Mix one part science fiction, one part misunderstood Mayan history, one part Hollywood movie hype, and quite a bit of public credulity, and what do you get? A new wave of doomsday hysteria that is causing scientists to step forward to reassure the public that the world is not, actually, going to end on December 21, 2012.
The rumors flying around the Internet offer a number of ways in which the world may end, including a planetary collision and changes to the Earth’s rotation or magnetic field, but they all agree on that date of doom. You can bet that the viral marketing campaign promoting the upcoming planetary disaster movie 2012 has a little something to do with the recent uptick in paranoia.
“Two years ago, I got a question a week about it,” said NASA scientist David Morrison, who hosts a website called Ask an Astrobiologist. “Now I’m getting a dozen a day. Two teenagers said they didn’t want to see the end of the world so they were thinking of ending their lives” [Los Angeles Times]. In response, Morrison put together a list [pdf] of 10 frequently asked questions about the potential for apocalypse, and refuted them one by one. The clamor has grown so loud that Morrison coined a new word to describe the phenomenon: “cosmophobia,” a fear of the cosmos.
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According to a theory proposed in 2007, the explosion of a comet over North America killed off the Clovis people and many of the continent’s largest mammals nearly 13,000 years ago. Not so fast, says a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, fueling a WWE-style stare down between the opposing camps.
The new report explains that archaeologists have examined sediments at seven Clovis-age sites across the United States, and found that the concentration of magnetic debris was insufficient to confirm an extraterrestrial impact at that time [Nature News]. The original theory’s evidence came from magnetic microspherules, or cosmic debris, discovered in sediments at 25 locations. However, one of the new study’s authors, Todd Surovell, said that even after 18 months of sedimentary analysis and hundreds of hours peering into a microscope, he could find no evidence of microspherules to support the the exploding comet theory. Snap.
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Stone Age Europeans may not have been the last to hear about those nifty gadgets called stone axes, after all. New research at two sites in southern Spain indicates that the people there were fashioning hand axes as early as 900,000 years ago, far earlier than previously believed.
Hand axes have sometimes been called the Swiss Army knives of the Stone Age world. They vary in shape and size, but most are at least roughly symmetrical, with one pointed and one rounded edge. Hand axes were very handy for butchering animals and cutting the stalks of tough plants [ScienceNOW Daily News]. Previously, archaeologists believed that the first Europeans lagged behind people living in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia in their tool-making capabilities. Axes dating back to 1.5 million years ago have been found in Africa, while the earliest axes found in Europe were thought to be no more than 500,000 years old.
The new study, published in Nature, suggests that vital information about tool-making traveled relatively quickly through the ancient world. The new time frame was determined through a process called paleomagnetic dating, which takes advantage of the fact that the Earth’s magnetic field has reversed itself often on geological timescales. By analyzing the polarity of magnetic minerals in rock, scientists can determine when the rock formed…. At each site, the researchers took samples at regular intervals above and below the level where hand axes were found. The last complete magnetic reversal was 780,000 years ago, and both sites dated back to about this time [The New York Times]. At the two sites, the analyses indicated that the tools were at least 760,000 and 900,000 years old, respectively.
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Image: Michael Walker
A Stone Age campsite on the coast of South Africa has revealed the earliest evidence of early humans who used fire to make better, sharper stone tools. Researchers had been surprised to find spear points and other stone implements made of silcrete, a crumbly rock that doesn’t respond well to the flaking, chipping process that early tool-makers employed. But lead researcher Kyle Brown noticed that many of the ancient blades bore the same glossy sheen as North American tools created from heat-treated stone. “It seemed like the most logical thing to do was take some of this poor quality material that we’ve been collecting and put it under a fire and see what happens,” he says [New Scientist].
Brown buried silcrete stones in a fire pit and kept a roaring fire going for up to 10 hours at a time. When the blaze eventually died down and the rocks had cooled, they looked different, with a new reddish sheen. They also had different physical properties. “The stone becomes harder and stiffer,” Brown says. “It basically becomes more brittle, which is great if you are breaking something [and] you want it to break more easily” [NPR News]. The flakes from the treated stones were also sharper than those created from untreated silcrete.
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Scientists trying to determine where dogs were first domesticated have been sent back to the drawing board by a new study. Back in 2002, researchers sampled DNA from dogs around the world, and determined that dogs in East Asia had the most genetic diversity, suggesting that the species originated there and that dogs in that region have had the longest time to evolve. But the new study suggests that those earlier results were skewed, because DNA sampling of African street dogs has revealed equal genetic diversity.
The earlier findings may have been thrown off because the large-scale study included both purebred dogs, whose evolution has been closely guided by human hands, and street dogs, who have bred more autonomously and randomly, and who therefore show more genetic diversity. But the 2002 researchers drew DNA from different types of dogs in different regions. Says Adam Boyko, lead researcher of the new study: “I think it means that the conclusion that was drawn before might have been premature. It’s a consequence of having a lot of street dogs from East Asia that were sampled, compared to elsewhere” [BBC News].
