Neanderthals Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Body size is one of the most important determinants of the biology of a species, as it correlates with life history, energetic expenditure, diet, thermoregulation, and home range size, among other factors. Although the evolution of body size within the genus Homo is an important issue, the most influential large-scale studies have been performed over 20 years ago, with a recent interest in this issue only in the last few years. In the meantime, the widely accepted interpretation that there was a major shift in body size with the origin of Homo ergaster/erectus when compared Homo habilis, Homo rudolfensis, and australopithecines has come under criticism. Recent analyses have demonstrated that body size within early Homo is spatially and temporally variable, only showing significant increase in the Koobi Fora region after 1.7 Mya (Will & Stock, 2015). Broad temporal analyses of body size have highlighted the significant increase in body mass during the late Middle and Late Pleistocene (Ruff, 1997), and that brain size increases correspond closely with body mass increases throughout the Pleistocene (Grabowski, 2016). Even though new body size data is now accumulating rapidly for various parts of the hominin record (Arsuaga et al., 2015; Grabowski et al., 2015; Will & Stock, 2015), no study comparable to the scope of Ruff et al. (1997) has since been performed.
In this paper we investigate taxonomic, spatial and temporal variation in two components of body size within the genus Homo: body mass and stature. We combine size estimates of hominin fossils from our own studies with other published data, resulting in the largest sample for a single study so far (n=319). The body size estimates cover roughly four million years (4.1 Mya – 11 ka) and derive from African, European and Asian specimens, including several genera and species of hominins. This data set allows for a detailed assessment of body size evolution within the genus Homo and relative to earlier hominins.
Analyses of the body size estimates demonstrate that: a) the origins of the genus Homo are characterized by a significant increase in body size compared to australopithecines and paranthropines, but also feature abundant spatial and temporal variation within an enlarged size range; b) members of Homo erectus/ergaster are marked by a diversification in body mass and stature rather than directional increase; c) a consistent and universal increase in body size is only established in Middle Pleistocene hominins (e.g. Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca; Homo heidelbergensis), Neanderthals and modern humans after ca. 0.5 Mya; d) selection against smaller body mass and stature occurred in the late Early and Middle Pleistocene, and; e) there are no simple latitudinal trends in the variation of body size estimates within Middle and Late Pleistocene Homo in Europe. These results have implications for studies concerned with human dispersal and encephalization, and more generally for how we interpret the evolution and biology of our genus. In light of the above, rather than focusing exclusively on species means and unidirectional models, perspectives that emphasize spatio-temporal variability and phenotypic plasticity might be more fruitful frameworks for interpreting the evolution of body size in our genus.

- by and +1
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- Evolutionary Biology, Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, Human Evolution
- by Joshua Akey
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- Science, Multidisciplinary, Melanesia, DNA
- by Ferdous Ahmed Sohel
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- Archaeology, Computer Vision, Image Processing, Machine Learning

Il presente saggio si propone di fornire un breve exursus sull'attività scientifica di Alberto Carlo Blanc (1906-1960). Blanc fu professore di Etnologia dal 1939 (succedendo a Pettazzoni), di Paletnologia e di Paleontologia Umana all'Università di Roma. Noto soprattuto per la scoperta del cranio neandertaliano del Circeo, interpretato quale prova di cannibalismo rituale, Blanc formulò una nuova teoria riguardo l'evoluzione culturale ("etnolisi"), basata sul'idea di "evoluzione per segregazione". Con il successivo Cosmolisi egli integrò i concetti già espressi con le acquisizioni della genetica, affermando l'idea di una finalismo nell'evoluzione psichica dell'uomo. I lavori etnologici di Blanc ebbero un impatto modesto e una ricezione travagliata e non esente da critiche. Nonostante l'ampia fama raggiunta all'estero, in Italia egli soffrì un certo isolamento accademico, acuitosi dopo la scissione dell'Isipu nel 1953.

