Ancient Tools Contradict the Timeline of Civilization

When studying the proliferation of humanity across the globe, researchers have been stumped by how the islands of Southeast Asia (ISEA) became well-inhabited so long ago.

It was thought that technological seafaring advancements to make this possible were unlikely during the Paleolithic era. But research now shows that the ancient people of the Philippines and ISEA may have mastered seafaring well before anyone else.

The evidence is stone tools excavated in the Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste, which indicates that 40,000 years ago, ancient seafarers had technological sophistication that rivals much later civilizations.

Proving seafaring history is tricky because wood and fiber that would have been used to construct Paleolithic seacraft rarely survive in the archaeological record. These stone tools show traces of plant processing to extract fibers used for making ropes, nets, and boatbuilding bindings. When you also discover fishing hooks, gorges, net weights, and the remains of deep-ocean fish (tuna and sharks), it is plain these archeological sites are of a robust seafaring culture.

The remains of large predatory fish indicate advanced seafaring capabilities as well as knowledge of those fish species’ migration routes. The fish and tool remains show a need for strong and well-crafted cordage for ropes and fishing lines.

It seems that ancient seafarers constructed boats from organic materials and held them together with ropes. The rope technology was then adapted for fishing.

Up until now, the prevailing theory is that prehistoric migrations were passive sea drifters on bamboo rafts. These researchers posit that such migrations were made by highly skilled navigators who had the knowledge and technology to travel over deep water to remote locations.

This advanced maritime technology highlights the ingenuity of early ISEA peoples. Their boat-building knowledge probably made the region a center for technological innovations thousands of years ago, laying the foundation for maritime traditions that still thrive there today.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/archaeologists-found-ancient-tools-that-contradict-the-timeline-of-civilization/ar-AA1QBNgO?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6920dbd5e422464a91ca37688bfb70ec&ei=40

Ancient Humans in Antarctica

For decades, Antarctica was thought to be untouched by ancient humans. It was too cold, too remote, and too unforgiving. But a recent discovery shattered that misconception.

Along the Antarctic Peninsula, researchers have uncovered bone fragments embedded in permafrost. They have been dated to nearly 6,000 years ago, which is before any known human presence. This suggests that ancient seafaring cultures may have ventured farther south than imagined. The remains have been carbon dated, their DNA analyzed, and archaeologically mapped.

The DNA analysis closely matched the lineage of Indigenous populations from southern Chile and Argentina. These groups were known for advanced maritime travel and seasonal movement across the Drake Passage, which is the body of water between the southern tip of South America and Antarctica.

Conventional reasoning said the early seafaring civilizations stayed within warm, resource-rich regions. But this evidence suggests ancient explorers mastered polar navigation long before compasses or maps existed. They must have understood ocean currents, seasonal weather, and animal migrations. Since these remains were found alongside marine mammal bones, they may have followed their food supply.

Found scatter near the remains were stone blades, carved bone tools, and traces of pigments. The suggest planned travel and possibly ritual practices. The tools are similar to those used by early South American coastal tribes for seal processing and navigation. It’s likely this journey wasn’t a fluke or a storm-driven drift, but a deliberate venture.

About 6,000 years ago, sea ice along the Antarctic Peninsula had retreated farther than today, which could have allowed ancient navigators to reach new hunting grounds. The Antarctic environment was less hostile, with milder summer and exposed coastlines. Such windows of opportunity might explain how humans reached Antarctica so long ago.

Finding humans so far south means migration wasn’t limited by temperature or geography but was driven by adaptability.

Radar imaging and satellite mapping have noted irregular formations beneath coastal ice layers, which may be more archaeological sites. Researchers are targeting zones once exposed during early Holocene warm periods. Each new site could rewrite another fragment of human history.

For centuries, legends in South America spoke of southern lands rich with seals and icy seas. These tales were dismissed—until now. Those stories may have been ancestral memories of real journeys.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/the-oldest-human-remains-in-antarctica-just-changed-what-scientists-thought-they-knew/ss-AA1OTxa5?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=6906581e6d084590bb311d75d21e1da4&ei=71#image=10

7,000-Year-Old Mummies

The Sahara is a vast expanse of sand where the fight for survival can be brutal. But there was a time in the distant past when it was green and flourishing.