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Analysis of a Neanderthal skeleton known as Shanidar 3 found in the late 1950s shows that the he likely died from injuries incurred by a thrown spear, which scientists speculate was thrown by a modern human, according to a study published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
Although a nicked rib on his left side provided a hint as to what killed Shanidar 3, scientists remained stumped on the details for decades. To find a probable cause of death for the Neanderthal, the researchers used a specially-designed crossbow to fire stone-age projectiles at precise velocities at pig carcasses…. At kinetic energies consistent with a thrown spear, the pig’s rib bore damage consistent with Shanidar 3’s isolated rib puncture [Time]. Higher kinetic energies that matched a knife or spear thrust produced more massive rib damage than that sustained by Shanidar. The scientists also found that the weapon entered Shanidar’s body from about 45 degrees above his body, provided the 5-foot-6-inch Neanderthal was standing at the time.
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A 35,000-year-old flute made of vulture bone found in a cave in southwestern Germany is the world’s oldest known musical instrument. The artifact suggests music may have been one advantage our ancestors had over their cousins, the now-extinct Neanderthals, according to a report published in the journal Nature.
The five-holed flute, which is fully intact and made from a griffon vulture’s radius bone, was discovered with fragments of other flutes crafted out of mammoth ivory. The bird-bone instrument was found in a region in which similar instruments have popped up lately, says lead author Nicholas Conard, but this flute is “by far the most complete of the musical instruments so far recovered from the caves.” … Until now the artifacts appeared to be too rare and not as precisely dated to support wider interpretations of the early rise of music [The New York Times]. To make sure the newly discovered instruments were dated correctly, samples were tested independently and using different methods at facilities in England and Germany. Both found the bone to be at least 35,000 years old, during the Modern Paleolithic era.
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Archaeologists have found granaries that were used to store wild cereals near the Dead Sea in Jordan more than 11,000 years ago. The structures predate agriculture in the Middle East by at least a millennium, according to a report published by the scientists in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The findings suggest that it took awhile to establish domesticated farming. In other words, the agricultural revolution likely spanned an appreciable period of time, during which our ancestors switched from hunting and gathering to growing their own food. The earliest definitive traces of domesticated grains, wheat, barley, and oats have been found in the Near East and date back about 10,500 years. Yet much recent research suggests that plant domestication was preceded by a long period–perhaps thousands of years–during which prehistoric peoples cultivated wild plants without visibly changing their appearance or altering their genetic makeup [ScienceNOW]. In archaeological digs of early villages in Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey researchers have found large quantities of wild barley and wild oats, now the new findings provide evidence that the gatherers carefully stored these wild cereals.
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The giant, prehistoric kangaroo that once hopped over the Australian landscape may have been wiped out by the first human settlers on that continent, a new study argues. In making this claim, the researchers are entering into a long-running debate over whether Australia’s “megafauna,” which also included marsupial lions and hippo-sized wombats, were driven extinct by the changing climate or by overzealous hunting. And while the new study, which will be published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, makes an interesting case for the latter hypothesis, some researchers are not convinced.
Researchers analyzed the teeth of the nearly seven-foot-tall kangaroo, known as Procoptodon goliah, to determine what it ate and drank. Different sources of water and food leave trace amounts of particular types, or isotopes, of hydrogen and carbon atoms, which are deposited in the teeth like a recorded diet. Additionally, tiny patterns of wear give clues about the type of food a given creature chewed. The team concluded that the giant kangaroos fed mainly on saltbush shrubs [BBC News]. These hardy bushes thrive in arid conditions, which makes it less likely that the kangaroos ran out of food as the continent’s climate got hotter and drier.
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Deep beneath the waves of Lake Huron, researchers may have found evidence of a Paleo-American culture that lived in the Great Lakes region. Archaeologists used sonar and robotic explorers to examine about 28 square miles of the lake bottom, and found what may be the remnants of a caribou hunting ground; they hope further studies will reveal ancient settlements. Says study coauthor John O’Shea: “Scientifically, it’s important, because the entire ancient landscape has been preserved and has not been modified by farming, or modern development” [Canwest News Service].
What is now part of Lake Huron’s obscured floor became a dry land bridge between modern-day Presque Isle, Michigan and Point Clark, Ontario when lake levels dipped some 7,500 to 10,000 years ago [Scientific American]. At depths ranging between 60 and 140 feet, researchers found lines of large stones, which may have been “drive lanes” that aided early hunters as they tried to take down galloping caribou. “An interesting behavioral trait of caribou is that they follow linear features” [National Geographic News], says O’Shea.
