznikoff, a specialist in ancient music at the University of Paris X in Nanterre featured in the article, also points out the sound-painting connection at certain sites in Finland and France near lakes and other outdoor locations. There has also been correlation shown between Native American pictographs in California deserts and seismic fault lines (I’ll add a link as soon as I can find it again).
George Washington’s boyhood home found
I didn’t even know it was missing, but apparently they found it (“they” being a collection of archaeologists and historians). The biggest let down: no cherry tree. They were also [for some bizarre reason] surprised that the house wasn’t more rustic; from what they can deduce, it had up to 8 rooms including separate bed/storage rooms upstairs, rather quite nice for that time’s standards and much more appropriate for a gentryman [again, duh!].
Archaeology News
This was also posted in my other blog, The Art of Science:
First news item: the cave paintings at Lascaux (France) are currently being threatened by mold. One of the possible causes: bright lights. The caves have a history of threats, all directly or indirectly caused by humans. This case exemplifies the hard challenges faced with old artifacts – or just limited natural resources in general – and weighing the benefits of preservation/isolation, scientific intervention and study, and public access to knowledge and such resources.
Next up: The re-creation of musical instruments from Central America. The story discusses Roberto Velazquez, a musical historian/archaeologist/mechanical engineer who studies ancient musical instruments found in archaeological sites all over Central America and recreates them and experiments with their sounds. What is not mentioned but inferred is the spectral analysis done on these instruments in order to determine what they are made out of – clay mostly, but also feathers, reeds, frog bones? – and how to recreate them. Velazquez will also experiment with making sounds with the flutes and whistles, and some of them are really eery; there is a sound clip with samples of all the different sounds, and I was not prepared for the first sounds that they played. It was from the appropriately-named Whistle of Death, and it is creepy to put it mildly.
*Edit*: exclusive only to Complex Interplay and MSNBC: Archaeologists have determined when Odysseus finally made it home.
Mental Flowers 