Back between 14,000 and 5,500 years ago, during the African Humid Period, the Sahara had enough water to support a way of life, rather than being one of the driest places on Earth. At that time, it was a savannah where early humans settled for the favorable farming conditions. Among those people was a mysterious sub-group who lived in what is now southwestern Libya. Genetically, they should have been Sub-Saharan. But modern analysis shows that their genes don’t reflect that.

A team of researchers found two 7,000-year-old naturally preserved mummies of Neolithic female herders at the Takarkori rock shelter. Usually, genetic material does not preserve well in arid conditions, but in this case, there was enough fragmented DNA to give some insights into their past and clear up some of the mystery of human populations in the Sahara.

The Takarkori individuals don’t share DNA with modern humans. The majority of their ancestry stems from a previously unknown North African genetic lineage that diverged from sub-Saharan African lineages about the same time as modern humans roamed outside of Africa. But the Takarkori people appear to have remained isolated throughout most of their existence.

These Takarkori individuals were close relatives of 15,000-year-old foragers from the Taforalt Cave in Morocco. Both the Takarkori and the Taforalt people have about the same genetic distance from Sub-Saharan groups that existed at that time. This suggests there was not much gene flow between Sub-Saharan and Northern Africa at the time. Also, the Taforalts have half the Neanderthal genes of non-Africans. The Takarkori have ten times less. But, both of them still have more Neanderthal DNA than other Sub-Saharan peoples who were around at the time. Although the Tarkarkori apparently had less contact with Neanderthals than their more western brethren, they must have had more contact than other groups in their region. There are also traces of evidence of the Tarkarkori mixing with farmers from the Levant (the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea). But otherwise, the genes of the Takarkori reveal they were mostly isolated. Although genetically close to Northwestern African foragers like the Taforalt, they were distinct from Sub-Saharan populations.

It appears there was not much genetic exchange in the Green Sahara during the African Humid Period. It was thought that farming spread through the region by migrations, but this research suggests another explanation. Perhaps pastoralism spread through cultural diffusion into a deeply divergent, isolated North African lineage that was widespread in Northern Africa during the late Pleistocene epoch. In other words, farming spread through the exchange of practices between cultures rather than the mixture of people from migrations.

The Takarkori may have inherited their genes from a hunter-gatherer group from before animals were domesticated and farming began. Despite being hunter-gatherers, their ancestors made advances in making pottery, baskets, and tools made of wood and bone. They also seemed to stay in one place for longer periods of time.

Possibly the Takarkori stayed isolated because of the diversity of environments in the Green Sahara. These ranged from lakes and wetlands to woodlands, grasslands, savannas and even mountains. Such differences were probably barriers to interactions between human groups.

Elsewhere in the Sahara, there might be additional mummies or artifacts that could tell us more about life in the desert before it dried out.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/scientists-found-7-000-year-old-mummies-in-the-desert-that-don-t-share-dna-with-modern-humans/ar-AA1N0sir?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=68d560f961774dfd9a9711556f780d2a&ei=40

37,000 Years of Disease

With ancient DNA, scientists have mapped 37,000 years of disease across Europe and Asia.

More than 200 modern diseases are zoonoses—that is, they can spread to humans from other animals. Both rampant and widespread, zoonoses are often at the center of contemporary outbreaks, epidemics, and research. Six out of ten known infectious diseases are zoonotic, and three out of four new or emerging diseases that affect humans come from animals.

For a long time, scientists have speculated that these diseases began afflicting societies around the time animals were domesticated. But they’ve never had genetic evidence or pinned down a specific timeline—until now.

A team of scientists have traced the genetic history of 214 diseases across Europe and Asia over the last 37,000 years. Their findings indicate that the rise of animal husbandry forever shaped humanity’s relationship with disease. However, the timing defied their expectations.

The researchers found that zoonotic pathogens emerged roughly 6,500 years ago and spiked 5,000 years ago. That was surprising because it was several thousand years after humans began domesticating animals in Mesopotamia and southeast Asia. But the evidence says zoonoses initially became prevalent in Asia and Russia as communities transitioned from hunter-gatherer lifestyles to nomadic livestock herding or farming.

Having already tamed horses, communities began to travel in wagons pulled by oxen, which allowed them to voyage farther and exchange goods, ideas, and diseases with other communities. Though some pathogens may have moved from animals to humans even earlier, research suggests these changes made the spread more prevalent.

