Neanderthals

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Neanderthals Expertly Made Tools Still in Use Today

These were no dummies, say researchers in Italy

(Newser) - Modern hunter-gatherers used "digging sticks," crafted from wood, to search for edible roots and tubers, as well as to hunt. It's a tradition that stretches back at least 171,000 years, according to a new PNAS study. Digging in Italy, scientists have uncovered 58 wooden tools—including...

How a Bit of Cave Dirt Just Changed Archaeology

In first, scientists pull ancient human DNA from dirt

(Newser) - The study of humans has long relied on bones to reveal human DNA. The problem is that those bones are hard to come by. As the Atlantic points out, scientists have only a finger bone and two teeth belonging to the Denisovans, cousins of Neanderthals. It's no wonder then...

Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too
Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too
new study
Mar 9, 2017 10:57 AM CST

Neanderthals Used Aspirin, Too

Plaque on their teeth reveals their dietary and medical ways

(Newser) - Scientists are thrilled to have discovered a gross buildup on a few fossilized teeth, and with reason. Not only were they able to discern the three Neanderthals' diets (two ate primarily meat, one primarily plants), they're also feasting their eyes on prehistoric microbiomes that are shedding more light on...

Ancients' Skulls Pose a Puzzle for Our Family Tree

They're not quite Neanderthal and not quite Homo sapien

(Newser) - First, back in 2007, they found tools. Then, a bone. Now archaeologists who've continued to return to the same dig in Lingjing, China, report in the journal Science that they've unearthed more than 40 separate skull fragments to pull together two partial skulls that date back 100,000...

Study: Neanderthals Were Doomed by Lack of Jackets

But ancient humans figured out warm clothing

(Newser) - Justifying concerned mothers everywhere, a group of researchers believes Neanderthals could have survived the Ice Age if they'd just worn a dang jacket. According to a study published Wednesday in the Journal of Anthropological Archaeology , dozens of ancient campsites—both human and Neanderthal—contain little evidence that Neanderthals ever...

Neanderthals 'Thoroughly' Butchered Their Own

Researchers excavated 99 bones and fragments from a cavern in Belgium

(Newser) - Neanderthals appear to have had quite the appetite for, well, one another, at least according to findings by researchers at the University of Tübingen in Germany. Reporting in the journal Scientific Reports , they say that an analysis of 99 new Neanderthal remains from a cavern in Belgium that date...

Deep in a Cave, Neanderthals Did Something Remarkable

Two stone rings up to 16 inches high that were intentionally made

(Newser) - For tens of thousands of years, the secrets of France's Bruniquel Cave went unknown, its mouth closed off by a rock slide. That began to change in the late '80s, the Atlantic reports, when a boy named Bruno Kowalsczewski started clearing away what obstructed the opening; three years...

Humans&#39; Nasty Gift to Neanderthals: Herpes?
Humans' Nasty Gift to Neanderthals: Herpes?
NEW STUDY
Apr 12, 2016 11:14 AM CDT

Humans' Nasty Gift to Neanderthals: Herpes?

Diseases out of Africa may have helped lead to their demise

(Newser) - Scientists claim Neanderthals were doomed by everything from climate change to their big eyes . A new study offers a different theory: humans were at least partly responsible. UK researchers say humans who migrated out of Africa were "reservoirs of tropical disease" and may have infected Neanderthals across Europe with...

Feeling Kind of Blue? Blame the Neanderthal In You

Neanderthal genetic variants are strongly linked to a dozen traits

(Newser) - It's long been known that the predecessors of modern humans and Neanderthals lived side by side, but it wasn't until 2010 that it was discovered the two species interbred . In fact, as much as 4% of the DNA of modern humans with European or Asian ancestry comes from...

Sex With Neanderthals May Explain Modern Allergies

But it probably also helped our ancestors stay alive

(Newser) - You may have to pump yourself full of Zyrtec just to step outside during allergy season because your ancestors couldn't keep their hands off those sexy Neanderthals, suggests two new studies in the American Journal of Human Genetics. Neanderthals and a second now-extinct hominid—Denisovans—were living in Europe...

