One of the many things that distinguish us from other primates, and all animals for that matter, is a very marked preference for the use of one hand/limb over the other. While some other species show signs of individual preference, around 95% of humans are right-handed.
But handedness goes beyond simply preferring one hand over another, and there is a very interesting story behind how we developed that trait. Check out PBS Eons’ episode on the subject to find out more.
Shown here is a right-handed Neanderthal craftsman using stone tools to butcher a carcass and clean the animal’s skin.
It’s a hard sad day here; hope y’all are staying safe and hanging in there. Ever read the #malazan book series? Was thinking of the T’lan Imass while drawing this. #skulls #undead #moth #hyena #wolf #zombie #neanderthal #drawing #inkdrawing #malazanbookofthefallen #tlanimass #ghoul #skullart #skulldrawing #mothdrawing #mothart #quarantink https://www.instagram.com/p/CFBEnp6Fusc/?igshid=164mmuerzm2n
“Back in July of last year, we brought you a transcription and a couple of audio interpretations of the oldest known song in the world, discovered in the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit and dating back to the 14th century B.C.E.. Likely performed on an instrument resembling an ancient lyre, the so-called “Hurrian Cult Song” or “Hurrian Hymn No. 6” sounds otherworldly to our ears, although modern-day musicologists can only guess at the song’s tempo and rhythm.
When we reach even further back in time, long before the advent of systems of writing, we are completely at a loss as to the forms of music prehistoric humans might have preferred. But we do know that music was likely a part of their everyday lives, as it is ours, and we have some sound evidence for the kinds of instruments they played.
In 2008, archeologists discovered fragments of flutes carved from vulture and mammoth bones at a Stone Age cave site in southern Germany called Hohle Fels. These instruments date back 42,000 to 43,000 years and may supplant earlier findings of flutes at a nearby site dating back 35,000 years. The flutes are meticulously crafted, reports National Geographic, particularly the mammoth bone flute, which would have been “especially challenging to make.”
At the time of their discovery, researchers speculated that the flutes “may have been one of the cultural accomplishments that gave the first European modern-human (Homo sapiens) settlers an advantage over their now extinct Neanderthal-human (Homo neanderthalis) cousins.” But as with so much of our knowledge about Neanderthals, including new evidence of interbreedingwithHomo sapiens, these conclusions may have to be revised” (read more).
***The video is not new but I thought worth a blog to contrast against this previous post.
“He suggests that the Châtelperronian tools may have been developed elsewhere and brought to the Iberian Peninsula by migrants—perhaps from France—who replaced an older Neanderthal population. Such local patterns of extinction and replacement could help researchers understand why all Neanderthals eventually died out, he added.”
Once upon a 17th Century, there lived a good Calvinist preacher, teacher, and hymn composer Joachim Neander. You probably know his most famous hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty” (German: “Lobe den Herren, den mächtigen König der Ehren”) published in virtually every Christian hymnal.
He was such a great man, the German people many decades later decided to name after Neander a whole valley (“thal” in German) near Düsseldorf where he taught, thus “Neanderthal.”
Of course, the Valley of Neander (Neanderthal) would later become the place where the first Homo neanderthalensis was identified after discovery in a cave.
Audio News from Archaeologica (4/4): Genetic material left behind in caves unlocks new discoveries about Europe’s Neanderthal populations. Dig deeper on our website, or on your favorite podcast service, like Apple Podcasts: http://bit.ly/38w5P0A.
The last of the Neanderthals may have died out tens of thousands of years ago, but large stretches of their genetic code live on in people today.
Though many of us can claim only a handful of Neanderthal genes, when added together, the human population carries more than a fifth of the archaic human’s DNA, researchers found. Read more
Wanted: ‘Adventurous woman’ to give birth to Neanderthal man - Harvard professor seeks mother for cloned cave baby
They’re usually thought of as a brutish, primitive species. So what woman would want to give birth to a Neanderthal baby?
Yet this incredible scenario is the plan of one of the world’s leading geneticists, who is seeking a volunteer to help bring man’s long-extinct close relative back to life. Professor George Church of Harvard Medical School believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species which became extinct 33,000 years ago. His scheme is reminiscent of Jurassic Park but, while in the film dinosaurs were created in a laboratory, Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer. He said his analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA. He said: ‘Now I need an adventurous female human… It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done.’ Professor Church’s plan would begin by artificially creating Neanderthal DNA based on genetic code found in fossil remains. He would put this DNA into stem cells. These would be injected into cells from a human embryo in the early stages of life. It is thought that the stem cells would steer the development of the hybrid embryo on Neanderthal lines, rather than human ones.
An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Asier Gomez-Olivencia of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and including Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam, has provided new insights on one of the most famous Neandertal skeletons, discovered over 100 years ago: La Ferrassie 1.
“New technological approaches are allowing anthropologists to peer even deeper into the bones of our ancestors,” said Quam. “In the case of La Ferrassie 1, these approaches have made it possible to identify new fossil remains and pathological conditions of the original skeleton as well as confirm that this individual was deliberately buried.
The adult male La Ferrassie 1 Neanderthal skeleton was found in 1909 in a French cave site, along with the remains of an adult woman and several Neanderthal children. Read more.