- by Stefano Pipi
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- Paleoanthropology, History of Science, Neandertals, Neanderthals
- by Ivor Jankovic
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- Paleolithic, Neanderthals, Antropologija, Arheologija

This study presents and discusses a methodology to study population contact scenarios among Pleistocene hunter-gatherers. It applies this methodology to the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition in the Middle Danube region by testing three models for the emergence of the transitional technocomplexes: local evolution, diffusion and stimulus diffusion. A detailed attribute analysis suggests that the local evolution model does not adequately explain the patterns in the archaeological record at the Middle-to-Upper Palaeolithic transition, while the diffusion model that implies direct contact is best supported by the data presented.

- by Philip R Nigst
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- Prehistoric Archaeology, Landscape Archaeology, Lithic Technology, Lithics

Epistemology and research history significantly shape scientific understandings, debates, and publication strategies, albeit often implicitly. In Palaeolithic archaeology in particular, these factors are rarely examined in depth. Here, we present a historiographic analysis of how research history has influenced the debate concerning the possible Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia. We provide a qualitative discussion of this contentious research field as well as a citation network analysis that visualizes, quantifies, and hence clarifies some of the underlying conceptual, geographic, and temporal patterns in the development of the debate. Our results show significant regionalism as a structuring principle driving this debate as well as a basic rift between professional and avocational archaeologists in how they interpret and publish the available data. We also identify a troubling lack of cross-referencing, even when taking language barriers into account. We argue that the debate about Neanderthal occupation in Scandinavia has been shaped (negatively) by the following phenomena: regionalism, nationalism, lack of research and researchers, non-cumulative work, publication in Nordic languages, science by press release/sensationalism, and a lamentable trend towards arguments ad hominem. In order to take this research field forward, we propose an epistemological turn towards a cumulative, international, and hypothesis-driven agenda based on renewed research efforts and novel citizen science tools.

- by Trine Kellberg Nielsen and +1
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- Scandinavia, Network Analysis, History of Archaeological Research, Neanderthals
- by Richard Villems
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- Bioinformatics, Life Sciences, Biological Sciences, Phylogeny
- by Marcel J L T Niekus and +1
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- Neanderthals (Palaeolithic Archaeology), Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition, Middle Palaeolithic, Neandertals

The veracity of the carbon isotope dating attempts relating to the rock art in Chauvet Cave is reviewed, together with the merits of their criticisms. The attribution of the cave art to the Aurignacian is validated by several factors and stylistic objections are refuted. The question of the ethnicity of the Aurignacian artists is also considered, leading to the cognisance that they are very unlikely to have been ‘anatomically modern’ humans. There is currently no sound evidence that the ‘Aurignacians’ were not robust Homo sapiens people, i.e. Neanderthals or their descendants. The gracilisation humans experienced in the Final Pleistocene and Holocene is attributed not to evolutionary processes, but to cultural intervention through breeding preferences leading to the neotenous features characterising present-day humans.

- by Robert Bednarik
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Human Evolution, Mediterranean prehistory
- by Rahmat naderi رحمت نادری
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- Kurdistan, Neanderthals, Caves, Shanidar

Well, I had a chance to "sit down" with the author, Tom Higham, and discuss the field of Anthropology in general, Radio Carbon Dating, and of course, his new book! So to go along with our video, we are going to have a quick, but... more

- by Seth R Chagi
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- Paleoanthropology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology, Science Communication

"Due to the central position of diet in determining ecology and behaviour, much research has been devoted to uncovering Neanderthal subsistence strategies. This has included indirect studies inferring diet from habitat reconstruction, ethnographic analogy, or faunal assemblages, and direct methods, such as dental wear and isotope analyses. Recently, studies of dental calculus have provided another rich source of dietary evidence, with much potential. One of the most interesting results to come out of calculus analyses so far is the suggestion that Neanderthals may have been eating non-nutritionally valuable plants for medicinal reasons. Here we offer an alternative hypothesis for the occurrence of non-food plants in Neanderthal calculus based on the modern human ethnographic literature: the
consumption of herbivore stomach contents."

