Deep Skull from Niah Cave and the Pleistocene Peopling of Southeast Asia
Darren Curnoe et al.
The Deep Skull from Niah Cave in Sarawak (Malaysia) is the oldest anatomically modern human recovered from island Southeast Asia. For more than 50 years its relevance to tracing the prehistory of the region has been controversial. The most widely held view, originating with Brothwell's 1960 description and analysis, is that the Niah individual is related to Indigenous Australians. Here we undertake a new assessment of the Deep Skull and consider its bearing on this question. In doing so, we provide a new and comprehensive description of the cranium including a reassessment of its ontogenetic age, sex, morphology, and affinities. We conclude that this individual was most likely to have been of advanced age and female, rather than an adolescent male as originally proposed. The morphological evidence strongly suggests that the Deep Skull samples the earliest modern humans to have settled Borneo, most likely originating on mainland East Asia. We also show that the affinities of the specimen are most likely to be with the contemporary indigenous people of Borneo, although, similarities to the population sometimes referred to as Philippine Negritos cannot be excluded. Finally, our research suggests that the widely supported “two-layer” hypothesis for the Pleistocene peopling of East/Southeast Asia is unlikely to apply to the earliest inhabitants of Borneo, in-line with the picture emerging from genetic studies of the contemporary people from the region.
Probably derived from Mbuangualua/Mbo.njua/Bo(r).niah.
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"The name Mlabri is a Thai/Lao alteration of the word Mrabri, which appears to come from a Khmuic term "people of the forest". In Khmu, mra means "person" and bri "forest". They are also known locally as Phi Tong Luang (Thai: ผีตองเหลือง, Lao: ຜີຕອງເຫລືອງ) or "spirits of the yellow leaves", since they abandon their shelters when the leaves begin to turn yellow." wiki
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Earliest direct evidence of modern human-like foot function from 1.5 Ma hominin footprints at Ileret, Kenya
KEVIN HATALA & BRIAN RICHMOND 2016 AAPA
The Hs foot generates propulsion during bipedal locomotion, using a functional pattern that is unlike any other extant apes. Understanding when this functional pattern emerged during human evolution is complicated: - soft tissues do not fossilize, - complete, associated foot & leg skeletons are not known for any early hominins.
However, fossil hominin footprints preserve direct records of the external motions of fossil hominin feet. Newly discovered 1.5-Ma hominin footprints from Ileret were compared to - the footprints of habitually barefoot Hs & - the 3.7-Ma footprints from Laetoli.
Re-sampling analyses were used for quantitative comparisons, 3-D geometric morphometrics were used to visualize morphological differences. Differences were interpreted in the context of experimental results that link patterns of footprint variation to gait biomechanics: - The Ileret footprints preserve forefoot morphologies similar to Hs footprints. - The Laetoli footprints differ significantly.
The 1.5-Ma Ileret footprints therefore preserve the earliest direct evidence of human-like foot function: - a medial transfer of pressure, - propulsion derived from the medial fore-foot.
We argue that this implies a human-like morphology of many (if not all) of the anatomical structures in the Ileret legs & feet. These results support the hypothesis: - an essentially modern bipedal gait was not present at 3.7 Ma, - it evolved in certain hominin taxa by the early Pleistocene.
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Eritrean footprints 800,000 years ago around lakeshore now desert:
The discovery is the first time that footprints from the mid-Pleistocene era have been found, a very important period of transition in human evolution, in which human species with larger brains and more modern bodies than homo erectus developed.
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The biogeographic origins of major primate clades
SERGI LOPEZ-TORRES & MARY SILCOX 2016 AAPA
...
A likelihood analysis (supertree with 488 primate taxa incl.134 fossils) was performed to test hypotheses of ancestral areas.
The results show significant differences from previous analyses that did not include fossils:
- Both Primates s.l. (+Plesiadapiformes) & Euprimates are inferred to have originated in N.America, supported by the presence on that continent of the oldest groups of plesiadapiforms, omomyoids & adapoids.
- Strepsirrhini s.l. (+ adapoids) appears to be Asian in origin, vs previous analyses that have considered them Malagasy, Eurasian, and/or African, supported by the presence in Asia of primitive adapoids.
- Crown-strepsirrhines are inferred to have originated in Africa.
- The place of origins of Anthropoidea remains uncertain, but none of the most likely resolutions include Africa.
- Pongines probably originated in E-Asia,
- the African ape-human clade most likely originated in Europe or in W-Asia (i.e. Anatolia), not in Africa as some have previously inferred.
----- comments: MV
"It's sometimes dangerous to include fossils in extant taxa: mosaic, reverse, convergent, parallel etc.evolutions!
When fossil & DNA data are seemingly in conflict, the DNA data (if enough available) are correct.
Early hominoids (coastal forest dwellers IMO) after Africa-Arabia hit Eurasia ?18 Ma: - first hylabatids left Africa, - then hominids-pongids ("great apes"): pongids E-Tethys = S.Asia, hominids W-Tethys = Medit.coastal forests (Anatolia then = archipelago)."
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The ecological niche of the Morotopithecus, with implications for hominoid evolution
LAURA MACLATCHY, JAMES ROSSIE & JOHN KINGSTON 2016 AAPA
The Moroto II locality (Uganda >20.6 Ma) is best known for the hominoid Morotop.
Recently, dental fossils from the site have revealed evidence for folivory:
- long tooth row,
- large, narrow M2 with well-developed cristids.
Additional recovery of femoral fragments have completed the shaft of MUZM 80:
Morotop had a short shaft relative to femoral joint proportions, as in other hominoids, unlike Proconsul & cercopithecoids.
This corroborates earlier interpretations that Morotop loaded the hind- & forelimbs differentially in behaviors incl.orthograde slow climbing.
Morotop (one of the oldest hominoids) is more derived post-cranially than pene-contemporaneous & younger taxa.
To date, Morotop is found only in NE-Uganda, not at the younger Napak sites to the South, or at any of the Kenyan early Miocene sites in the Eastern rift.
The C-isotopic dietary signatures obtained from the enamel from a range of herbivore guilds at Moroto
- are considerably more positive than in modern closed-canopy forest-dwellers,
- suggest a fragmentary forest or woodland habitat.
Our combined data suggest an explanation for these incongruities:
Morotop may have evolved its more versatile postcranium to better exploit leaves arboreally at large body size in an environment in which it became necessary to traverse gaps in a broken canopy.
This perspective contrasts with the long-held view that exploitation of ripe fruit selected for hominoid postcranial apomorphies. _______
This Y form links may indicate proto-Bantu transit from South Sudan westward to Cameroon/Nigeria.
Also, this shifting, much earlier,may have allowed New World Monkey transit to South America via volcanic isles, rather than via Antarctica as I'd thought.