A vast analysis of DNA from ancient human remains made this study possible. The researchers extracted remnants of microbial genetic material from the teeth and bones of 1,313 human skeletons and identified 5,486 DNA sequences from bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Many remains were found in the same graves, indicating that a single contagion killed multiple people.

The study builds on existing evidence that mutations in these pathogens strengthened the immune systems of the nomads who were the first to get sick, while farmers and hunter-gatherers succumbed to the new diseases. But another study suggested that these nomads’ evolving immune systems might have also made them susceptible to chronic illnesses, like multiple sclerosis.

Understanding the ways pathogens affected humans long ago could help improve modern treatments and methods for preventing disease.

Successful mutations of the past are likely to reappear. So knowledge is important for future vaccines. Knowledge allows us to test whether current vaccines provide sufficient coverage or new ones need to be developed due to mutations.

Scientists analyzed one sample dating to 5,500 years ago, which contained the world’s oldest known genetic trace of yersinia pestis, which caused the plague that killed between 30 and 50 percent of Europe’s population during the Middle Ages. It’s just one example of how zoonoses have had a massive influence on human history and culture.

Other diseases identified in the human remains include malaria (4,200 years old), leprosy (1,400 years old), Hepatitis B (9,800 years old), and diphtheria (11,100 years old).

The work has some limitations. The genes of many viruses are encoded in RNA, which was not studied. The research might have missed some pathogens that were present at low levels. The history revealed is limited to the Eurasian sites where the skeletons were found.

I look forward to the day when my immune system figures out how to avoid covid-19.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/with-ancient-dna-scientists-have-mapped-37-000-years-of-disease-across-europe-and-asia/ar-AA1Jag8R?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=79a5e33a5ea742c0a9a5e8ffd7787b1a&ei=29

New Human Species

Scientists have discovered a new human species.

Only one species of hominin exists on the planet today, and that’s Homo sapiens. But throughout more geologically recent Earth history, the human family was a complex tableaux of members. Over the years, scientists have tried to get a clearer picture of that prehistoric story by excavating ancient human sites around the world.

Now anthropologists are illustrating a previously unknown chapter of that story with the introduction of a formerly uncatalogued human species, Homo juluensis.

Homo juluensis means “big head”. This species thrived in eastern Asia from about 300,000 years ago to around 50,000 years ago but then died out. According to the researchers, they likely hunted wild horses, fashioned stone tools, and processed animal hides to survive frigid winters. The breakthrough for discovering this possibly new species came when a team began devising a new system for organizing fossil evidence. They did not expect to propose a new human ancestor species and then to organize hominin fossils from Asia into different groups. But their study clarifies a hominin fossil record that has tended to include anything that could not easily be assigned to Homo erectus, Homo neanderthalensis, or Homo sapiens.

One possible member of the Homo juluensis species isn’t exactly a newcomer. Denisovans were first identified in 2010 by way of DNA extracted from a young girl’s fingerbone found in Siberia, but have not been given a species classification. They could belong to this new species.

Homo juluensis may also solve another mystery of the Xujiayao hominin fossils. These fossils have long perplexed researchers, as the remains display a mix of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens features. These remains have been confused for a variety of taxonomic representations, but scientists note that differences in the (big) cranium, the teeth, jaws, and a few other features indicate a new species. These fossil remains include Penghu 1 (jawbone), Xiahe (mandible), Xuchang (partial crania), and a variety of Denisova fossils.

Although this is a convincing argument that these particular specimens belong to a previously unknown human species, more research is needed. But since these fossils still defy any other species classification, it may only be a matter of time before the human tribe increases by at least one species.

 

Humans reach southern South America

DNA from 139 Indigenous groups reveal that humans reached southern South America by 14,500 years ago.

A new genetic analysis reveals that humans crossing from Asia along the Bering Land Bridge during the last ice age underwent three major population splits as they traveled through the Americas. This journey has been identified as the longest human migration out of Africa. Eventually, a group settled in the southern part of South America some 14,500 years ago.

An international team of scientists analyzed 1,537 genomes of people from 139 different ethnic groups to identify genetic characteristics of the earliest Americans.

The GenomeAsia 100K consortium collected the genetic material, including some from Asian populations whose ancestors made early migrations into the Americas. The scientists were able to identify the genetic background of indigenous people throughout the Americas. They pinpointed three key time periods when the long-distance travelers split up.