This paper begins by exploring the role of fermented and deliberately rotted (putrefied) meat, fish, and fat in the diet of modern hunters and gatherers throughout the arctic and subarctic. These practices partially 'pre-digest' the high protein and fat content typical of northern forager diets without the need for cooking, and hence without the need for fire or scarce fuel. Because of the peculiar properties of many bacteria, including various lactic acid bacteria (LAB) which rapidly colonize decomposing meat and fish, these foods can be preserved free of pathogens for weeks or even months and remain safe to eat. In addition, aerobic bacteria in the early stages of putrefaction deplete the supply of oxygen in the tissues, creating an anaerobic environment that retards the production of potentially toxic byproducts of lipid autoxidation (rancidity). Moreover, LAB produce B-vitamins, and the anaerobic environment favors the preservation of vitamin C, a critical but scarce micronutrient in heavily meat-based northern diets. If such foods are cooked, vitamin C may be depleted or lost entirely, increasing the threat of scurvy. Psychological studies indicate that the widespread revulsion shown by many Euroamericans to the sight and smell of putrefied meat is not a universal hard-wired response, but a culturally learned reaction that does not emerge in young children until the age of about five or later, too late to protect the infant from pathogens during the highly vulnerable immediate-post-weaning period. Ethnohistoric and ethnographic evidence clearly show that putrefied meat and fish were not used solely as starvation foods, but served instead as ubiquitous, desirable, and nutritionally important components of forager diets throughout these northern environments. In the second part of the paper, I extend these arguments to suggest that putrefied meat, fish, and fat are likely to have been equally important to the lifeways and adaptations of Eurasian Paleolithic hominins inhabiting analogous environments. If such food practices were in fact widespread during the mid-to late Pleistocene, they may help account for aspects of the archaeological record that are presently difficult to comprehend, such as the 'on again, off again' evidence for fire use (and hence cooking) during the Eurasian Middle Paleolithic. Putrefaction also may alter the isotopic composition of the diet. As meat and fish decompose, a variety of volatile compounds are produced, including ammonia. Loss of NH 3 , along with lesser amounts of two other nitrogenous gases—cadaverine and putrescine—would very likely leave rotted meat and fish enriched in 15 N by comparison to the isotopic composition of these foods in their fresh state. Such enrichment may have contributed to the elevated values seen in many Neanderthals, values that are widely taken as prima facie evidence of Neanderthal's status as a 'top predator.' Finally, if Paleolithic foragers relied upon putrefaction to prepare and store meat, archaeologists may have to rethink the way they interpret a number of widely used taphonomic signatures, including the number and distribution of cutmarks, the extent of carnivore damage, the incidence of burning on both animal bones and stone tools, and the frequency and scale of hearths, ash lenses, and other features of combustion. " When we fix salmon head we put it in bucket in ground and we take it out and eat it. We leave it in ten days

- by John D Speth
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- Forensic Anthropology, Zooarchaeology, Stable Isotope Analysis, Taphonomy

The timing and geographic origin of the common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals remain controversial. A poor Pleistocene hominin fossil record and the evolutionary complexities introduced by dispersals and regionalisation of lineages have fuelled taxonomic uncertainty, while new ancient genomic data have raised completely new questions. Here, we use maximum likelihood and 3D geometric morphometric methods to predict possible morphologies of the last common ancestor of modern humans and Neandertals from a simplified, fully resolved phylogeny. We describe the fully rendered 3D shapes of the predicted ancestors of humans and Neandertals, and assess their similarity to individual fossils or populations of fossils of Pleistocene age. Our results support models of an Afro-European ancestral population in the Middle Pleistocene (Homo heidelbergensis sensu lato) and further predict an African origin for this ancestral population.

- by Marta Mirazon Lahr
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- Paleontology, Biological Anthropology, Human Evolution, Phylogenetics
- by Erella Hovers
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- Human Evolution, Australopithecus, Middle Paleolithic, Neanderthals

Persistence and change are necessary for the stability and development of both the human individual and the human society, since the beginnings of human history. Man needs a static framework, which, related to his self-awareness, defines a topocentric system of perception, evaluation, order, and meaning. He also requires a dynamic impetus, which allows exceeding the limits of special world views, shifting of perspectives and transformations of individual as well as social approaches to life. Travelling especially helped to broaden man’s horizon and mind. Accross cultures voyages guided by the skies are linked with practical concepts of exploring and domesticating time and space, but also figuratively with the life’s journey and with other worlds, being expressed by mythic, ritual and later scientific language.