Seasonality and Modern Human Foraging Behaviors in the MSA of Northwest Ethiopia
BRETT NACHMAN, NEIL TABOR, JOHN KAPPELMAN & LAWRENCE TODD 2016 AAPA
Ongoing PA research along the Shinfa River (a tributary of the Blue Nile) has recovered evidence of riverine foraging by Middle Stone Age populations. Surface collection & excavation along the ancient river channels has yielded MSA lithics in association with a substantial ichthyo-fauna, mollusks, reptiles & mammals.
The modern climate at Shinfa is highly seasonal: - brief, intense wet seasons, - protracted, extremely arid dry seasons. High-energy, bankfull river flows during the wet season make exploitation of aquatic fauna prohibitive. However, during the dry season, when evaporative processes reduce the river to a series of waterholes, modern populations living nearby can effectively exploit the river's resources. Preliminary isotopic data suggests that a seasonal environment may have also existed during the Late-Pleistocene, when MSA people occupied the area. Stable C & O isotope values recovered from isolated spot sampling of fossil bovid enamel (n=13) indicate: this sample was dominated by C4-feeders whose crowns formed, at least partially, in a warm, arid environment.
Serial sampling along the growth axis of the tooth was undertaken on 5 fossil & 3 extant bovids from Shinfa. Serial sampling revealed 18O values & sinusoidal patterns of intra-tooth variation, consistent with a shift from wet to dry seasonal environments during crown fm.
We hypothesize: similar to populations living in the Shinfa area today, MSA people occupying the area were best able to exploit available riverine resources during dryer climatic periods.
Another type of stone technology is interesting for tracing the demographic expansion of Homo sapiens. This is the Nubian technology. This kind of predetermined flake production on stone (chert, flint, quartzite…) was previously known only in northeastern Africa, until it was found in south Arabia (especially in the region of Dhofar (see Rose et al. Plos One 2011), in Oman, but also in Hadramawt in Yemen), and more recently in central Saudi Arabia, close to the modern city of Al-Kharj (Crassard & Hilbert, Plos One 2013). This technology is dated to more than 100,000 years in Arabia, a technology that seems to have only otherwise been produced by AMHs in Africa. Further research is needed, including new dates and stratified sites, to confirm these interpretations. http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/06052014/article/the-first-arabians
The Seven Seals of Judeo-Islamic Magic: Possible Origins of the Symbols
Lloyd D. Graham
The Seven Seals of medieval Islamic magic, which are believed to constitute the Greatest Name of God, also feature in Jewish Kabbalah from the same period. While many Seal symbols make sporadic appearances in early Islamic amulets bearing Kufic script, the source of the symbols and their eventual ordering remains a matter of legend. As this topic was first – and last – examined systematically by Dr. Hans Winkler in 1930, a wider-ranging and more modern review is long overdue. The present survey focuses on potential sources for the symbols rather than on their exegesis. It first examines the possibility that a precedent for the Seal series exists in an undecipherable “seven signs repeated seven times” inscribed on a Late Babylonian amulet. It then considers the possibility that the Seals’ origins lie in other cuneiform symbols from ancient Mesopotamia; in Egyptian hieroglyphs or scripts; in paleo-Hebrew characters or the letters of ancient South Arabian scripts; in Libyco-Berber or Tifinagh letters from North Africa; or in the symbol repertoire of Late Antique magic, including the highly potent seven Greek vowels. The review also explores the possibility that at least some of the symbols originated in numerological ciphers or religious emblems, canvassing sources as diverse as Indian Hinduism and Byzantine Christendom. The article concludes by considering the recent suggestion that the Seal series may have acquired its privileged status because its symbols reflect “shape archetypes” that are hard-wired into the human nervous system.
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The lesions described consist primarily of subperiosteal new bone deposition onthe limbs and endocranial surface. However, the presence of cribra orbitaliain a number of individuals indicates concurrent iron-deficiency anaemia. A differential diagnosis of haematogenous osteomyelitis, congenital syphilis,yaws, scurvy, hypervitaminosis A, trauma, Caffey’s disease, and iron-defi-ciency anaemia is discussed. It was concluded that the most likely cause forthe lesions observed is a synergistic relation between infection (weanling diarrhoea, yaws) and metabolic disease (scurvy and possibly hypervitamin-osis A). Trauma is not ruled out as contributing to the development of somepathologic lesions. It is concluded that, in the Pacific Islands at least, multi-ple causes for skeletal pathology in subadults should be considered ratherthan a single aetiology. Am J Phys Anthropol 113:481–505, 2000.
Pleistocene footprints show intensive use of lake margin habitats by Homo erectus groups
Here we present data from 481 fossil tracks from northwestern Kenya, including 97 hominin footprints attributed to Homo erectus. These tracks are found in multiple sedimentary layers spanning approximately 20 thousand years. Taphonomic experiments show that each of these trackways represents minutes to no more than a few days in the lives of the individuals moving across these paleolandscapes. The geology and associated vertebrate fauna place these tracks in a deltaic setting, near a lakeshore bordered by open grasslands. Hominin footprints are disproportionately abundant in this lake margin environment, relative to hominin skeletal fossil frequency in the same deposits. Accounting for preservation bias, this abundance of hominin footprints indicates repeated use of lakeshore habitats by Homo erectus. Clusters of very large prints moving in the same direction further suggest these hominins traversed this lakeshore in multi-male groups. Such reliance on near water environments, and possibly aquatic-linked foods, may have influenced hominin foraging behavior and migratory routes across and out of Africa.
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Some quotes from "Pleistocene footprints show intensive use of lake margin habitats by Homo erectus groups":
This sedimentary sequence was deposited by rel.low-energy fluvial & shallow-lacustrine processes on a deltaic lake margin. The fossil tracks are located on multiple discrete, bedded silt layers, found throughout the 20-ka sequence & on the Ileret Tuff layer itself. Many prints preserve fine detail, e.g. ridges between the toes, indicative of mud that was both plastic & firm enough to retain shape after the tracks were formed. Typically, tracks were infilled by fine or silty sand, prior to deposition of the following silt layer. In some cases, this depositional couplet was repeated multiple times. No soil development or root traces occur within the footprint layers: these surfaces were quickly buried after the tracks were emplaced.
Taphonomic experiments on Hs footprints made on muds along the shores of Lake Turkana show that on average human footprints retain fine detail for 1.3 days.
This is consistent with data from non-hominin fauna in similar environments.
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A large 1.5 million-year-old hominin radius from Koobi Fora, Kenya
CAROL WARD, IAN WALLACE, BIREN PATEL, J MICHAEL PLAVCAN & FRANCIS KIRERA 2016 AAPA
A nearly complete hominin radius KNM-ER 48100 was found in 2008 at Ileret (Kirera cs 2009), unassociated with cranio-dental remains.
