Homo Erectus in India

From here.

Generally speaking, Archeulean industry (which basically amounts to a certain kind of ancient stone tools), is associated with archaic hominins and most prominently, with Homo Erectus. It follows "the more primitive Oldowan technology some 1.8 million years ago" associated with Homo habilis, and is found in a period often called the Lower Paleolithic.


Acheulean tools were not made by fully modern humans that is, Homo sapiens although the early or non-modern (transitional) Homo sapiens idaltu did use Late Acheulean tools as did proto-Neanderthal species. Most notably however it is Homo ergaster (sometimes called early Homo erectus), whose assemblages are almost exclusively Acheulean, who used the technique. Later, the related species Homo heidelbergensis also used it extensively.


The 1.5 million years ago date suggests that Homo Erectus, or a similarly sophisticated hominin arrived in India within 300,000 years after this species of hominin evolved in Africa...



http://washparkprophet.blogspot.com/2011/03/homo-erectus-era-in-india-dated.html

Homo Erectus in India

Oldest ritual not discovered

In 2006 an associate Professor announced the remarkable discovery of
evidence for ritual in Borswana 70,000 years ago. There was a great buzz
in the press for a short while, and it was embedded in various places
including Wikipedia. I noticed it last week and did a bit of research.
Here's what I wrote
In 2006 the site known as Rhino Cave became prominent in the media when
Sheila Coulson of the University of Oslo stated that 70,000-year-old
artifacts and a rock resembling a python's head representing the first
known human rituals had been discovered. She also backed her
interpretation of the site as a place of ritual based on other animals
portrayed: "In the cave, we find only the San people's three most
important animals: the python, the elephant, and the giraffe
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/11/061130081347.htm
Since then some of the archaeologists involved in the original
investigations of the site in 1995 and 1996 have challenged these
interpretations. They point out that the indentations (known by
archaeologists as cupules) described by Coulson do not necessarily all
date to the same period and that "many of the depressions are very fresh
while others are covered by a heavy patina." Other sites nearby (over 20)
also have depressions and do not represent animals. The Middle Stone Age
Radiocarbon dating|radiocarbon and thermoluminescence dating for this site
does not support the 70,000 year figure, suggesting much more recent
dates.
Discussing the painting, the archaeologists say that the painting
described as an elephant is actually a rhino, that the red painting of a
giraffe is no older than 400 AD and that the white painting of the rhino
is more recent, and that experts in rock art believe the red and white
paintings are by different groups. They refer to Coulson's interpretation
as a projection of modern beliefs on to the past and call Coulson's
interpretation a composite story that is "flatout misleading". They
respond to Coulson's statement that these are the only paintings in the
cave by saying that she has ignored red geometric paintings found on the
cave wall.
They also discuss the burned Middle Stone Age points, saying that there is
nothing unusual in using nonlocal materials. They dismiss the claim that
no ordinary tools were found at the site, noting that the many scrapers
that are found are ordinary tools and that there is evidence of tool
making at the site. Discussing the 'secret chamber', they point to the
lack of evidence for San shamans using chambers in caves or for this one
to have been used in such a way.
World's Oldest Ritual Site? The "Python Cave" at Tsodilo Hills World
Heritage Site, Botswan NYAME AKUMA, the Bulletin of the Society of
Africanist Archaeologists2007
http://cohesion.rice.edu/CentersAndInst/SAFA/emplibrary/Robbins.pdf
--
Doug Weller --
A Director and Moderator of The Hall of Ma'at http://www.hallofmaat.com
Doug's Archaeology Site: http://www.ramtops.co.uk
Amun - co-owner/co-moderator http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Amun/

Oldest ritual not discovered

Denisovan Ancestors

A previously unknown type of human ancestor was discovered when 50,000
year old finger bones and a tooth from Denisova cave in Southern
Siberia were mtDNA tested.
The results showed that the bones were of people neither modern human
nor Neanderthal. Comparison of their DNA with modern human groups' DNA
showed that around 5% of Melanesians may be descended from the
Denisovans, as they are being called.

http://groups.google.com/group/sci.archaeology/browse_thread/thread/f970ea96cbb9ae1b?hl=en

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/23/science/23ancestor.html

Denisovan Ancestors

Java Man's First Tools

INDO-PACIFIC PREHISTORY ASSOCIATION CONGRESS, 20–26 MARCH 2006, MANILA

About 1.7 million years ago, a leggy human ancestor, Homo erectus, began prowling the steamy swamps and uplands of Java. That much is known from the bones of more than 100 individuals dug up on the Indonesian island since 1891. But the culture of early “Java Man” has been a mystery: No artifacts older than 1 million years had been found—until now.

