Skandinavien befolkat före istiden?

[Pelle E]

Lustigt, jag sitter här och letar efter lite fakta om Vitteneguldet och får samtidigt en massa intressanta texter om när de första människorna befolkade Nordvästeuropa. Ett ämne som jag länge varit intresserad av rent yrkesmässigt som barn- och ungdomsboksförfattare.  

Läs och njut. Själv älskar jag att ha fel. Då får jag ju lära mig något nytt. Vissa texter slutar plötsligt - det beror på att de är utdrag ur en längre text. Allt kommer från Populär Arkeologi.
Jag bifogar dem, så får ni bråka med författarna till texterna istället för med mig.

Hälsar Pelle E

Nordeuropas äldsta människor 700 000 år gamla!
förf: Birgitta Gustafson
ID-nr: 2006:1:3 tecken: 2121

De hittills äldsta spåren av människor i nordvästra Europa har nyligen upptäckts i östra England. De består inte av mänskliga lämningar utan av flintverktyg och djurben som skurits med verktygen. De har påträffats vid Cromer Forest Beds.

I 140 år har Cromer Forest Beds varit en av de viktigaste (och en av de mest kontroversiella) platserna i brittisk paleoarkeologi. Strandremsan nedanför klipporna består av tjocka lager av fossiliserade djurben, på många ställen täckta av ler- och stenlager som lagts på av flera inlandsisar.

Forest Beds har därför mäktiga preglaciala lager och i de nedre har man alltså nu påträffat mänskliga verktyg. På 1950-talet bröt havet in över klipporna i Happisburgh och började att frilägga de stratifierade lagren i klintarna.

Mest av en slump upptäcktes då fossilerade ben och en handkil av vanliga människor som promenerade längs stranden nedanför klinten. Fynden lämnades in till Cromer Museum och forskarna började nu att undersöka om det gick att datera lagren och lämningarna. Fler fynd in situ (orörda i lagren) gjordes. De fossilerade benfynden bestod bland annat av ben från noshörning, bison, jättehjort, and och groda. Det fanns även fossila växtdelar av silverbjörk och strandväxter.

Forskarna kunde fastställa att handkilen från Happisburgh måste...

När nordsjön gick på torra land
förf: Birgitta Gustafson
ID-nr: 2007:2:2 tecken: 6691

För drygt 10 000 år sedan, då stora delar av Skandinavien fortfarande täcktes av is, var södra delen av Nordsjön land. De brittiska öarna hängde ihop med både nuvarande Frankrike och Danmark. Och detta stora landområde bör ha varit bebott så länge som det funnits människor i norra Europa, spåren går tillbaka 700 000 år.

Klimatförändringarna över tiden har varit stora. Inte minst vid tiden för den senaste inlandsisen. I slutskedet av Nordsjölandets tid bör befolkningen ha tillhört den s.k. maglemosekulturen, av vilken man funnit flera spår både i Danmark, Polen, Frankrike och England och även i Skåne. Den har fått namnet av en mosse på danska Själland, Maglemose, där man fann de första fynden från dessa jägare, fiskare och samlare som levde mellan omkring år 7 500 till 6 000 före vår tideräkning.

Bostäderna bestod av hyddor och redskapen gjordes av flinta, ben och horn. Av mikroliter från flinta gjorde man spetsar och hullingar till pilar och spjut.
Att det finns sjunkna boplatser i Nordsjön är ingen nyhet. Många är de fiskare, inte minst på Doggers bankar, som fått gamla träd, mammutben och även stenåldersredskap i trålarna. En av de första som blev uppmärksam på detta var kapten Pilgrim...

Läs mer i bifogat material.

[Boreas]

Adaption till ett arktisk klimat - hur blev isbjörnar vita?

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/where-do-polar-bears-come-from-ireland-2308889.html

[Boreas]

Arktiska människor i England 950.000 år:
http://www.archaeologyinmarlow.org.uk/2011/06/professor-chris-stringer-%E2%80%93-on-the-early-human-occupation-of-britain-and-europe/

Moderna människor i Kents Cavern 42.000 år sen...