The OH 80-11 radius from Olduvai Gorge (Domingez-Rodrigo cs 2013) is securely attributed to Au.boisei, based on association with teeth.
ER-48100 has a head with deep, straight sides, a neck that is rel.round in cross-section, differing from the narrow, beveled radial head margin & compressed neck of OH 80-11, morphologies also seen in the diminutive ER-1500 specimen often attributed to Au.boisei as well.
This & its large size indicate that ER-48100 is most likely attributable to H.erectus.
The most notable feature of ER-48100 is its impressive size:
- its head diameter overlaps that of female gorillas,
- its length is estimated at c 300 mm (longer than the radius of almost any human in the comparative sample, substantially larger than the ER-15000 H.erectus radius, comparable to the Omo L40-19 ulna).
Published stature regression formulas yield stature estimates of over 188 cm.
The ER-48100 radius indicates the presence of very large H.erectus individuals in E.Africa c 1.5 Ma, also suggested by a metacarpal from West Turkana & other pene-contemporaneous Koobi Fora fossils. - - -
Body Mass Estimation from Knee Dimensions in Hominins
NICOLE SQUYRES & CHRIS RUFF 2016 AAPA
... Most previous studies have concentrated on weight-bearing elements of the lower limb, in particular the femoral head.
This study used new body mass estimation equations derived from measurements of the knee in 110 living humans of known body mass, to estimate body mass in 11 fossil hominins, including Au.africanus, Au.afarensis & early Homo.
ML breadth measurements were taken from AP RX of the knee, and regressed against recorded body weight, to generate body mass estimation equations.
Knee dimensions were generally found to be good predictors of body mass in the modern human sample, with median absolute % prediction errors of 7 to 8 % (comparable to similar equations derived from the femoral head).
Taxon average estimated body masses were
- 46 kg for Au.afarensis,
- 42 kg for Au.africanus,
- 55 kg for early Homo.
Estimates for early Homo were similar to those generated previously from the femoral head.
Estimates for australopiths, however, were larger than those generated from femoral head equations by an average of 8 kg.
This result supports the idea that relative loading of the femoral head may have differed between australopiths & Homo, perhaps due to subtle differences in gait.
Fish oil & Iodine essential for childhood brain growth - - -
The Rift Valley - ancient homeland of Homo? Freshwater stingrays 1.8ma in Lake Turkana indicate marine incursion, was the Rift Valley an extension of the Red Sea / Indian Ocean? Were ancestral hominins climbing the vertical cliffs and diving for fish, mollusks, crustaceans?
Iceland Rift valley (submerged) same as African Rift valley: Silfra Crack (beautiful pictures! Any link to Shinfa River, Ethiopia? (a tributary of the Blue Nile with evidence of river foraging)?
MP: "Iceland is carbon copy of Afar Triangle. It also sits on a plume, hotspot, which is part of ridge. Iceland emerged 18 - 16 mya, Afar Triangle some 30 mya.
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"...In the full text you will find outlined our evidence for a previously unknown contribution of people with relatedness to Australo-Melanesians and Andaman Islanders, that we hypothesize is due to pulses of migration from a substructured Pleistocene population in Beringia..."
A genetic perspective of prehistoric hunter-gatherers in the Siberian Arctic: Mitochondrial DNA analysis of human remains from 8000 years ago Lee et al.
Basically, five mtDNA sequences were obtained including one classified as haplogroup C4 from the Zhokhov site (~8000 BP) and one A2b from the Bol'shaya Chukoch'ya River area (170 BP). The former closely resembles a common Siberian haplotype (carried by Evenks, Yakuts, etc.) and the latter is an Eskimo haplotype of New World origin. Here is the abstract:
"Abstract Archaeological evidence of human occupation in Arctic Siberia dates to at least 27,000 years before present (YBP) but the population history of these early inhabitants is not fully understood. Genetic research on contemporary indigenous Siberian populations has suggested a distinct pattern between populations from south/central Siberia and the extreme northeast Siberia. However, the picture is complicated by the fluctuations of movement by various cultural groups in the last millennium that has resulted in admixture as well as genetic drift. In order to better understand the genetic history of early humans in northern Siberia, we obtained ten human skeletal remains from four areas of the eastern Siberian Arctic, stretching from the low Yana River in the west to midstream of Bol'shaya Chukoch'ya River and Kolyma River in the east, and the Zhokhov site in the New Siberian Islands. We extracted DNA from the skeletal remains ranging from around 27,000 YBP to as recent as the 18th century AD and analyzed the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) control region. We successfully identified five haplotypes that include haplogroups A2 and C4. The presence of haplogroup C4 in Arctic Siberia by 8000 years ago illustrates the antiquity and widespread distribution of the maternal lineage in the region. On the other hand, haplogroup A2 is frequent among contemporary northeastern Siberian populations. Overall, the results from our ancient DNA analysis suggest maternal lineages among contemporary Siberians were present as far back as 8000 years ago in the Siberian Arctic."
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5.3ma LCA Human/Chimp split per gut bacteria
Hominid superorganisms Julia Segre & Nick Salafsky 2016 Science 353:350-1 doi 10.1126/science.aag2788
Mutualistic symbiotic relationships are those in which both spp benefit, e.g. the vivid colors of coral reefs come from symbiotic algae that provide their living coral hosts with nutrients & O2 through photosynthesis, in exchange for protection. A similar mutualistic relationship exists between gut-dwelling bacteria & their animal hosts. But to what degree has symbiosis shaped host-microbial interactions & coevolution?
Moeller cs (p.380) show that gut bacterial strains co-speciated with hominids (apes & humans) over the past 15 Ma. This sets the stage for exploring the evolutionary processes that underlie the symbiotic relationship between hominids & their gut-dwelling microbes.
Moeller cs obtained fecal samples from wild Pan troglodytes (Tanzania), P.paniscus (Dem.Rep.Congo), G.gorilla (Cameroon) & H.sapiens (US). They use DNA gyrase subunit B (gyrB, a single-copy protein-coding gene in bacterial genomes that evolves at a moderate rate) as a marker to assess strain diversity of Bifido-bacteriaceae (Biff.), Bacteroidaceae (Bact.) & Lachnospiraceae (Lach.) in the gut of humans, chimpanzees, bonobos & gorillas. This rel.constant gyrB molecular clock data allows them to compare the timing of speciation of gut bacterial communities with the known speciation patterns of their hominid hosts. For different Bact.spp, Moeller cs explore the phylogenetic relatedness of closely related strains from the feces of the hominids. Taking the most commonly related gyrB-sequence from each hominid, the authors calculate the LCA: bonobo- & chimp-associated strains are most closely related to each other, and together form a sister-clade to the gorilla & human clades.