The first population split occurred between 26,800 and 19,300 years ago during the Last Glacial Maximum. This was when Indigenous Americans split from North Eurasian people. These dates are consistent with a Native American presence at White Sands in New Mexico, as evidenced by ancient footprints and vehicle drag marks dated to 23,000 to 21,000 years ago.

The next major population split happened between 17,500 and 14,600 years ago. The indigenous population in North America split, and some made their way south. This Mesoamerican group then split rapidly into four native genetic lineages around 13,900 years ago. These groups were ancestral Pueblo peoples in the southwest US, as well as Amazonians, Andeans and Patagonians in South America.

This estimation actually fits well with the archaeological records, which indicate that people were living in the furthest southern reaches of the South American continent by about 14,500 years ago.

As people made their way into the new land tens of thousands of years ago, they experienced a reduction in their genetic diversity. First it was because of geographic barriers. Later, the populations were decimated after the arrival of European colonists.

One key loss was in the variation in human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes. A high diversity of HLA genes is important for immune system health. In regions such as Southeast Asia with a high number of disease-causing organisms, previous studies found a high diversity of HLA genes. But in the Indigenous South American genomes, there was significantly lower diversity in the HLA genes. This may have led to these people being more vulnerable to novel pathogens.

One of the researchers’ aims is to emphasize the special medical needs of contemporary Indigenous peoples. Some have gene variants associated with problems like adverse drug reactions.

 

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/humans-reached-southern-south-america-by-14-500-years-ago-genomes-from-139-indigenous-groups-reveal/ar-AA1ER86r?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=e2137095d6244d2d9b66aa91eafcef03&ei=65

When Did Humans Reach the Americas?

This question has been simmering in the back of my mind for decades. I’ve given panels on it at science fiction conventions, and I’ve written blogs on the subject before, too. I believe the last blog I wrote about it theorized that an ice-free channel through the North American glaciers of the last ice age opened up about 14,000 years ago. And therefore people who had crossed the Bering landbridge sometime before that were finally able to leave Alaska and find their way south to the plains of central North America. And from there, they could have gone on to populate all the rest of North America, Central America and South America.

But even that might not be right.

The other night, we watched a documentary about fossilized footprints in the White Sands National Park in New Mexico. Although the area is a desert now, during the last ice age, it housed a large lake. The fossilized footprints recorded the presence of Columbian mammoths, great ground sloths, North American camels and horses. And among all those footprints, it is not at all unusual to find lots of human footprints.

Scientists have to work fast to learn all they can from these footprints, because as soon as they are revealed by the wind blowing the sand away, the blowing sand starts to erode the footprints away. For these are not the usual fossils that have been turned into stone. Some of the footprints are impressions in the sand, that had been filled with silt that was finer than the sand around them. Others are outlined with bulging sand indicating the weight of the animal. All of them dried out when the lake dried up, and little has happened to the area to disturb them. Except the blowing wind.

A number of scientists work the site each year, and I was left with the impression that each year presents a new batch of footprints, at a slightly lower level than the year before.

One year—and it didn’t say what year it was—a pair of scientists who are experts at radio-carbon dating dug a trench in the sand, going down through several layers of human footprints. But you can’t radio-carbon date sand; you can only radio-carbon date organic material, like plants or animals. By examining the layers between the human footprints, they were able to find organic material, such as seeds or pollen. They packaged up a number of these samples and took them back to their lab in Denver to date them.

Two years later, the narrator visited them in their lab to ask what kind of dates they had gotten from their samples. They said they had gotten dates between 21,000 and 23,000 years ago! That would have been long before the ice-free trail through the glaciers had opened up!

At the very end of the show, the narrator was talking to another scientist, and wondered how humans could have gotten so far south before the glaciers had started to melt. The anthropologist said they had probably followed the Pacific coastline, starting in Alaska and working their way south. But, he pointed out, the sea level was much lower at that time (as much as 400 feet lower), with so much water tied up in the glaciers, so any settlements they might have established would be underwater now. He suggested we should be doing more diving along the coastline to find them.

Okay. Who still thinks that ancient alien visitors brought a herd of humans to the Americas? (This was the last suggestion I made when I gave this talk at conventions.)