The Kent's Cavern 4 right maxilla (KC4) was excavated in 1927, and described by
Keith, who diagnosed it as an Upper Palaeolithic modern human. In 1988 it was
directly dated by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS), giving a radiocarbon age of
30,900 ± 900 BP. In the last ten years the stratigraphic, chronological and
archaeological context of the specimen has been re-investigated, suggesting a
greater antiquity for it, and further study of the fossil showed that it had been
wrongly reconstructed.

A new reconstruction of the specimen has been made and subjected to detailed study
regarding its modern human or Neanderthal affinities. Further direct dating and an
ancient DNA investigation proved unsuccessful, but Bayesian analysis of a series of
ultrafiltered dates on an ordered stratigraphic sequence of associated fauna places KC4
at 44.180—41.530 (95.4% prob.) cal BP. It is thus a crucial specimen in terms of
the initial Upper Palaeolithic and the potential overlap of the last Neanderthals and the
earliest modern humans in western Europe.

(The new reconstruction of the Kent’s Cavern maxilla by Chris Collins, Palaeontology
Conservation Unit, NH)

http://www.ahobproject.org/Downloads/Workshop%202011%20AHOB3%2019-20th%20May%202011.pdf

32.000 år gamla 'moderna människor' från Krim, var också anpassade ett arktisk klimat:
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/06/early-anatomically-modern-humans-32000.html

Arktiska människor - hur många adaptioner?!

Sorting the muddle in the middle: how many early human species in
Europe?

"The early human occupants of Europe are well-characterised from their
archaeology, but considerable debate surrounds who these people were, and how
they relate to later human populations. In this talk I will present my current views
about the status of Homo antecessor, Homo heidelbergensis and Homo
neanderthalensis. Homo antecessor was probably a European derivative of Asian
Homo erectus, which may have gone extinct. Homo heidelbergensis was a
widespread species which apparently gave rise to at least three descendent
populations: Homo sapiens in Africa, Homo neanderthalensis in western Eurasia,
and the ‘Denisovans’ in eastern Eurasia. The Atapuerca Sima de los Huesos sample
should be assigned to Homo neanderthalensis rather than Homo heidelbergensis.
Nevertheless, there is growing evidence for an overlap of Homo heidelbergensis and
its putative descendants in the later Middle Pleistocene. Together with recent
indications of late Pleistocene archaic-modern gene flow, these issues highlight the
complexity of any taxonomic framework for these populations."

Chris Stringer, Department of Palaeontology, The Natural History Museum.

http://www.ahobproject.org/Downloads/Workshop%202011%20AHOB3%2019-20th%20May%202011.pdf
http://www.ahobproject.org/

Avancerad flint-knackning, från 'Clacton' och 'Achuelian' till 'Mousterien', 'Solutrean' och 'Ahrensburg':
http://ancientcraft.co.uk/Flintknapping/flint.html

[Boreas]

Smal näsa och långa näsborrar - adaption till en arktisk miljö? 

"Climate-related variation of the human nasal cavity"
http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2011/07/climate-related-variation-of-human.html

[Boreas]

När köldperioden satte in under mitt-Weichsel försvann Neanderthalerna från södra Europa. Nu visar det sej att dom försvann från norra Kaukasus under samma tid. Den kalibrerade kronologin för (rena) neanderthal-populationer i detta sub-arktiska klimat-bälte stöder alltså andra observationer som beskriver att neanderna levt i tropiska/sub-tropiska zoner. Det förklarar också varför dom "inte haft näsor" för vinterkyla och enbart vistas norr om Medelhavet och Kaukasus under speciellt varma perioder.

Följaktligen blir det svårt att beskriva istida populationer i Nord-Europa som 'neanderthaler'...