This phylogenetic relationship among hominid-associated Bact.strains mirrors the host evolutionary topology. For most genera of Bact.e, the dominant pattern of diversification is hominid-microbial parallel co-speciation, but the authors also report small anomalies, e.g. some Bact.lineages are absent from either humans or gorillas, representing lost microbial diversity. Biff.strain phylogeny +-mirrors that seen for Bact.lineages, but Lach.strains show evidence for transfer between host spp, perhaps because Lachn. can survive as spores (can more readily disperse & transfer among host spp). Thus, different evolutionary pressures & forces may shape both host & microbial community members.
Evidence for cospeciation
Moeller cs demonstrate that Bact. & Biff.strains (shown as hues of the same color) co-speciated with their hosts. This suggests that symbiosis may be an evolutionary force. To corroborate their findings, Moeller cs also re-analyzed ribosomal sequence data from chimps & gorillas that live together in regions of Cameroon. They found no sequences that were 100 % identical, suggesting that distinct strains co-evolved with their hosts. To explore if geographic separation might foster diversification within a species, they show that bacterial lineages differ between humans in Malawi & US.
Based solely on the sequence divergence of gut bacteria, Moeller cs date the H/P split at 5.3 Ma, in agreement with estimates based on host mtDNA, but slightly later than estimates based on nuclear genomes. They calculate the H/G split at 15.6 Ma, older than estimates based on mtDNA, but within the range of estimates based on nuclear genomes.
Incidentally, the lack of diversity of the Mlabri component (C5 of Fig. 2) is identical to what was found in the mtDNA studies. 100% of the Mlabri mtDNA sequences belonged to haplogroup B5a." GH - - - "Mlabri are different from the Kha Tong Luang (Phi Tong Luang, Yellow Leaf) in Laos, who are Western Viet-Muong (Wurm and Hattori 1981). Sometimes employed by the Hmong. Some nomadic. Traditional religion."
names: Luang, Ma Ku, Mabri, Malabri, Mla, Mla Bri, Mrabri, Phi Thong, Yellow Leaf, Yumbri - - -
compare to: Mani negritos of Thailand & Samre Pear/Por of Cambodia ~ (Samre/Damre(elephant) & Aka Bea of Andamans.
The MlaBri people are also known as Yellow Leaf people. They used to live deep in the jungles of Thailand and were rarely seen. Banana leaves were used as a roof on shelters
Historically, there was a large lake in the area of Gebel Ramlah - today only its outline is visible in the desert area. Around it, during the last season of the research archaeologists discovered the remains of many settlements from different periods of the Neolithic. They assume that people once lived there in light huts (no remains of residential structures have been preserved). So how do the archaeologists know that they have discovered settlements?
image: https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ekjrji8J8rY/V5TDk8bRYnI/AAAAAAABt4c/ZBg0IDiOYmwiCbDtDuCA_JpgwM6Wiwd5QCLcB/s640/shepherds02.jpg Archaeologists search for the first shepherds of Africa Gebel Ramlah - study of a Neolithic settlement [Credit: R. Kenig] "We encounter traces in the form of pits that were used to store food or dispose of garbage. We also find millstones, grinders, broken pottery and flint tools, remains of hunted gazelles, remains of goats, sheep and cattle they kept - all this clearly indicates that in these places people had lived, worked, ate meals", explained Prof. Kabaciński.
Last season brought an unexpected discovery. In the settlement, archaeologists discovered workshops, in which on rocks containing large amounts of hematite were processed into ochre. Ochre is a red dye, commonly used in funeral ceremonies. Earlier, Polish researchers discovered numerous graves sprinkled with the dye. "This are the first known hematite processing workshops discovered in the area of the Western Desert", emphasised Prof. Kabaciński.
In his view, in addition to the symbolic meaning, ochre was important in everyday life, because this mineral has preserving properties and facilitates processing leather. "It could also be used to dye clothing", he added.
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Hadrume(n)tum (sometimes called Adrametum or Adrametus) was a Phoenician colony that pre-dated Carthage and stood on the site of modern-day Sousse, Tunisia. Greek writers referred to Hadrumentum by the names Ἀδρούμητος, Ἀδρύμης and Ἀδραμητός.
Sounds very much like mirror of Hadrumat/Adiramite (Yemen).
Geologists have found evidence for an ancient megaflood which they say is a good match for the mythical deluge at the dawn of China's first dynasty.
The legend of Emperor Yu states that he tamed the flooded Yellow River by dredging and redirecting its channels, thereby laying the foundations for the Xia dynasty and Chinese civilisation.
Previously, no scientific evidence had been found for a corresponding flood.
But now a Chinese-led team has placed just such an event at about 1,900BC.
Writing in Science Magazine, the researchers describe a cataclysmic event in which a huge dam, dumped across the Jishi Gorge by a landslide, blocked the Yellow River for six to nine months.
The sediments from this outburst flood are up to 20m thick and up to 50m higher than the Yellow River - indicating an unprecedented, devastating flood Dr Wu Qinglong, Nanjing State University
When the dam burst, up to 16 cubic kilometres of water inundated the lowlands downstream.
The evidence for this sequence of events comes from sediments left by the dammed lake, high up the sides of Jishi Gorge, as well as deposits left kilometres downstream by the subsequent flood.
Lead author Dr Wu Qinglong, from Nanjing Normal University, said he and colleagues stumbled on sediments from the ancient dam during fieldwork in 2007.
"It inspired us to connect the next possible outburst flood with the abandonment of the prehistoric Lajia site 25km downstream," he told journalists in a teleconference.
"But at that time we had no idea what the evidence of a catastrophic outburst flood should be."
The Lajia site, famously home to the world's oldest noodles, is known as China's Pompeii; its cave dwellings and many cultural artefacts were buried by a major earthquake.
The Yellow River near the Lajia siteImage copyright Wu Qinglong Image caption Researchers found tell-tale flood deposits around the Guanting basin, near the Lajia site
"In July 2008 I suddenly realised that the so-called black sand previously revealed by archaeologists at the Lajia site could be, in fact, the deposits from our outburst flood," Dr Wu said.
It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past 10,000 years Dr Darryl Granger, Purdue University
"The subsequent investigation confirmed this speculation and showed that the sediments from this outburst flood are up to 20m thick, and up to 50m higher than the Yellow River - indicating an unprecedented, devastating flood."
The environmental conditions in the area are the probable explanation, Xue says. Sediment often accumulates in floodplain settings, and Xue thinks the Drepanophycus plants in the area were constantly being swamped by sand and silt. They responded by growing ever-upwards to stay at the surface.
In other words, the rhizomes didn’t grow down through 15 metres of sand and silt; they actually grew upwards by that amount as the land gradually rose. At any one time it was probably only the rhizomes in the top few centimetres that were alive, says Xue.