- by Michael Rappenglueck
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- Evolutionary Biology, Archaeology, Classical Archaeology, Egyptology

In deze rapportage worden de resultaten besproken van een inventarisatie van 24 privécollecties met in totaal 1203 (vuur)stenen artefacten waarvan het merendeel afkomstig is uit de megasuppletie (2011) van de Zandmotor voor de kust bij Ter Heijde. De artefacten zijn afkomstig uit offshore wingebied Q16F,H. Op basis van typologische en technologische kenmerken van de artefacten, deels in combinatie met de post-depositionele oppervlakteveranderingen en grondstofgebruik, kon de assemblage in een aantal perioden worden onderverdeeld. De oudste artefacten rekenen we tot de ‘Rhenen Industrie’ en behoren tot het Acheuléen, met een geschatte ouderdom tussen ca. 250.000 en 170.000 jaar (MIS 7-vroeg MIS 6), d.w.z. voor de landijsbedekking van het Saalien. De artefacten uit deze periode hebben één of meer fasen van verspoeling ondergaan. Een aanzienlijk deel van de artefacten schrijven we toe aan het latere Midden-Paleolithicum met een ruime datering in de eerste helft of het middendeel van de laatste ijstijd (MIS 5d-3: ca. 115.000-40.000 jaar geleden). Een aantal laat-middenpaleolithische werktuigen vertoont affiniteit met specifieke fasen van het Moustérien Complex, zoals het Moustérien de tradition acheuléenne (MTA) en het Moustérien type Quina. Een klein aantal artefacten hoort mogelijk thuis in het vroege Jong-Paleolithicum (MIS 3 en 2); het Laat- Aurignacien en het Vroeg-Gravettien komen in aanmerking. Slechts één artefact hoort waarschijnlijk thuis in de laatpaleolithische Federmesser-traditie. Artefacten uit het Vroeg- en/of Midden-Mesolithicum zijn op de Zandmotor (afkomstig uit wingebied Q16F,H) niet uitgesproken aanwezig, wel iets verder zuidelijk langs het Noordzeestrand, richting Hoek van Holland. De meeste en tegelijk de jongste prehistorische artefacten schrijven we toe aan het Laat-Mesolithicum (Vroeg-Atlanticum), zo rond 6400/6300 v.Chr. Opvallend zijn enkele tientallen bijlen en afslagen die met de productie hiervan samenhangen. Samen met enkele trapezia vormen de bijlen een karakteristiek element van het Noord-Nederlandse Laat-Mesolithicum (voorheen samengevat onder de noemer ‘De Leien-Wartena Complex’).

- by Marcel J L T Niekus and +2
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- Mesolithic Archaeology, Mesolithic Europe, Neanderthals (Palaeolithic Archaeology), Upper Paleolithic