Advances in direct radiocarbon dating of Neanderthal and anatomically modern human (AMH) fossils and the development of archaeostratigraphic chronologies now allow refined regional models for Neanderthal–AMH coexistence. In addition, they allow us to explore the issue of late Neanderthal survival in regions of Western Eurasia located within early routes of AMH expansion such as the Caucasus. Here we report the direct radiocarbon (14C) dating of a late Neanderthal specimen from a Late Middle Paleolithic (LMP) layer in Mezmaiskaya Cave, northern Caucasus. Additionally, we provide a more accurate chronology for the timing of Neanderthal extinction in the region through a robust series of 16 ultrafiltered bone collagen radiocarbon dates from LMP layers and using Bayesian modeling to produce a boundary probability distribution function corresponding to the end of the LMP at Mezmaiskaya.

The direct date of the fossil (39,700 ± 1,100 14C BP) is in good agreement with the probability distribution function, indicating at a high level of probability that Neanderthals did not survive at Mezmaiskaya Cave after 39 ka cal BP ("calendrical" age in kiloannum before present, based on IntCal09 calibration curve). This challenges previous claims for late Neanderthal survival in the northern Caucasus. We see striking and largely synchronous chronometric similarities between the Bayesian age modeling for the end of the LMP at Mezmaiskaya and chronometric data from Ortvale Klde for the end of the LMP in the southern Caucasus. Our results confirm the lack of reliably dated Neanderthal fossils younger than ∼40 ka cal BP in any other region of Western Eurasia, including the Caucasus.

http://www.pnas.org/gca?allch=&submit=Go&gca=pnas%3B108%2F21%2F8611

[Boreas]

Erik Trinkaus (2007) beskriver morfologiska drag av europeiska människor, typ 'modern' - knuten till Gravettian - och jämför dom med mellan-paleolitiska fynd från Afrika. Vid sidan om sammanfall i huvuddragen beskriver han en rad väsentliga olikheter. Hans tolkning är att dessa olikheter visar en separat, plesimofisk, utveckling över tid - äventuellt med inslag av korsning med neanderthaler...

A consideration of the morphological aspects of the earliest modern humans in Europe (more than ≈33,000 B.P.) and the subsequent Gravettian human remains indicates that they possess an anatomical pattern congruent with the autapomorphic (derived) morphology of the earliest (Middle Paleolithic) African modern humans. However, they exhibit a variable suite of features that are either distinctive Neandertal traits and/or plesiomorphic (ancestral) aspects that had been lost among the African Middle Paleolithic modern humans.

These features include aspects of neurocranial shape, basicranial external morphology, mandibular ramal and symphyseal form, dental morphology and size, and anteroposterior dental proportions, as well as aspects of the clavicles, scapulae, metacarpals, and appendicular proportions.

http://www.pnas.org/content/104/18/7367.abstract

[Boreas]

Nya rön om anpassningen till ett liv under polarhimmelen:

It's Dim up North

The farther that human populations live from the equator, the bigger their brains, according to a new study by Oxford University. But it turns out that this is not because they are smarter, but because they need bigger vision areas in the brain to cope with the low light levels experienced at high latitudes.

Scientists have found that people living in countries with dull, grey, cloudy skies and long winters have evolved bigger eyes and brains so they can visually process what they see, reports the journal Biology Letters.

Lead author Eiluned Pearce, from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology in the School of Anthropology, said: ‘As you move away from the equator, there's less and less light available, so humans have had to evolve bigger and bigger eyes. Their brains also need to be bigger to deal with the extra visual input.  Having bigger brains doesn't mean that higher latitude humans are smarter, it just means they need bigger brains to be able to see well where they live.’

That the explanation is the need to compensate for low light levels at high latitudes is indicated by the fact that actual visual sharpness measured under natural daylight conditions is constant across latitudes, suggesting that the visual processing system has adapted to ambient light conditions as human populations have moved across the globe.

The study takes into account a number of potentially confounding effects, including the effect of phylogeny (the evolutionary links between different lineages of modern humans), the fact that humans living in the higher latitudes are physically bigger overall, and the possibility that eye socket volume was linked to cold weather (and the need to have more fat around the eyeball by way of insulation).