Even so, the underground network of dead rhizomes would have helped stabilise the sediment – an important first step on the way to developing the first deep soils. “The importance of rhizomes in the early colonisation of terrestrial environments has been overlooked,” says Xue.
“It’s a spectacular sequence of sediments,” says Paul Kenrick at the Natural History Museum in London. He points out that Drepanophycus doesn’t appear to have been making soils as we would recognise them today. “It’s not creating a structured soil profile, more of a stabilised sediment,” he says. But there is little evidence of those thick, organically stabilised sediments elsewhere in the world at the time. “It’s important in that respect,” he says.
Oasis duck hunting 250,000 years ago: indicated by stone tool protein residue
Middle Pleistocene subsistence in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan: Protein residue and other proxies A Nowell, C Walker, CE Cordova, CJH Ames, JT Pokines, D Stueber, R DeWitt, ASA al-Souliman 2016
J.archaeol.Sci.73:36-44
full text google e.g. "nowell azraq journal archaeological science"
Excavations at Shishan Marsh (former desert oasis in Azraq, NE.Jordan) reveal a unique eco-system and they provide direct family-specific protein residue evidence of hominin adaptations in an increasingly arid environment c 250 ka. Based on lithic, faunal, paleo-environmental & protein residue data, we conclude that Late-Pleistocene hominins were able to subsist in extreme arid environments through a reliance on surprisingly (modern) human-like adaptations, including - a broadened subsistence base, - modified tool kit & - strategies for predator avoidance & carcass protection.
they hunted ducks, "fan delta, lacustrine"
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Tortoises as a dietary supplement: A view from the Middle Pleistocene site of Qesem Cave, Israel Ruth Blasco cs 2016 Quaternary Science Reviews 133:165182 doi 10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.006 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.006> <http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2015.12.006>Get>
€Dietary reconstructions reflect the human capacity for adaptation to the environment. €Faunal remains allow for the study of behavioural variation & its evolutionary significance. €Tortoises represent an important combination of edible & non-edible resources. €Tortoises served mainly as supplementary resources at Qesem Cave, 420-300 ka. €Data on small game at Qesem shed light on livelihood strategies & eco-social behaviour.
... How did hominids fill the gaps in large prey availability with small game? What role did small game play in pre-Upper-Palaeolithic societies?
Some of this work has focused on tortoises: they represent an important combination of edible & non-edible resources, that are easy to collect if available.
The exploitation of these slow-moving animals features prominently in prey choice models: the low handling costs of these reptiles make up for their small body size.
Here, we present new taphonomic data from 2 tortoise assemblages (lower sequence of the Mid-Pleistocene site of Qesem Cave 420-300 ka).
We show -hominid damage on large tortoise specimens from Qesem Cave is not unusual, -cut-marks, percussion marks & consistent patterns of burning suggests established sequences of processing to access the visceral content, e.g. -- cooking in the shell, -- defleshing & -- direct percussion.
"Here, we isolate 86,000 base pairs of plastid DNA from a geographically broad sample of archaeological and living bottle gourds. In contrast to the earlier results, we find that all pre-Columbian bottle gourds are most closely related to African gourds, not Asian gourds. Ocean-current drift modeling shows that wild African gourds could have simply floated across the Atlantic during the Late Pleistocene."
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Tangerine; is a perfect match for tawny/tan/sand/faun.a(mobile root/fawn.tail = fan.ember = flammable/flambeau)/aur.a.t.h / A(b/v/u)rahm / oro(Spanish:gold) / orange / (o/ua).(r/tl).ange(rine).
tangerine is exactly in the midst of the morning breakfast fire-drill and sunrise/horizon of the Open Sky people. Note that Abvurahm is of Oroan maternal totem taboo lineage, links to AhuraMazda (Avestan)and Brahma/Brahman(Hindu), and Oroan links to Ukraine as Ochre/Ore.an.
tangerine fits into the midst of the morning breakfast fire-drill and sunrise/horizon of the Open Sky people (those who had left the tropical rainforest belt). Note that Abvurahm is of Oroan maternal totem taboo lineage, links to AhuraMazda (Avestan)and Brahma/Brahman(Hindu), and Oroan links to Ukraine as Ochre/Ore.an and plausibly to the Tauri of Crimea, and to the city of Oran, Algiers. - - -
tangerine (n.) Look up tangerine at Dictionary.com 1842, from tangerine orange (1820) "an orange from Tangier," seaport in northern Morocco, from which it was imported to Britain originally. As an adjective meaning "from Tangier," attested from 1710, probably from Spanish tangerino. As a color name, attested from 1899. (etymologyonline) - - -
False lead? Let's see.
Tangier was founded by Carthaginian colonists in the early 5th century BCE, who were probably the first ones to settle around the coast. [en.wikipedia.org]
Tangier etymology: The city's name is said to come from Tingis, the daughter of Atlas, the mythical supporter of the Heavens. However, it more likely derives from the Semitic word tigisis, meaning "harbour".
Oran (Arabic: وهران Wahrān; Berber: ⵡⴻⵀ Wehran) is an important coastal city that is located in the north-west of Algeria. [en.wikipedia.org]
The name "Wahran" (Oran in Arabic) is derived from the Berber word "uharan" that means (two lions).
[DD Note: lion/leon(Span)/simba(ki-Swah)/singa(Malay)/harimau(Malay:tiger)/ari, labi(Hebrew) are clearly linked to orange/aura/yellow]
A legend says that in 900 AD, lions still lived in the area. The last two lions were hunted on a mountain near Oran and are elsewhere referred to as "mountain lions".[5] - - -
How close is Tangerine to Orange? How near is Tangier to Oran?
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Modern Peanut's Wild Cousin, Thought Extinct, Found in Andes
A new study reveals how two ancient species of this legume were combined 10,000 years ago, in Andean valleys, to create the modern peanut
By Andrea Small Carmona on March 22, 2016
But where does it come from? Its origin seems to be in South America, specifically Bolivia, according to new studies.
The modern peanut (Arachis hypogaea) is the result of the hybridization of two older types of Andean peanut. It has 20 pairs of chromosomes—the total from both old species, which have 10 chromosomes each. Scientists always thought—a suspicion now confirmed—that the "parents" of this peanut were the variants Arachis duranensis, very common in the Andean foothills between northwestern Argentina and southeastern Bolivia, and Arachis ipaensis, a species that had been reported but unconfirmed in a Bolivian town several hundred kilometers north, but thought to be extinct, until now.
"We now know that the first inhabitants of South America in their long voyages carried A. ipaensis to the land of A. duranensis 10,000 years ago. Once in the same area, bees pollinized the peanut plant flowers, allowing the birth of the hybrid that our South American ancestors ate and that eventually led to the modern peanut, Arachia hypogaea. It's a fascinating story," says David Bertioli, a researcher at the Center for Applied Genetic Technologies at U.G.A. and lead author of the study, published in Nature Genetics. (Scientific American is part of Springer Nature).