It is widely known that traditional northern hunter–gatherers such as the Inuit included putrid meat, fish, and fat in their diet, although the ubiquity and dietary importance of decomposing animal foods seem often to have been underappreciated. There is no evidence that these arctic and subarctic foragers suffered from major outbreaks of botulism (Clostridium botulinum), or from the toxic metabolites of other pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes or Salmonella spp., until the 1970s and 1980s when Euroamericans introduced more "sanitary" methods for putrefying native foods. While many ethnologists, nutritionists, and public health officials working in these high-latitude regions are generally aware of the importance of putrefied foods among such peoples, most scholars, regardless of discipline, would not expect similar practices to have been commonplace in the tropics, especially in hot, humid environments like the lowland rainforests of the Congo Basin. And yet a "deep dive" into the ethnohistoric literature of sub-Saharan Africa, and elsewhere in the tropics and sub-tropics of the Old and New World, shows that both hunter–gatherers and traditional small-scale rural farmers commonly ate thoroughly putrefied meat, fish, and fat with relative impunity, consuming some of it raw, frequently cooking it, but often barely so. Not only did tropical peoples regularly eat putrefied animal foods, these ethnohistoric accounts make it clear that, at least in many regions, the Indigenous populations generally preferred it that way. Equally surprising, perhaps, is the fact that this preference for putrid meat remained widespread in equatorial Africa and in many other tropical and sub-tropical regions well into the first quarter of the 20th century, only fading from view around the time of WWI or thereabouts. Combining the insights gained by looking at the consumption of putrid meat in both northern and tropical environments, several interesting implications become evident. First, it is clear that the disgust response with regard to the taste, smell, and sight of rotten meat and maggots is not a hardwired human universal, but more likely a learned cultural response, one that is closely linked to European colonization, Westernization, urbanization, and industrialization. Second, the capacity for both northern and tropical peoples to consume putrid meat with impunity suggests that their ability to resist the toxic effects of the metabolites of C. botulinum and other pathogens most likely stems in large part from the environmental priming of their gut floras and immune systems through early childhood exposure to pathogens rather than from genetic factors. This conclusion fits well with findings from recent microbiome studies, including studies of the gut floras of monozygotic twins living in different households. Third, putrefaction provides many of the same benefits that one gets by cooking, because it effectively "pre-digests" meat and fat prior to ingesting them. Moreover, in tropical environments putrefaction occurs very rapidly and automatically, and requires little investment of time and energy on the part of the consumer. Finally, we suggest that, by eating putrid meat and fat, early hominins could have acquired many of the benefits of cooking, but at much lower cost, and quite likely long before they gained control of fire.

- by John D Speth
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- Microbiology, Human Behavioral Ecology, Human Evolution, Africa

Zuraina Majid, Ang Bee Huat and Jaffrie Ignatius (1998). Late Pleistocene-Holocene Sites in Pahang: Excavations of Gua Sagu and Gua Tenggek:IN (Editor: Zuraina Majid) Archaeological Research and Museums In Malaysia. Malaysia Museums... more

- by Jeffrey Abdullah
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- Archaeology, Experimental Archaeology, Pottery (Archaeology), South-East Asia

Algonquian language-speaking groups of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence River region of North America preserve traditions regarding the Animiki´, generally translated into English as " thunderbird, " " thunderers " or " thunder people. " Primarily these are sky manitous (spirits), who bring forth lightning, thunder and rain storms. However, separate traditions held by these peoples talk about the Animiki´being shape-shifting giants birds that can assume human form by removing their " feather blankets,' and even have mortal families. The author proposes that earthly Animikiáre a memory of Denisovan and arguably Denisovan-Neanderthal-modern human groups that thrived in parts of North America through until the first millennia BC, when they became the extremely tall ruling elites and shamans of the Adena mound-building culture (the so-called " Adena elite " theory). Knowledge that modern Algonquian language-speaking populations such as the Ojibwa and Cree likely possess Denisovan ancestry, while the Denisovans themselves are now thought to have been of large stature, adds weight to these suggestions.

- by Andrew Collins
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- Native American Studies, Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Anthropology

Abstract: A tiny bone plaque found at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Göbekli Tepe in southeast Turkey, and currently on display in nearby Sanliurfa Museum, shows the first recorded depiction of the site’s familiar T-shaped pillars. In addition to this, the etching on its surface might well be the earliest known use of a 3D perspective in prehistoric art. The plaque’s finely carved imagery also reignites the debate over the axial orientation of the site’s main enclosures and any potential astronomical targets during the epoch of their construction.