The skulls used in the study were from the indigenous populations of England, Australia, Canary Islands, China, France, India, Kenya, Micronesia, Scandinavia, Somalia, Uganda and the United States. From measuring the brain cavity, the research suggests that the biggest brains belonged to populations who lived in Scandinavia with the smallest being Micronesians.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_stories/2011/112707.html

Latitudinal variation in light levels drives human visual system size


Ambient light levels influence visual system size in birds and primates. Here, we argue that the same is true for humans. Light levels, in terms of both the amount of light hitting the Earth's surface and day length, decrease with increasing latitude. We demonstrate a significant positive relationship between absolute latitude and human orbital volume, an index of eyeball size.

Owing to tight scaling between visual system components, this will translate into enlarged visual cortices at higher latitudes. We also show that visual acuity measured under full-daylight conditions is constant across latitudes, indicating that selection for larger visual systems has mitigated the effect of reduced ambient light levels. This provides, to our knowledge, the first support that light levels drive intraspecific variation in visual system size in the human population.

http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2011/07/12/rsbl.2011.0570.short?rss=1

Antropologiska kommentarer:

Brain size and latitude: Why the correlation?
http://evoandproud.blogspot.com/2011/07/brain-size-and-latitude-why-correlation.html

[Boreas]

Sen-paeolitiska populationer i österled - en översikt:

http://www.skypalace.org/europe/slavic/east_slavic/russia/articles/pre-history.shtml

[Boreas]

Sen-paleolitiskt refugium på Wales södra kust?

Ca. 14.500 år gammal hällristning med fyndrik kontext upptäckt i Swansea:

Recent discovery of a stylized reindeer engraving in a South Wales by Dr George Nash from the Department of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, now has been scientifically dated. The date of the flowstone that covers the head of the reindeer is 12,572 +/- 659 years Before Present, and the rock-art below may be much earlier. It is now confirmed that the carved reindeer is one of Britain's earliest examples of engraved figurative rock art.
     
Dr Nash discovered the faint engraving while visiting the Gower Peninsula caves near Swansea in September 2010 with students and members of the Clifton Antiquarian Club. "This engraving appears to have made by an artist using a flint point held in his or her right hand onto a limestone panel covered with flowstone.  The panel forms part of a very tight niche at the back of the cave," Dr Nash said.

The discovery has being officially verified by experts from Oxford and Durham universities and the National Museum of Wales. The project team that includes Dr Peter van Calsteren and Dr Louise Thomas from the Open University, and Dr Mike Simms from the National Museums Northern Ireland is being financially supported by Cadw and logistically administered by the National Museum Wales.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018794/Reindeer-cave-art-14-000-year-old-Wales.html
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2011/7812.html

[Boreas]

Sjöfarande människor - 15.000 år sen:
http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/08/2011/obsidian-artifacts-point-to-ice-age-mariners-in-prehistoric-greece

En gång rodde man över såväl Skagrak som Nordsjön - eller Nord-Atlantern...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Samuelsen_and_George_Harbo

[Boreas]

Mera nytt om moderna människor i NV Europa:

New test of a prehistoric jawbone from England shows it to be between 44,000 and 41,000 years old – the earliest evidence of modern humans in northwest Europe.

http://ht.ly/7hvCV

[Boreas]

Vid sidan om målningskonsten i franska grottor har fynden av musikinstrument (flöjt av svanben), skulpturer och symbolkonst i Geistenerler-hålan utanför Tübingen nu avslöjat åldrar på 42-43.000 år f.n.

http://www.uni-tuebingen.de/aktuelles/newsfullview-aktuell/article/aelteste-kunst-noch-aelter.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gei%C3%9Fenkl%C3%B6sterle

Här fanns alltså en mångfacetterad, arktisk kultur i norra Europa redan under mitt-Weichsel. Utvecklingen genom sen-paleolitikum och Solutrean-/Hamburg-kulturerna till mesolitkums Ahrensburg/Swidrien-kulturer törs förespråka en kontinuitet i såväl klimat och topografi - som ekonomi, teknologi OCH bildande konst.

Dom paleolitiska samhällen var tydligen något mer avancerade än man hittills torts tro. Dom arktiska människor som bebodde norra Europa under sen-paleolitikum (20-50.000 år f.n.) var ma.o. inte väsentligt olika från dom människor som (åter) befolkar dessa klimat-zoner efter is-tiden (Yngre Dryas).