At the meeting, archaeologist Harry Widianto of the National Research Centre of Archaeology in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, wowed colleagues with slides showing stone tools found in sediments that he says were laid down 1.2 million years ago and could be as old as 1.6 million years. The find, at a famous hominid site called Sangiran in the Solo Basin of Central Java, “opens up a whole new window into the lifeways of Java Man,” says paleoanthropologist Russell L. Ciochon of the University of Iowa in Iowa City.

Although hominids apparently evolved in Africa, Indonesia is a Garden of Eden in its own right, with a wealth of H. erectus fossils. The startling discovery 2 years ago of “hobbits”—the diminutive H. floresiensis of Flores Island—added a controversial new hominid to the Indonesian menagerie.

In 1998, Widianto found stone flakes in the 800,000-year-old Grenzbank layer at Sangiran, whose well-plumbed sediments reach back 2 million years. Then in September 2004, his team struck gold in a layer dated by extrapolation from the rocks around it to 1.2 million years ago. Over 2 months, they unearthed 220 flakes—several centimeters long, primarily made of chalcedony, and ranging in color from beige to blood red—in a 3-by-3-meter section of sand deposited by an ancient river.

The find, not yet published, could be even more spectacular than Widianto realizes, says Ciochon. His team, which also works at Sangiran, has used ultraprecise argon-argon radiometric methods to date the volcanic strata overlying the levels excavated by Widianto to 1.58 million to 1.51 million years ago—making the flakes at least 1.6 million years old. If the flakes were undisturbed, Ciochon says, they would represent “some of the earliest evidence of the human manufacture of stone artifacts outside of Africa.” Their antiquity would match that of the oldest flakes found in China, at Majuangou, dated to 1.66 million years ago and also made of chert.


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Indonesian tool kit. Homo erectus used small, finely worked tools on Java.
CREDIT: RETNO HANDINI
But not everyone is convinced. Although the chert flakes are abraded, possibly by water, a few limestone flakes are remarkably sharp. “The difference in preservation condition could indicate that we are dealing with secondary deposition,” or flakes of different ages mixed together, cautions archaeologist Susan Keates of Oxford University in the U.K., who was at the talk. Others disagree. “I feel their excavation is reliable, because the deposits are thick and undisturbed,” says Hisao Baba, curator of anthropology at Japan's National Science Museum and the University of Tokyo, whose team has also uncovered H. erectus fossils and flakes on Java.

The Sangiran flakes “are fundamentally different”—smaller—than the stone choppers made by H. erectus in Africa, says Ciochon. The evidence, he argues, suggests that Java Man had to range far for small deposits of good flint or chert and so created small, finely worked tools in contrast to the larger tools found in Africa. Considering the scarcity of raw materials on Java, Ciochon says, it's “a remarkably fine technology.”

Widianto will resume excavations in June. “I will be going deeper and deeper, older and older,” he promises.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/312/5772/361.full

Java Man's First Tools

African Arrow Origins

"'I think the finding adds to growing evidence for the great antiquity
of complex projectile weaponry in Africa,' says paleoanthropologist
John Shea of Stony Brook (N.Y.) University. 'The real startling upshot
of this finding is that it challenges longstanding archaeological
beliefs that important changes in projectile technology only occurred
very recently, less than 30,000 years ago, after humans dispersed into
Europe.'"
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/columnist/vergano/2011-06-19-bow-arrows-origin_n.htm

African Arrow Origins

25,000-year-old pendant found in Spain

A pendant some 25,000-years old has been found in northern Spain’s Basque region by archaeologists.

The piece, an oblong gray smooth stone some 10 centimeters in length, is perforated at one end and apparently was hung from a cord around a person’s neck, according to the director of the excavation, Alvaro Arrizabalaga, who added that the other end of the stone was used as a tool to retouch the edges of tools made from flint, like arrows or scrapers.

The object comes from the Cromagnon epoch.

Arrizabalaga said that the pendant is older than other such items found so far in the Praileaitz cave which are estimated to be some 15,000 years old.

In addition, he said that there have been “some 20 pieces from this same epoch” found on the Iberian peninsula to date, with the peculiar unifying element that they have always been found in caves.

“The piece is very well preserved and we’ve been lucky to be able to remove it without damaging it in any way” from the dig near the town of Zestoa, Arrizabalaga said.

The dig leader said the pendant “is not going to need any more restoration”, and after experts study it and include it in the collection of Cromagnon discoveries found at the site, it will be placed in the hands of a public museum.

“Twenty-five thousand years ago, human beings of our species came to this place that functioned as a hunting place for wandering groups” the archaeologist said, adding that the groups of humans “moved eight times per year to zones where there were specific types of resources”.