Jawbone Lifts Lid on Human-Neanderthal Sex

Shows interbreeding occurred in Europe 37K to 42K years ago

(Newser) - A jawbone found in Romania more than a decade ago provides the first genetic evidence that humans and Neanderthals knocked boots in Europe before the latter disappeared between 35,000 and 40,000 years ago. Scientists who came across the bone of one of the earliest modern humans in Europe...

Scientists Find Oldest Neanderthal DNA

It could offer new insights into prehistoric life

(Newser) - About 150,000 years ago, an individual wandered into a cave, fell into a well, and never came back up. Thanks to that accident, scientists have their hands on the oldest Neanderthal DNA in existence, reports Phys.org . The skeleton known as Altamura Man was found in a cave in...

Ancient Skull Is the 'Missing Connection' in Human History

Researchers say it points to out-of-Africa migration

(Newser) - An ancient skull found in a cave in Israel is the first solid evidence that our species migrated out of Africa to colonize the rest of the world around 60,000 years ago, researchers say. The 55,000-year-old skull "is the missing connection between African and European populations,"...

Thigh Bone Reveals Timing of Human-Neanderthal Sex

We were probably getting it on between 50K and 60K years ago

(Newser) - It's no surprise that modern humans and Neanderthals used to get it on —most people of Eurasian descent are, genetically, 1.6% to 2.1% Neanderthal. The question has long been when they did, with a wide estimate putting it between 37,000 and 86,000 years ago...

This Carving May Prove Neanderthals Were Artists

Carving dates to 39K years ago; Neanderthals disappeared around that time

(Newser) - An ancient etching inside a cave in Gibraltar may mean that Neanderthals' knuckles weren't dragging quite as much as we believed, reports the BBC . The design suggests Neanderthals were capable of symbolic thinking, a trait once believed to be unique to modern humans, anthropologist Clive Finlayson of the Gibraltar...

Neanderthals May Have Died Out 10K Years Earlier Than We Thought

Scientists used sophisticated radiocarbon dating to make the new estimation

(Newser) - Scholars have long wondered why Neanderthals disappeared—and exactly when. Recent estimates date their last days to 30,000 years ago, but a new take using sophisticated radiocarbon dating suggests their rapid decline actually happened between 40,000 and 45,000 years ago. Based on this timing, the findings also...

Tibetans' Genetic Edge Didn't Come From Homo Sapiens

High-altitude fitness hails from an extinct hominid cousin, the Denisovans

(Newser) - Tibetans are largely unique among humans for their ability to live comfortably at high altitudes. The Tibetan Plateau, nicknamed the "roof of the world," stands an average of 15,000 feet above sea level. That's just shy of 3 miles—making it the highest plateau on the...

Oldest Human Poop Discovered

Neanderthal latrine reveals omnivorous diet

(Newser) - Neanderthals who squatted by a campfire in Spain around 50,000 years ago left something that has got today's scientists very excited. What is believed to be the oldest human poop ever discovered has yielded important information about the Neanderthal diet, Discovery reports. The leavings show that the Neanderthals...

Skulls From 'Pit of Bones' May Hold Evolution Clues

Neanderthals may have developed their distinctive jaws before their brains got big

(Newser) - Since 1984, scientists have been carefully removing, assembling, and analyzing thousands of bone fragments from the aptly-named "Pit of Bones" cave in Spain, home to the largest collection of ancient human fossils ever found. Now, they say their analysis of 17 skulls thought to be some 430,000 years...

Modern Humans No Brainier Than Neanderthals
Modern Humans No
Brainier Than Neanderthals
new study
May 1, 2014 10:40 AM CDT

Modern Humans No Brainier Than Neanderthals

Study: Archaeology doesn't support idea of Neanderthals as dimwitted

(Newser) - It's a well-ingrained stereotype: That Neanderthals grunted their way through life as less than brilliant "club-wielding brutes." A new study published in Plos One says that just isn't so. Scientists have long theorized that early modern humans had a cognitive advantage (which translated, they posited, into...

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