Although it has not been studied how old A. duranensis and
A Bosnian pine (Pinus heldreichii) growing in the highlands of northern Greece has been dendrocronologically dated to be more than 1075 years old. This makes it currently the oldest known living tree in Europe.
"The finding can provide us with unique information about Eurasia' steppe tribes in the Late Bronze Age, a period when the Saka and Cimmerians mentioned by Herodotus emerged," Novozhenov said.
"Later, in the 9th to 8th century BC, these tribes migrated to western Eurasia up to the Black Sea coast, forming the Persian Scythian-Sakas community," he added.
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Oldest jewellery in East Timor (Indonesia) Asia is crafted 37,000-year-old sea shell 8/18/2016 11:30:00 PM
Shell jewellery and ornaments up to 42,000 years old, discovered in East Timor, have overturned long-held assumptions that the first inhabitants of South-East Asia were culturally unsophisticated. The finds represent the oldest evidence of ornament and jewellery-making in the region.
Oldest jewellery in East Asia is crafted 37,000-year-old shell Researchers found sea snail shells with small holes drilled near the top, wear on the sides and red staining that suggest they had been worn as jewellery. These 37,000-year-old shells are the oldest examples of jewellery to be found in South East Asia [Credit: Journal of Human Evolution] The most ancient example of shell jewellery is 82,000 years old and was found in Morocco, although some shell art may date even further back. As humans migrated out of Africa, shell jewellery started appearing in the European archaeological record from about 50,000 years ago.
Humans moved into East Asia around the same time, but the area has yielded few examples of personal ornamentation of such antiquity. Some researchers had speculated that the early settlers abandoned crafts and so were less technologically advanced than their European counterparts.
Now Michelle Langley of the Australian National University in Canberra and her colleagues have made finds in the Jerimalai cave of East Timor that refute that idea. One was the shell of an Oliva sea snail (pictured on the right of the image at the top), dated to 37,000 years back – making it the oldest piece of jewellery ever found in the region.
A hole in the top of the shell suggests that it was used in a necklace or bracelet. Marks on the side were characteristic of rubbing against adjacent shell beads, while traces of red ochre may have come from contact with body paint.
Experiments with modern Oliva shells showed that the natural wear and tear could not have formed the hole.
Separately, the team is publishing details of ornaments made from the shell of Nautilus pompilius, some of which they dated indirectly to as far back as 42,000 year ago. Found in the same cave, the artefacts show traces of drilling, pressure flaking, grinding and staining with red ochre.
The team previously found 42,000-year-old tuna bones in the Jerimalai cave, suggesting that the inhabitants had developed some of the oldest known deep-sea fishing methods.
“All of this together shows that the people who lived in Jerimalai were very well adapted to the coast – they understood the environment, they knew what was there, and the best way to get it,” says Langley. “It was not a cultural backwater as once thought.”
A lack of excavations partly explains why fewer relics have been uncovered in this part of the world, says Ian McNiven of Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. “Because Europe has such a long history of large scale archaeological excavation of ice age sites, they have found the bulk of the world’s known ice age jewellery.”
The more we excavate in the region, the more interesting artefacts are coming to light, he says. For example, a 30,000-year-old shell necklace was recently found in Australia.
Langley believes that our understanding of the region’s history will continue to shift. “Lots of new excavations are being undertaken, so we think it will be a completely different picture in 10 years’ time.”
The findings are published in the Journal of Human Evolution.
One of the rarest manuscripts in the world has been revealed hidden beneath the pages of an equally rare but later Mexican codex, thanks to hi-tech imaging techniques.
The Codex Selden, a book of concertina-folded pages made out of a five-metre strip of deerhide, is one of a handful of illustrated books of history and mythology that survived wholesale destruction by Spanish conquerors and missionaries in the 16th century.
Some of the pages have more than 20 characters sitting or standing, similar to other Mixtec manuscripts – from the Oaxaca region of modern Mexico – which are believed to depict kings and their councils, but uniquely in this case depicting men and women. One so far unidentified figure appears repeatedly, and is symbolised by a twisted cord and a flint knife.
Other pages include people walking with sticks and spears, women with red hair or elaborate headdresses, and what appear to be place names with symbols for rivers.
Phylogeography of lions ( Panthera leo ssp.) reveals three distinct taxa and a late Pleistocene reduction in genetic diversity
Jorge Morin de Pablos Jorge Morin de Pablos AUDEMA, Prehistory, Iron Age, Roman, Late Antiquity, Visigothic Kingdom, Al-Andalus and Medieval, Modern and Contemporany Archaeology, Faculty Member
Arisgotas, el pueblo que conservo un palacio entre sus casas. LA_VANGUARDIA. 10 de Agosto de 2016
La noticia recoge los trabajos arqueológicos en el yacimiento de Los Hitos (Arisgotas, Toledo).
¿Tuvo Santa María del Naranco un protipo en un palacio visigodo de Toledo? LA VOZ DE ASTURIAS. 10 de Agosto de 2016
Mark McCoy Mark McCoy Southern Methodist University, Anthropology, Faculty Member
The Geographic Range of Interaction Spheres During the Colonization of New Zealand (Aotearoa): New Evidence for Obsidian Circulation in Southern New Zealand
During the colonization of remote Pacific Islands, founding communities forged novel interaction spheres within newly settled archipelagos. We report on new research on the geographic range of interaction spheres in the first centuries of occupation of New Zealand based on geochemical source identifications from obsidian assemblages found along the coast of the Otago region in the southern South Island. Results suggest that while there is evidence for interaction spanning the entire archipelago, logistical limitations on long-distance mobility along the long north-south axis of New Zealand...
Darcy Mathews Darcy Mathews University of Victoria, Environmental Studies, Post-Doc
Intertidal resource use over millennia enhances forest productivity
Human occupation is usually associated with degraded landscapes but 13,000 years of repeated occupation by British Columbia's coastal First Nations has had the opposite effect, enhancing temperate rainforest productivity. This is particularly the case over the last 6,000 years when intensified intertidal shellfish usage resulted in the accumulation of substantial shell middens. We show that soils at habitation sites are higher in calcium and phosphorous. Both of these are limiting factors in coastal temperate rainforests. Western redcedar (Thuja plicata) trees growing on the middens were...