I beaktande av denna  utbredning - från England till Ural - är det ju sannolikt att dom upptäckt och bebott Skandinavia. Numer har man ju spår av människor som visiterat/bott Fenno-Skandia under tidlig-Weichsel (ca. 120 - ca. 50.000 f.n.). Enligt få men endera fynd från Fenno-.Skandia har NV-Europas paleolitiska kulturfolk tydligen hittat såväl Kattegat som Östersjön och Bottenhavet - redan under tidligare faser av Weichsel-perioden...

Orkester-musik under Aurignac?
http://anthropology.net/2012/05/25/oldest-musical-instruments-to-date-discovered/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divje_Babe_flute

[Vetgirig]

Boreas!
Aktuell mätdata visar väl att V Norge var beboligt tundralandskap typ dagens Grönländska kustlandskap. Även Nordkalotten har varit ett till delar (i varje fall) tundralandskap. Från 22000 är det så. Våra tidiga historiker tog vissa saker för givet och hade väldigt fel. Vår senaste istid hade som jag förstått det 3 faser. Den första var intensiv, men bör ha varit på återgång runt 74000 f kr då en vulkan (hotspott NV Sumatra) gick i luften i ett långvarigt utbrott. Bl a täcks Indien av flera dm aska. De människor, som hunnit förbi Sumatra befolkar Australien resp Nya Guinea. Men bortsett från enstaka små populationer (relikter konstaterade m DNA), så hindras nya grupper av människa att fylla på österut inom Bortre Indien tills ca 50000 f kr. Några överlevare (relikter) fanns i sydligaste Indien och blandar sig så småningom med de första nya och bildar dagens Dravidabefolkningar.

Istiden satte ny fart efter det stora utbrottet (fas 2) men är uppenbarligen under retardation  ca 22000 f kr enligt mätdatan. Ca 11000 f kr händer något katastrofalt i Nordamerika. Det bästa förslaget till orsak är att en himlakropp slår ned i den SÖ delen av därvarande istäcke. I trakten av de stora sjöarna. Ingen krater har hittats och isar tar upp ett nedslag. Spår som borde uppstå vid ett nedslag har konstaterats över hela Nordamerika. Nedslaget orsakade sekundärt omfattande effekter i klimat och miljö, som dödade resterna av den Nordamerikanska "mastodont"-faunan. Ett mikrodamm, som lagrades upp i ett distinkt grått lager, bildades. Växter och djur dödades antagligen av dessa parstiklar. Även de människor som nått Nordamerika höll på att dö ut (t ex svält). Detta är en särskild historia, hätskt debatterad i USA.
För Europa innebar det att isarna växte till sig igen (fas 3) från nämnd tid. Men denna tillväxt blev kortvarig. Bara runt 1000 år sedan fortsatte retardationen.

Under istiden stod vattennivån i haven lägre än idag. människorna bodde i högre grad längs kusterna och längs stora floder resp sjöar än rakt ute i ödemarker. Konsten att färdas över vattendrag behärskadr människan sedan ca 1000000 år sedan, annars skulle de inte kunnat bosätta sig överallt. För att människa skulle långsiktigt kunna överleva genetiskt, så måste man uppträda i grupper om ca 15 par men upp mot 30 par, så uppstår social oro och det är sådana splittringar, som ligger bakom människans expansion. En bild av enstaka vandrare (man, kvinna) stämmer inte. En så liten grupp dör bort vid sjukdom, jaktolycka etc. Människan måste vara flera för att överleva. Solutreanbefolkningarna runt Biskaya ca 30000-15000 f kr (och nu kanske äldre än så) har behärskat sin kalla miljö och boende längs kusterna på ett sätt som troligen liknar eskimåerna fram till modern tid. Av de upphittade nålarna i ben att döma behärskade de vattentät sömnad i skinn (kläder, båtar). Verktyg tillverkade med deras speciella teknik har hittats i riklig mängd även i USA. De äldsta dateringarna i Ö USA (flera15-26000 f kr)
Fantastiska tankar!
Tyvärr ligger huvudparten av spåren av dessa befolkningar dolda längs samtida kuster ute i Biskaya och utanför t ex Norges västkuster. Grottorna där de utförde sina fantastiska målningar låg då 10-talet mil in i land. Många av de djur, som de avbildade var inte samtida i trakterna, men det är en annan historia.
I USA är de vetenskapliga grälen f n hätska om beskrivet. Mer politik än vetenskap.
Emellertid verkar det som om människa har vistats i Sydamerika (inre Brasilien) sedan 50000 f kr, till nordamerikanernas förtret, så inte heller Solutrean verkar vara först i Nordamerika.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1023697/posts
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/12/1212_051212_humans_americas.html