- by Marcel J L T Niekus and +2
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- Palaeolithic Archaeology, Neanderthals (Palaeolithic Archaeology), Neandertals, Neanderthals

This paper, which was published in 2008, predicted that modern lineages from outside sub-Saharan Africa would have a small admixture of Neanderthal genes (up to 4%, as it turns out, from recent analyses of the Neanderthal genome) from contact with gracile Levantine Neanderthals, but would have almost none from more robust cold-weather Neanderthals to the north. The discovery that non-African lineages have some Neanderthal genes is not nearly as surprising, given the existence of fossils that show some hybridization, as the fact that all those lineages apparently have similar low amounts of Neanderthal genes. This suggests that the genes entered modern genomes after the root population of anatomically modern humans (AMHs) had left Africa around 70,000 years ago, but before it had split into separate Eurasiatic and Australian branches, during the brief period when AMHs were still limited to the relatively warm Middle East.
What’s even more surprising is that the descendants of branches that expanded northwards after the initial contact with Neanderthals did not continue to accumulate their genes to a significant degree, since some of those branches continued to have contact with our archaic cousins tens of thousands of years after AMH populations, which stayed around the Indian Ocean. That should have been plenty of time for Caucasians, for example, to acquire a much larger dose of Neanderthal genes. But Europeans have only a little more Neanderthal inheritance than do Polynesians, Australian Aborigines, or American Indians.
What could have prevented northern Moderns from adding significantly to their Neanderthal inheritance once they began encountering cold-weather Neanderthals rather than warm-weather ones?
The answer probably lies in the difference between the bones of Levantine Neanderthals, which are fairly gracile, and their cold-weather cousins, which are much more robust. They are so different that the two Neanderthal populations should probably be divided into two races or even sub-species: a Middle-Eastern one adapted to temperate conditions and the other to "hyper-arctic" conditions involving severe wind chill factors.
If the osteological and other analyses detailed in this paper are correct, then the northern Neanderthal population must have had more extreme thermoregulatory adaptations than the southern one, which would have been adapted to almost the same range of temperatures as the even more gracile AMHs coming out of Africa. Just as the similarity between the thermo-regulatory controls of southern Neanderthals and AMHs could explain why they could occasionally hybridize, the different biological approaches to temperature of AMHs and northern Neanderthals could explain why there is so little evidence that they cross-bred.
I hypothesized that the only way for AMHs and cold-weather Neanderthals to maintain such different thermoregulatory adaptations would have been for each population to have its own conservative sexual preferences. AMH preferences would have maintained whole-body cooling systems based on sweat and bald bodies, which could only be insulated against glacial conditions with seamed clothing, while northern Neanderthal preferences ensured that each new generation was equipped with bodies that grew winter insulation in the form of sub-cutaneous fat and fur, which would have required the addition of nothing more than draped clothing. The fact that AMHs and northern Neanderthals were so invested in such contrasting thermoregulatory solutions would have locked them into preferences that prevented much hybridization and the survival of many hybrids.
But the corresponding fact that neither AMHs nor the Levantine Neanderthals they encountered before 60,000 years ago were invested in biological adaptations to extreme cold - with their incompatible sets of sexual cues - would have opened the path to limited cross-breeding in the Middle East, just as the latest genetic results have demonstrated.

- by Duncan Caldwell
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- Neanderthals (Palaeolithic Archaeology), Neandertals, Neanderthals, Neanderthal

Defining varying spatial and temporal analytical scales is essential before evaluating the responses of late Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens to Abrupt Environmental Transitions (AETs) and environmental disasters for the period 130-25 ka. Recent advances in addressing the population histories and interactions (using both genetic and archaeological evidence) of Neanderthals and H. sapiens have encouraged consideration of more subtle dynamics of archaeological change. Descriptions of change based on methodologies pioneered some 160 years ago are no longer adequate to explain the patterning we now see in the record. New chronological results, using multiple dating methods, allow us to begin to unpick the spatial and temporal scales of change. Isochronic markers (such as specific volcanic eruptions) can be used to create temporal frameworks (lattices), and results from other dating techniques compared against them. A combination of chronological lattices and direct dating of diagnostic artefacts and human fossils permits us, for the first time, to have greater confidence in connecting human (recent hominin) species and their behavioural responses to environmental conditions, and in quantifying scales of change
over time and space (time-transgression). The timing of innovations, particularly those in bone, antler and ivory, can be directly quantified and tested, and used to re-evaluate longstanding models of cultural change. This paper also uses these new chronologies to explore the ecologies of late Neanderthals and early H. sapiens: their population densities, mobilities, resources exploited and possible interactions.
Environmental productivity estimates are used to generate new questions of potential population densities and mobilities, and thus the sensitivity of these groups to environmental perturbations. Scales and intensities of effect on environments from natural disasters and AETs (notably Heinrich Events and the Campanian Ignimbrite eruption) are defined as a scale from “proximal” to “distal,” with local conditions (topographic shelter or exposure) serving to intensify or mitigate those effects.