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Alexander Georgiev Alexander Georgiev Northwestern University, Anthropology, Post-Doc
Many cultures trace their origins to the hazy horizon where history meets legend. In China's case, that blurry line occurs sometime between 2200 B.C.E. and 2000 B.C.E., when a legendary hero named Yu tamed Yellow River flooding and earned a mandate to become the founding emperor of the Xia dynasty, the country's first. That’s the story according to texts written long after the fact, and many Chinese believe their civilization started with emperor Yu. But archaeologists have been unable to find convincing evidence for either the flood or the Xia dynasty itself. ... The massive flood “provides us with a tantalizing hint that the Xia dynasty might really have existed," says David Cohen, an archaeologist and co-author at National Taiwan University in Taipei. The devastating flood could have inundated settlements even a thousand or more kilometers downstream, he says, and created chaos from which a new political order emerged. This sequence of events neatly fits the legend of Yu controlling the flooding by dredging channels to confine the Yellow River and its tributaries. This feat, the ancient texts say, allowed him to claim a mandate as the first emperor of the Xia dynasty. The timing is curiously coincidental. Around 1900 B.C.E., Cohen says, Chinese society was transitioning from the Neolithic to the Bronze age. The date also correlates with what is called the Erlitou culture, which is known from palace buildings and bronze smelting workshops discovered near Zhengzhou, about 2500 kilometers downstream from Jishi Gorge. Many scholars have argued that Erlitou is a manifestation of the elusive Xia dynasty, but a link is not firmly established. - - -
Four decades after the discovery of Lucy, her remains are quite possibly the most famous discovery in paleoanthropology and one of the more important. The impact of finding a nearly entire skeleton from a 3.2 million year old hominid revealed a lot about human evolution. We’ve learned a lot from Lucy, from biophysics to the geological environment she lived in. Up until recently, however, her cause of death was unknown to us, until now.
John Kappelman, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, with 3-D printouts of Lucy’s skeleton. Credit Marsha Miller/University of Texas at Austin —John Kappelman, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Texas at Austin, with 3-D printouts of Lucy’s skeleton. Credit Marsha Miller/University of Texas at Austin
Almost 10 years ago, Lucy went on tour. While at the University of Texas at Austin, a team put her through a CT scanner and conducted a sort of forensic and paleontologic experiment. Their findings were published in Nature, last week. The team discovered she sustained a compressive fracture, which was confirmed by consulting multiple orthopedists. Lead author, Kappelman, looked at the remainder of the skeleton and found more compressive fractures along with greenstick fractures. The scientists concluded that she came down feet-first and then tumbled forward, holding out her hands in a futile hope of protecting herself. The fractures to her rib cage suggest crushing injuries to her internal organs that would have killed her.
Dr. Kappelman and his colleagues hypothesize that Lucy must have fallen from a tree because geologists have determined about the environment where she lived, at the time, was a low-lying wooded area around a stream, with no cliffs nearby. While this is certainly a plausible scenario, many paleoanthropologists are skpetical. - - -
Forensic opinion on 'Lucy bad fall'. Nature magazine should not be content with a "plausible scenario for the demise of Lucy", as said by paleoanthropologist William Jungers of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, who reviewed the paper for Nature. Normal fossilization processes can specifically result in this "about mandible ten fragments". The fact certainly indicates a very severe blow to the symphysis. This is the only possible conclusion and, when it comes to topics fossilized, likelihood is that fractures are the result of fossilization. https://www.academia.edu/657066/Dental_Microwear_And_Mechanisms_In_Early_Ho minids_From_Laetoli_And_Hadar
Posts: 2021 | From: Miami | Registered: Aug 2014
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The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) is a federal assistance program of the Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) for healthcare and nutrition of low-income pregnant women, breastfeeding women, and infants and children under the age of five. Their mission is to be a partner with other services that are key to childhood and family well-being.
That’s the definition of the program that basically tries to provide instant assistance to help children stay nourished.
The program is incredibly important and still runs today, it was started somewhere in the late 60s to early 70s. A meme has been circulating stating that this was started by the Black Panther Party, however some places are contesting this. BUT there is some evidence to substantiate this claim.
Re-Examining the "Out of Africa" Theory and the Origin of Europeoids (Caucasoids) in Light of DNA Genealogy Anatole A Klyosov & Igor L Rozhanskii 2016 Advances in Anthropology 2:80-86 open access doi 10.4236/aa.2012.22009 <http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2012.22009>
7556 haplotypes of 46 subclades in 17 major haplogroups were considered in terms of their base (ancestral) haplotypes & time-spans to their common ancestors, for the purposes of designing of time-balanced haplogroup tree.
It was found: African haplogroup A (originated 132 ka ±12) is very remote time-wise from all other haplogroups, which have a separate common ancestor (β-haplogroup) and originated 64 ka ±6. It includes a family of Europeoid (Caucasoid) haplogroups from F through T, that originated 58 ka ± 5.
A downstream common ancestor for haplogroup A & β-haplogroup (coined the α-haplogroup) emerged 160 ka ± 12. A territorial origin of haplogroups α- & β-remains unknown, but the most likely origin for each of them is a vast triangle - from C-Europe in the W - through the Russian Plain to the E & - to Levant to the S.
Haplogroup B is descended from β-haplogroup (not from haplogroup A, from which it is very distant, separated by 123 ky "lateral" mutational evolution) likely migrated to Africa after 46 ka.
The finding that the Europeoid haplogroups did not descend from "African" haplogroups A or B is supported by the fact that bearers of the Europeoid haplogroups, as well as all non-African haplogroups do not carry either SNPs M91, P97, M31, P82, M23, M114, P262, M32, M59, P289, P291, P102, M13, M171, M118 (haplogroup A & its subclades SNPs) or M60, M181, P90 (haplogroup B), as it was shown recently in "Walk through Y" FTDNA Project (the reference is incorporated therein) on several 100 people from various haplogroups.
- - -
Uncertain about this analysis.
Posts: 2021 | From: Miami | Registered: Aug 2014
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Re-Examining the "Out of Africa" Theory and the Origin of Europeoids (Caucasoids) in Light of DNA Genealogy Anatole A Klyosov & Igor L Rozhanskii 2016 Advances in Anthropology 2:80-86 open access doi 10.4236/aa.2012.22009 <http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/aa.2012.22009>
7556 haplotypes of 46 subclades in 17 major haplogroups were considered in terms of their base (ancestral) haplotypes & time-spans to their common ancestors, for the purposes of designing of time-balanced haplogroup tree.
It was found: African haplogroup A (originated 132 ka ±12) is very remote time-wise from all other haplogroups, which have a separate common ancestor (β-haplogroup) and originated 64 ka ±6. It includes a family of Europeoid (Caucasoid) haplogroups from F through T, that originated 58 ka ± 5.
A downstream common ancestor for haplogroup A & β-haplogroup (coined the α-haplogroup) emerged 160 ka ± 12. A territorial origin of haplogroups α- & β-remains unknown, but the most likely origin for each of them is a vast triangle - from C-Europe in the W - through the Russian Plain to the E & - to Levant to the S.
Haplogroup B is descended from β-haplogroup (not from haplogroup A, from which it is very distant, separated by 123 ky "lateral" mutational evolution) likely migrated to Africa after 46 ka.