Tyvärr får inte mer plats.

[Boreas]

I grottorna i Swaben har man nu hittat nio flöjter, som tidigare daterades till ca. 35.000 år. Dom 9 flöjterna hade tillverkats av ben från svanar, gamar (?) och mammut. Nu har man hittat andra ben i samma lager som visar att flöjterna troligen är 43.000 år.

Fynden verkar understödja bilden av NV Europas arktiska befolkning som föregångare vad gäller kulturell och teknologisk utveckling under istidens senaste period, 45.000-12.000 år f.n.:

Comparison of the results against other recently dated sites in other parts of Europe suggests the Early Aurignacian levels are earlier than other sites in the south of France and Italy, but not as early as recently dated sites which suggest a pre-Aurignacian dispersal of modern humans to Italy by ∼45000 cal BP. [...]

The new dates fail to refute the Kulturpumpe model and suggest that Swabian Jura is a region that contributed significantly to the evolution of symbolic behaviour as indicated by early evidence for figurative art, music and mythical imagery.

 

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047248412000425

Nu kan man givetvis undra varifrån dessa (arktiska) människor kommit, innan dom anlände till Schwaben under mitt-Weichsel. Den frågan står visst fortfarande obesvarad.

I mellantid kan man kolla närmare på deras hantverk:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_ihF6keN8s&feature=fvwp&NR=1

- och lyssna till ljudet av deras flöjter:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn5ZygWxKmw

[Boreas]

"Kulturpump-modellen" lär förklara hur (en arktisk) kultur/civilisation utvecklades i NV Europa under istiden: http://archaeology.about.com/b/2012/06/01/ancient-flutes-and-the-kulturpumpe-model.htm?nl=1

Vart uppstod dom "moderna människor"?
http://archaeology.about.com/od/stoneage/ss/beads_3.htm

[Boreas]

Sen-paleolitiskt refugium på Wales södra kust?

Ca. 14.500 år gammal hällristning med fyndrik kontext upptäckt i Swansea:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2018794/Reindeer-cave-art-14-000-year-old-Wales.html
http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2011/7812.html

Korrigerade dateringar från "Englands äldsta grottkonst" - från Wales:

Dr George Nash, an archaeology lecturer at Bristol University and consultant employed at SLR Consulting in Shrewsbury, discovered the engraving while undertaking field work in 2010. "This is a site of huge international importance, and research by a team of specialists has dated the paintings as being 12,572 years old, plus or minus 600 years. At that time this area of Wales experienced summers of -10°C and we know there was a huge ice sheet just four or five kilometres north of the cave," said Dr Nash. "It's not only the oldest rock art ever found in the UK but, until a few years ago, history books would have told you that human beings could not have survived here in such severe conditions, clearly now this is not the case. This evidence proves that they could, and did," he added.

Dr Nash also said: "We've also been incredibly lucky at this site because you can only date engravings like this if something overlies them such as flowstone (stalagmite). For some reason, and by complete coincidence, the person who engraved this art over 12,000 years ago did so on a piece of rock where a flowstone later grew over it, which is the only reason we could work out its history."

http://www.stonepages.com/news/archives/004785.html

[Boreas]

Världens äldsta måleri?
Nya fynd av väggmålningar i Frankrike, 37.000 år gamla:

Using carbon dating, the researchers determined that both the engraved ceiling, which includes depictions of animals and geometric forms, and the other artifacts found on the living surface below were approximately 37,000 years old.