The Irikaitz deposit, where archaeologists began working in 1998, is known for being the site of discoveries of pieces up to 250,000 years old, a period when the precursors of Homo sapiens were still in existence.

http://news.bioscholar.com/2011/08/25000-year-old-pendant-found-in-spain.html

25,000-year-old pendant found in Spain

Denisova Admixture and the First Modern Human Dispersals into Southeast Asia and Oceania

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0002929711003958
American Journal of Human Genetics Reich, D. et al. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 89, 1-13 (2011)
"It has recently been shown that ancestors of New Guineans and
Bougainville Islanders have inherited a proportion of their ancestry from
Denisovans, an archaic hominin group from Siberia. However, only a sparse sampling
of populations from Southeast Asia and Oceania were analyzed. Here, we
quantify Denisova admixture in 33 additional populations from Asia and
Oceania. Aboriginal Australians, Near Oceanians, Polynesians, Fijians, east
Indonesians, and Mamanwa (a “Negrito” group from the Philippines) have all
inherited genetic material from Denisovans, but mainland East Asians, western
Indonesians, Jehai (a Negrito group from Malaysia), and Onge (a Negrito group from the
Andaman Islands) have not. These results indicate that Denisova gene flow
occurred into the common ancestors of New Guineans, Australians, and Mamanwa
but not into the ancestors of the Jehai and Onge and suggest that relatives
of present-day East Asians were not in Southeast Asia when the Denisova
gene flow occurred. Our finding that descendants of the earliest inhabitants of
Southeast Asia do not all harbor Denisova admixture is inconsistent
with a history in which the Denisova interbreeding occurred in mainland Asia
and then spread over Southeast Asia, leading to all its earliest modern human
inhabitants. Instead, the data can be most parsimoniously explained if
the Denisova gene flow occurred in Southeast Asia itself. Thus, archaic
Denisovans must have lived over an extraordinarily broad geographic and
ecological range, from Siberia to tropical Asia."

Denisova Admixture and the First Modern Human Dispersals into Southeast Asia and Oceania

Is Jon Snow Dead?

WARNING: Spoiler for Dance With Dragons by G.R.R. Martin

I've seen a lot of speculation on the net over the past few weeks about the "death" of Jon Snow. At the end of DWD, he is stabbed 4 times by the men of the Night's Watch, and does not feel the 4th dagger: only the cold.

Here are some quotes of various people putting forth the idea that he is either truly dead or not on Yahoo answers, with my comments below them:

"He was stabbed 4 freaking times, yes he's dead. If he's in the next book, it'll be as a wolf. A fricking wolf.
Stupid Martin already killed off everyone good and then only gives 3 chapters of Arya and Bran, kills Jon Snow, and possibly Stannis, but leaves his beloved annoying, stupid, girly little $@*&! called "Dan", dedicating over 80% of the bloody book to the sl*t, retard Turncloak, and other annoying, dumb characters.
Now we wait another 6 years for what? More of the ugly Dragon C**t. Screw you Martin. Screw you."
- Muhandis

Now, obviously this guy is no expert on literature. He would probably be better off with a Robert Jordan or Dragonlance book where all his super cool "badass" heroes will survive and he can still feel good about playing with the action figures.

But I've seen this same opinion in alot of places. People seem to think that being stabbed 4 times is automatic death- not surprising when we're dealing with modern bookworms who have prolly never been in a fight, much less a knife fight.

I have a friend who was stabbed 5 times about 18 years ago. I had dinner with him tonight.

I have another friend who was stabbed 15 times and never even went to the hospital.

Sure, one well placed knife stab can kill. But Jon wasn't stabbed in the heart, and I have read news reports of people being stabbed over 20 times and still surviving.

So the number of stab wounds is no indication whatever.

Also, I would just like to make a small caveat about this poster. The guy's favorites are Bran, Arya, Jon, and Stannis. The three goodie-goodie 2-shoes guys and the little girl. He doesn't like Theon, one of my favorite characters and prolly the main character of the most interesting chapters in the book. He calls Dany a slut, which also tells me this guy is a prude- she's had sex with three whopping people, and two of them in wedlock.

Better yet, this guy should probably be reading G-rated comic books.

Furthermore, when every oe said Theon was dead on the discussion boards, I knew he wasn't and said so. I'd bet good money that I'm right once again.

"Of course Jon Snow is dead. This is all part of George Martin's nihilistic vision: death triumphs over life, chaos over harmony, ugliness over beauty, evil over goodness, betrayal over honor, slavery over freedom, winter over summer. We want our favorite characters to live and thrive and to conquer the dark forces that seek to destroy them. But they cannot prevail in Martin's universe. All our hopes will be dashed. Is this not what has happened in every book of this series? Is this not what Martin is teaching us? Yes, we have our minor victories, but our defeat is assured."
-Strider

Now this is a much better argument, but not convincing enough for me. I am not sure that this is what Martin is teaching us. Sure he's teaching us that nothing is sacred, but that our expectations are likely to be crushed in a gritty "real world" type of imaginary universe. But I just don't think he can resolve this book with Westeros completely failing and the Others taking over. It just wouldn't be a good ending, post-modernism and dark fantasy or not. Surely Martin isn't going to ruin his chance to be remembered as one of the two greatest fantasy authors of all time by rendering the whole series a pointless waste of time with his ending.
I just don't buy it.