The finding that the Europeoid haplogroups did not descend from "African" haplogroups A or B is supported by the fact that bearers of the Europeoid haplogroups, as well as all non-African haplogroups do not carry either SNPs M91, P97, M31, P82, M23, M114, P262, M32, M59, P289, P291, P102, M13, M171, M118 (haplogroup A & its subclades SNPs) or M60, M181, P90 (haplogroup B), as it was shown recently in "Walk through Y" FTDNA Project (the reference is incorporated therein) on several 100 people from various haplogroups.
- - -
Uncertain about this analysis.
Anatole A. Klyosov theory is groundless. I proved this in a recent article: Were the First Europeans Pale or Dark Skinned?, http://file.scirp.org/pdf/AA_2014081417215651.pdf ,the first Europeans were Black--not white.
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quote:Originally posted by DD'eDeN: 4ka flood in China - Yellow River dammed
Geologists have found evidence for an ancient megaflood which they say is a good match for the mythical deluge at the dawn of China's first dynasty.
The legend of Emperor Yu states that he tamed the flooded Yellow River by dredging and redirecting its channels, thereby laying the foundations for the Xia dynasty and Chinese civilisation.
Previously, no scientific evidence had been found for a corresponding flood.
But now a Chinese-led team has placed just such an event at about 1,900BC.
Writing in Science Magazine, the researchers describe a cataclysmic event in which a huge dam, dumped across the Jishi Gorge by a landslide, blocked the Yellow River for six to nine months.
The sediments from this outburst flood are up to 20m thick and up to 50m higher than the Yellow River - indicating an unprecedented, devastating flood Dr Wu Qinglong, Nanjing State University
When the dam burst, up to 16 cubic kilometres of water inundated the lowlands downstream.
The evidence for this sequence of events comes from sediments left by the dammed lake, high up the sides of Jishi Gorge, as well as deposits left kilometres downstream by the subsequent flood.
Lead author Dr Wu Qinglong, from Nanjing Normal University, said he and colleagues stumbled on sediments from the ancient dam during fieldwork in 2007.
"It inspired us to connect the next possible outburst flood with the abandonment of the prehistoric Lajia site 25km downstream," he told journalists in a teleconference.
"But at that time we had no idea what the evidence of a catastrophic outburst flood should be."
The Lajia site, famously home to the world's oldest noodles, is known as China's Pompeii; its cave dwellings and many cultural artefacts were buried by a major earthquake.
The Yellow River near the Lajia siteImage copyright Wu Qinglong Image caption Researchers found tell-tale flood deposits around the Guanting basin, near the Lajia site
"In July 2008 I suddenly realised that the so-called black sand previously revealed by archaeologists at the Lajia site could be, in fact, the deposits from our outburst flood," Dr Wu said.
It's among the largest known floods to have happened on Earth during the past 10,000 years Dr Darryl Granger, Purdue University
"The subsequent investigation confirmed this speculation and showed that the sediments from this outburst flood are up to 20m thick, and up to 50m higher than the Yellow River - indicating an unprecedented, devastating flood."
The founder of the Xia civilization was Yu. The Great Yu was the regulator of the waters and the builder of canals. He is also alleged to be the inventor of wetfield adriculture. Wolfram Eberhard, in The Local culture of South and East China (Leiden,1968), maintained that Yu came from the south and established the Xia dynasty in Shansi.
Archaeological evidence supports this view. The foreunner of the Xia civilization was the Lung-shan (Longshan) culture. The Taosi ruins , a Longshan between the Fenhe and Chongshan ranges is considered a middle and late Xia period site. Another important Longshanoid site is Qingliangang. The Qingliangang culture is a decendant of the Hemudu culture and dates to the fifth millennium B.C.(K.C. Chang, "In search of China's beginnings new light on an old civilization", American Scientist, 69 (1981) pp.148-160:154).
The oldest neolithic culture in China is the Hemudu culture in northern Zhejiang province. This culture group had incised and cord-impressed pottery, rice and domesticated water buffalo, dog and pig (Chang, 1981: p.152). The Hemudu pottery is reminiscent of pottery found along the coastal areas of southeastern China and Taiwan (Chang, 1981: p.154). This indicates that southern Chinese, who were predominantly Black early settled those parts of China associated with the Xia and Shang civilizations.
Posts: 13012 | From: Chicago | Registered: Jan 2006
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Advances in Surface Luminescence Dating: New Data from Selected Monuments
In the present study, an attempt is being made to date samples from three archaeological sites in the Mediterranean using surface luminescence dating techniques. The methods are well established and this study is an effort to apply it to monuments that have not being dated with these methods before. Megalithic structures are eligible for absolute dating using OSL approaches in routine-based procedures. The structures that were chosen for dating are Osirion and Seti A' Temples in Abydos, Egypt, and a precipitate from a Saudi Arabian rock art site. OSL ages obtained for the Saudi Arabia...
Dörte Rokitta-Krumnow Freie Universität Berlin, Institut für Vorderasiatische Archäologie, Post-Doc
Examination of the Deep Sounding in the Great Courtyard of the Jupiter Sanctuary at Baalbek – the Lithic Evidence of the Southern section
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News Article "Marinas controversy hardly the first for city's Virginia Key" with photo of only AA beach in Miami "Dade County Parks Virginia Beach Colored Only" sign, Black families sunbathing...
Caitlin Uren et al., Fine-Scale Human Population Structure in Southern Africa Reflects Ecogeographic Boundaries. Genetics 2016. Freely accessible → LINK [doi:10.1534/genetics.116.187369]
Abstract
Recent genetic studies have established that the KhoeSan populations of southern Africa are distinct from all other African populations and have remained largely isolated during human prehistory until ∼2000 years ago. Dozens of different KhoeSan groups exist, belonging to three different language families, but very little is known about their population history. We examine new genome-wide polymorphism data and whole mitochondrial genomes for >100 South Africans from the ≠Khomani San and Nama populations of the Northern Cape, analyzed in conjunction with 19 additional southern African populations. Our analyses reveal fine-scale population structure in and around the Kalahari Desert. Surprisingly, this structure does not always correspond to linguistic or subsistence categories as previously suggested, but rather reflects the role of geographic barriers and the ecology of the greater Kalahari Basin. Regardless of subsistence strategy, the indigenous Khoe-speaking Nama pastoralists and the N|u-speaking ≠Khomani (formerly hunter-gatherers) share ancestry with other Khoe-speaking forager populations that form a rim around the Kalahari Desert. We reconstruct earlier migration patterns and estimate that the southern Kalahari populations were among the last to experience gene flow from Bantu speakers, ∼14 generations ago. We conclude that local adoption of pastoralism, at least by the Nama, appears to have been primarily a cultural process with limited genetic impact from eastern Africa.
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