Neanderthals are a Late Pleistocene hominin adapted to cool high-latitudes environments. Popular views on how Neanderthals adapted to these environments have changed over time. While once thought of as a largely scavenging hominin, Neanderthals are now accepted to be competent hunters who sourced a major part of their nutrition from ungulates. Neanderthal diet appears to be highly terrestrial but there are difficulties ruling out a contribution of marine foods in many regions. While the important role of large and medium ungulates in debates about Neanderthal diet has largely been settled, recent discussions about Neanderthal diet have explored the extent of their diet varied, the role of minor foods (plant, small mammal and marine foods) and dietary flexibility.

Contents:
Preface
About my first paper
About “Behaar Al Anwaar”
Divine Project for Adam Creation
An Important notification
An enlightenment on the theory
Who are Homo Sapiens?
THEY ARE NOT HUMAN!
The Jinn (Homo Sapiens) in Koran
Notification
Some important facts in the first 13 verses of “Jinn chapter” of Koran
Homo Sapiens’ Specifications in the view of Science and knowledge
Scientific justification of the theory
An important advice
New discoveries, new enlightenment
These Ancient Elongated Skulls ARE NOT HUMAN
Extremely bizarre skulls
The Star child Project
DNA is the math of biology
Nephilim Skulls Found In Mexico
About the Author
Some of documentary links in this case

The ‘Movius Line’ is the putative technological demarcation
line mapping the easternmost geographical distribution
of Acheulean bifacial tools. It is traditionally argued by
proponents of the Movius Line that ‘true’ Acheulean bifaces,
especially handaxes, are only found in abundance in Africa
and western Eurasia, whereas in eastern Asia, in front of the
‘line’, these implements are rare or absent altogether. Here
we argue, however, that the Movius Line relies on classifying
undated surface bifaces as Acheulean on typological grounds
alone, a long-standing and widely accepted practice in Africa
and western Eurasia, but one that is not seen as legitimate in
eastern Asian contexts. A review of the literature shows that
bifaces are relatively common as surface finds in Southeast
Asia and on this basis we argue that the Movius Line is in
need of reassessment.

- by Adam Brumm and +1
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- Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology, Palaeolithic Archaeology, Behaviour (Human Evolution)
- by Jean Combier and +1
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- Evolutionary Biology, Archaeology, Anthropology, Human Evolution

We have all asked ourselves when art first appeared; when humans first drew, painted, engraved, or sculpted forms in order to transmit concepts and ideas different from their formal materiality. It is not easy to answer that question because the information is based on archaeological evidence (with the limitations that this implies in terms of the object and the contextualization of its chronology and use) and modern conditioning factors about the understanding of the objects. The first consideration is obvious: what is art? To discuss this would be to enter an unending debate. To avoid that, as it is not the objective of this book, it is preferable to express our position directly. Art is a tangible creation through which the author, either an individual or a representative of a society, potentially transmits an idea or concept which goes (or may go) beyond formal materialization; a “formal vehicle” that a person or a group endows with a particular meaning. Therefore, it is a formal constructed graphic language, perceived and understood by the members of the human group that created it and which may also possess a potential meaning beyond the “precise moment” of its creation and thus possess a sense of timelessness. It should also be added that art is not necessarily associated with beauty. The current state of discussion of this topic in our discipline has demonstrated that aspect of beauty forms part of the “vehicle” of the meaning that the forms generate in the observer and interpreter of the graphic creation. This is to say that with a greater perception of beauty (something that pleases the eye and, by extension, the “spirit” of the observer), there is great ease of comprehension and/or acceptance of
the message. The study of the origins of art, or graphic languages, is not simple as we do not possess all the evidence that would enable a precise conclusion. However, archaeology, with the material evidence that has reached us and which it has succeeded in discovering, is endeavoring to seek the origins. It is a constant and intense search in which scientific debate is not out of place.