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It may sound like a paradox, but a new theory suggests that one of humanity’s most noble instincts, altruism, evolved on bloody battlefields in prehistoric times. Evolutionary biologist Samuel Bowles argues that prehistoric culture may have selected for individuals who behaved altruistically towards other individuals in their social groups. The story begins with the climactic swings that occurred between approximately 10,000 to 150,000 years ago in the late Pleistocene period may have pushed once-isolated bands of hunter-gatherers into more frequent contact with one another…. “I think that’s just a recipe for high-level conflict” [New Scientist], says Bowles.
These conflicts weren’t large-scale pitched battles, Bowles explains. “We’re talking about groups of men who got out in twos or threes or fives,” he says. “They didn’t have a chain of command and it’s hard to see how they could force people to fight.” For this reason, altruistic intent on the part of each warrior is key. Each person would do better to stay home than to put their life on the line for their neighbours – yet they still went out and risked their lives, Bowles says [New Scientist].
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Early humans and Neanderthals may have clashed violently during their brief coexistence in Europe, a new study suggests, and humans may have either eaten their Neanderthal opponents or taken their teeth as trophies. Anthropologist Fernando Rozzi and his colleagues conducted a new analysis of a jawbone found in a cave in southwest France. They say that the jawbone probably belonged to a Neanderthal, and that it shows cut marks similar to those found on reindeer that were butchered by early humans.
Rozzi believes that the jawbone was cut in the process of removing flesh and the tongue, a technique also used on the deer that early humans frequently fed on. He believes this proves that Neanderthals were fair game for human consumption, too. “Neanderthals met a violent end at our hands and in some cases we ate them,” Rozzi said…. “For years, people have tried to hide away from the evidence of cannibalism, but I think we have to accept it took place,” he added [The Guardian]. But his theory is likely to provoke intense argument from other researchers, who believe that humans and Neanderthals had little interaction.
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A tiny ivory carving of a busty woman may be not only the oldest known example of erotic art–it may be the oldest art depicting any human figure at all. Named the Venus of Hohle Fels after the cave in southwestern Germany where it was recently excavated, the object dates to at least 35,000 to 40,000 years ago, based on more than 30 radiocarbon measurements conducted at the site [Discovery News]. The statue is also “bordering on the pornographic” by our modern standards, one expert says, with its huge, bulbous breasts and oversized genitalia.
Germany’s southern caves were presumably inviting sanctuaries, scholars say, for populations of modern humans migrating then into central and western Europe. These were the people who eventually displaced the resident Neanderthals, around 30,000 years ago. Dr. Conard reported that the discovery was made beneath three feet of red-brown sediment in the floor of the Hohle Fels cave. Six fragments of the carved ivory, including all but the left arm and shoulder, were recovered. When he brushed dirt off the torso, he said, “the importance of the discovery became apparent” [The New York Times].
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The latest evidence that the ancient Indonesian “hobbit” was a distinct species of hominid, and not just a deformed pygmy, comes from the soles of its feet. Ever since researchers discovered the fossils of a three-foot-tall hominid with a chimpanzee-sized brain on the Indonesian island of Flores, debate has raged over how to interpret the bones. Now, a new study supports the theory that the hobbit, Homo floresiensis, was a species that split from our human lineage early in evolutionary history, and developed its strange shape in the isolation of the island. Other experts agree that evidence is accumulating that H. floresiensis was, in fact, a bona fide species.
In the new study, published in Nature, researchers found that the hobbit’s foot was surprisingly long in relation to the body, and that it had other ape-like features. The navicular bone, which helps form the arch in the modern foot, was especially primitive, more akin to one in great apes. Without a strong arch — that is, flat-footed — the hominid would have lacked the springlike action needed for efficient running. It could walk, but not run like humans. Weighing the new evidence, the research team led by William L. Jungers … concluded that “the foot of H. floresiensis exhibits a broad array of primitive features that are not seen in modern humans of any body size” [The New York Times].
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On the steppes of Central Asia, researchers have found evidence of the earliest “horse farm” dating from 5,500 years ago, pushing back the known domestication of horses by 1,000 years. Those first domesticated horses were probably kept primarily for meat and milk, researchers say, but soon enough new uses emerged, and horse riding revolutionized transport, communications, trade, and warfare. Says study coauthor Sandra Olsen: “To me, the domestication of the horse was a seminal event in human history…. All the major empire builders, like Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan, would have been nothing without horses” [Los Angeles Times].
The evidence of the early farm developed by the ancient Botai people of present-day Kazakhstan includes massive deposits of horse bones, grooved horse teeth that indicate the animals wore bridles, and even the chemical traces of horse milk fats in ceramic pots, says study coauthor Alan Outram. “This is, apart from being fascinating, something of a smoking gun for domestication — would you milk a wild horse?” said Outram [AP]. The people of Kazakhstan and Mongolia still milk mares today to make a fermented, slightly alcoholic drink called “koumiss.”
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