As for evidence that Jon is alive, aside from the prophesies that hint that he may be Azor Ahai and therefore the main character of the story, the foremost puzzle piece comes from Martin himself:

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So why did you kill Jon Snow?
GEORGE R.R. MARTIN: Oh, you think he’s dead, do you?

But, to me, the smoking gun is the GIANT. Why is he conveniently there with a human club in his hand right when Jon is being stabbed? What's the purpose of having the "murder" take place right in front of the unexplained giant rampage?

Well, folks....if Jon were being stabbed and the giant came out of nowhere to beat his attackers off, that would be a "ghost in the machine" and subject to serious literary criticism. Martin would not do something so amateurish.

The giant is killing the knife because the mutineers wanted Jon, his wolf, his wildlings, and his giant dead. Their main grievance is that Jon doesn't hate the wildlings, and goes against their ancient prejudices by being civil with them.

The giant is there to beat off all Jon's attackers before the 5th dagger can fall with one single blow of his knight-club.

And Melisandre doesn't have to resurrect Jon ala beric Dondarrion...he was only stabbed 4 times, not in the heart, and he's of Stark blood. Although she most likely will play a part in his speedy recovery.

Is Jon Snow Dead?

Late Arctic Neanderthals

Late Mousterian Persistence near the Arctic Circle.
Abstract:
"Palaeolithic sites in Russian high latitudes have been considered as
Upper Palaeolithic and thus representing an Arctic expansion of modern
humans. Here we show that at Byzovaya, in the western foothills of the
Polar Urals, the technological structure of the lithic assemblage
makes it directly comparable with Mousterian Middle Palaeolithic
industries that so far have been exclusively attributed to the
Neandertal populations in Europe. Radiocarbon and optical-stimulated
luminescence dates on bones and sand grains indicate that the site was
occupied during a short period around 28,500 carbon-14 years before
the present (about 31,000 to 34,000 calendar years ago), at the time
when only Upper Palaeolithic cultures occupied lower latitudes of
Eurasia. Byzovaya may thus represent a late northern refuge for
Neandertals, about 1000 km north of earlier known Mousterian sites."
Source

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Late Arctic Neanderthals

Archaeologists unearth 5,000-year-old 'third-gender' caveman

Archaeologists investigating a 5,000-year-old Copper Age grave in the Czech Republic believe they may have unearthed the first known remains of a gay or transvestite caveman, reports the Telegraph.

The man was apparently buried as if he were a woman, an aberrant practice for an ancient culture known for its strict burial procedures.



Since the grave dates to between 2900 and 2500 BC, the man would have been a member of the Corded Ware culture, a late Stone Age and Copper Age people named after the unique kind of pottery they produced. Men in this culture were traditionally buried lying on their right side with their heads pointing west, but this man was instead buried on his left side with his head pointing east, which is how women were typically buried.

"From history and ethnology, we know that people from this period took funeral rites very seriously so it is highly unlikely that this positioning was a mistake," said lead archaeologist Kamila Remisova Vesinova. "Far more likely is that he was a man with a different sexual orientation, homosexual or transsexual."

Another clue is that Corded Ware men would typically be buried alongside weapons, hammers and flint knives, as well as food and drink to prepare them for their journey to the other side. But this man's grave instead contained only a traditional egg-shaped pot, which was what women were typically buried with.

With all the evidence taken together, archaeologists are confident that the best explanation for the strange burial is that the man was effeminate, perhaps a homosexual, and possibly a transvestite.

"We believe this is one of the earliest cases of what could be described as a 'transsexual' or 'third gender grave' in the Czech Republic," reiterated cooperating archaeologist Katerina Semradova.

Semradova also noted that archaeologists from a previous dig had uncovered a grave from the Mesolithic period where a female warrior was buried as a man, so mixed gender burials, though rare, were not unprecedented.


SOURCE

Archaeologists unearth 5,000-year-old 'third-gender' caveman

New Song By The Looters!!

Jess Make Up Your Mind by Rosa King and the Looters
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN!!!!
Joe Layden- guitar
Eric Layden- bass
David Denison- guitar
Charlie Denison- xaphoon, ocarina, keys, percussion

http://www.thelootersmusic.com

New Song By The Looters!!

Fish Tales by The Looters

Fish Tales by The Looters