- by Marcos García-Diez and +1
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- Prehistoric Archaeology, Art History, Languages and Linguistics, Rock Art (Archaeology)

Abstract The Iberian Peninsula is key for the study of the
transition from the Middle to the Upper Palaeolithic in
Europe, as well as for the replacement of Neanderthals by anatomically
modern humans (AMH). On this subject, the most
widespread misconception assumed that both human species
coexisted during a certain period of time, after which Homo
sapiens imposed on Neanderthals who finally got extinct.
However, recent proposals based on improved dating methods,
discuss this possibility, arguing that the arrival of AMH was
marked by the complete absence of Homo neanderthalensis in
this territory. In that way, new theories deny the possibility of
coexistence and the disappearance of Neanderthals by cultural
displacement. Covalejos Cave (Velo, Pielagos, Cantabria), one
of the few settlements in the northern Peninsula with Final
Mousterian and Early Aurignacian levels, supports this hypothesis.
Nevertheless, in this paper, we try to avoid a direct discussion
about this question in order to centre our analysis on identifying
possible different subsistence strategies between
H. neanderthalensis and anatomically modern humans in the
north of the Iberian Peninsula. Our zooarchaeological and taphonomic
studies reflect that Neanderthals and anatomically modern
humans exploited the same faunal species, pointing out that
there does not seem to be significant differences in their behaviour
in Covalejos Cave.
Keywords Homo neanderthalensis . Anatomically modern
humans .Mousterian .Aurignacian .Subsistence .Cantabrian
region . Northern Iberian Peninsula

- by jose yravedra and +1
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- Neanderthals (Palaeolithic Archaeology), Mousterian, Middle to Upper Paleolithic Transition, Neanderthals

In the last ten years, new fossil, archaeological, and genetic data have significantly altered our understanding of the peopling of the Old World in the Late Pleistocene. Scholars have long been challenged to define humanity’s place in evolution and to trace our phylogeny. Differences in the skeletal morphology of hominin fossils have often led to the naming of distinct new species, but recent genetic findings have challenged the traditional perspective by demonstrating that modern human DNA contains genes inherited from Neanderthals and Denisovans, thus questioning their status as separate species. The recent discovery of Homo floresiensis from Flores Island has also raised interesting queries about how much genetic and morphological diversity was present during the Late Pleistocene. This paper discusses the nature and implications of the evidence with respect to Homo floresiensis, Neanderthals, and Denisovans and briefly reviews major Late Pleistocene discoveries from the last ten years of research in the Old World and their significance to the study of human evolution.

- by Fernanda Neubauer
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- Evolutionary Biology, Archaeology, Paleoanthropology, Prehistoric Archaeology

The unusual nature of the Neanderthal archaeological record has attracted the attention of archaeologists for the past 150 years. On the one hand, the technical skill apparent in their lithic technology, the practice of symbolic cultural behaviours (such as burials), and their successful survival in harsh environmental conditions for more than 200,000 years demonstrate the adaptive success and underlying humanity of the Neanderthal populations. On the other hand, the apparent lack of abundant and repeated use of symbolic material culture has resulted in a number of researchers arguing that these populations were largely incapable of symbolism - a conclusion with significant implications for social organisation. This paper reviews ideas regarding the use of ‘place’ or ‘landscape’ by Neanderthals and argues that the identified differences between the archaeological records of Neanderthals and late Pleistocene Modern Humans is not so much the result of significant variance in cognitive capacities, but rather the use of contrasting approaches to interaction with the physical landscape. ‘Landscape socialisation’ is a Modern Human universal, but what if Neanderthals did not participate in this kind of landscape interaction? Would this difference in behaviour result in the apparently contradictory archaeological record which has been created? The ideas presented in this paper are drawn together as a hypothesis to be developed and tested.

- by Christina Papoulia and +1
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- Palaeolithic Archaeology, Karst Environments, Lithic Technology, Karst hydrogeology