* Astronomy

If bones don't lie, why do fossil researchers argue about everything?

Serious disagreements regularly accompany fossil discoveries, from disputes over the relation of Neanderthals to modern people to whether dinosaurs had started disappearing before they ultimately vanished 65 million years ago.

Read more

Found in the Pestera Muierii cave, the six bones are believed to be around 30,000 years old and have been identified as some of the earliest examples of modern humans settling in Europe.
However, the bones from an adult female have also been found to display Neanderthal characteristics. Neanderthals first emerged in Europe and Asia around 230,000 years ago and dominated the region until the arrival of Homo sapiens from Africa 40,000 years ago.
Anthropologists have concluded that features about the early Homo sapien bones, such as the shape of the skull and lower jaw, indicate that the woman had Neanderthal ancestors, suggesting some level of interbreeding between the species.

Source

Archaeologists have unearthed an 8,000 year old skeleton of a child in the village of Ohoden, north-western Bulgaria. Archaeologist Georgi Ganetsovski, the leader of the excavation, said the finding had been made at the southern end of a pre-historical funeral facility in a pre-historical village, which was found just two metres below the current ground level and was completely preserved in its original form. Archaeologists at the site had also discovered a whole skeleton of a woman a year ago, which dated from 8100 BCE and was one of the most ancient in Europe.
The 8,000 year old child skeleton was supposed to be the most ancient one in Europe that had been found intact although the remains were partly damaged. It is believed that the inhabitants of the prehistoric village had been the first in the Balkans to discover pottery and build thermo-insulated homes.

Source: China View

“I wanted to pick up the discussion introduced by Zeresenay about the paleoenvironment of the Dikika juvenile. One of the many important aspects of this fossil is that its geological and paleontological context can be studied in detail. If we think about the other famous Pliocene youngster, the Taung child, its context is virtually unknown because the site was destroyed in a mining operation before it could be studied. With Dikika we can address key questions of paleoenvironment in relation to human evolution and climatic change. Dikika shows a mosaic environment, with plenty of moisture, trees, and even some grasslands (there is a good number of grazing antelopes). In this context, it is not surprising to have an 'ape' that spends time in the trees and on the ground. But Dikika is also important in that it shows us hominin adaptations and paleoenvironments just before major climatic changes led to the ice ages, before Homo made its first appearance in the fossil record, and before the earliest record of lithic artifacts. In this sense, Dikika adds crucial evidence to the study of environmental dynamics over long periods of time. By the time early Homo erectus (or ergaster) appears in the fossil record, a little after 2 million years ago, there is strong evidence of much more extensive and seasonally arid grasslands than those encountered by the Dikika or Hadar hominins. Dikika can also help us study the degree of environmental variability that occurred across East Africa during this time. By using widespread volcanic ash layers, such as the Sidi Hakoma Tuff, we can study an instant in geological time from northern Ethiopia to central Kenya, and east to the Indian Ocean. This approach could allow us to see if hominins were more likely to be associated with particular habitats across the range of East African environments. Much of this work remains to be done.”

Source