Friday, December 18, 2015

Ancient human ancestor may have persisted through Ice Age says study in PLOS ONE

Some recent updates on the Red Deer Cave people suggested for the blog by John J. McNultym of Uncertain Times:
MIAMI (AFP).- After years of studying a mysterious thigh bone from a cave in China, scientists said Thursday they believe it represents an ancient species of human that persisted much longer than previously thought. 

The 14,000-year-old bone was uncovered in 1989 in Maludong, known as the Red Deer Cave. The trove of fossils it was initially found with went unstudied until 2012. 

The partial femur, though relatively young in age, looks like the bones of far older species like Homo habilis and early Homo erectus that lived more than 1.5 million years ago, said the study in PLOS ONE. 

"Its young age suggests the possibility that primitive-looking humans could have survived until very late in our evolution, but we need to careful as it is just one bone," said co-author professor Ji Xueping from the Yunnan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology in China. ..
Ancient human ancestor may have persisted through Ice Age says study in PLOS ONE
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Thursday, December 10, 2015

Write your next book in a castle – last chance to win this amazing giveaway for authors!

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Wednesday, December 9, 2015

Morphological Processes That Distinguish Neandertal & Modern Human Faces

Thanks to John McNalty of Uncertain Times for this article:

A new open access paper in Nature Communications, “Ontogeny of the Maxilla in Neanderthals and their Ancestors,” describes for the first time the developmental processes that differentiate Neanderthal facial skeletons from those of modern humans. As may known humans and Neandertals have different faces but recent advances in ancient genetics have brought to light the depth of admixture and raised discussion that maybe we should not consider the two distinct branches of the human family tree. The paper states that based upon facial growth patterns, Neandertals and humans are indeed sufficiently distinct from one another...http://anthropology.net/2015/12/08/morphological-processes-that-distinguish-neandertal-modern-human-faces/
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