"This art appears to be slightly older than the famous paintings from the Grotte Chauvet in southeastern France," explained White, referring to the cave paintings discovered in 1994.

"But unlike the Chauvet paintings and engravings, which are deep underground and away from living areas, the engravings and paintings at Castanet are directly associated with everyday life, given their proximity to tools, fireplaces, bone and antler tool production, and ornament workshops."

He added that this discovery, combined with others of approximately the same time period in southern Germany, northern Italy, and southeastern France, raises new questions about the evolutionary and adaptive significance of art and other forms of graphic representation in the lives of modern human populations.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120514152952.htm

[Boreas]

Nya rön från grottorna i Altamira och El Castillio, Spanien, berättar om över 50 fall av grottkonst, som nu daterats till perioden 41.000 - 22.000 år f.n.

What the tests found

The uranium tests, like previous radiocarbon tests, showed that there was wide variation in the age of the paintings. The El Castillo paintings yielded a time frame stretching from 22,600 years ago all the way back to at least 40,800 years ago. That farthest-back age is particularly telling. Previously, archaeologists had thought the paintings went back to about 38,000 years. The new tests push the age back to near the time when modern humans were first thought to have inhabited the area, around 42,000 years ago.

Pike said that raises three scenarios: El Castillo's modern humans might have developed their cave-painting skills during their migration out of Africa, and put it to use when they arrived in Europe. After all, communities of Homo sapiens who lived in Africa and the Near East showed evidence of artistic behavior going back as far as 75,000 to 100,000 years. Another possibility is that humans started painting cave walls soon after their arrival in Europe — perhaps as the result of cultural competition with the native Neanderthals, who are known to have inhabited the region as far back as 250,000 years ago. Or the Neanderthals themselves could have created the first paintings, and Homo sapiens picked up the artistic habit while Homo neanderthalensis faded away.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/14/12211397-new-dating-method-shows-cave-art-is-older-did-neanderthals-do-it

[Boreas]

Visst  kommer afrikanerna från Afrika. Men det gör INTE europeer, asiater och meso-amerikaner. Enligt senaste gen-studie har europeerna sitt ursprung någonstans i triangeln "Europa-Ural-Levanten".

Re-Examining the "Out of Africa" Theory and the Origin of Europeoids (Caucasoids) in Light of DNA Genealogy

"This paper 1) sets forth a timeframe for the origin of Europeoids (Caucasoids); 2) identifies their position among all haplogroups (tribes) known today on the haplogroup tree; and 3) offers evidence to re-examine the validity of the “Out of Africa” concept.”

[...]

“The concept was based primarily on the premise that Africa possesses the highest variability, or variance, of the human DNA and its segments. Set apart, it is not a strong argument because a mix of different DNA lineages also results in a high variability and, as we show below, it is largely what occurs in Africa. Moreover, a genomic gap exists between some Africans and non-Africans, which has also been interpreted as an argument that the latter descended from Afri- cans. A more plausible interpretation might have been that both current Africans and non-Africans descended separately from a more ancient common ancestor, thus forming a proverbial fork. A region where this downstream common ancestor arose would not necessarily be in Africa. In fact, it was never proven that he lived in Africa.”

"It was found that African haplogroup A (originated 132,000 ± 12,000 years before present) is very remote time-wise from all other haplogroups, which have a separate common ancestor, named β-haplogroup, and originated 64,000 ± 6000 ybp. It includes a family of Europeoid (Caucasoid) haplogroups from F through T that originated 58,000 ± 5000 ybp. A downstream common ancestor for haplogroup A and β-haplogroup, coined the α-haplogroup emerged 160,000 ± 12,000 ybp.

A territorial origin of haplogroups α- and β-remains unknown; however, the most likely origin for each of them is a vast triangle stretched from Central Europe in the west through the Russian Plain to the east and to Levant to the south.

Det betyder att dom 120.000 och dom 70.000 år gamla fynden från Varggrottan torde vara Cro-Magnon. Samtidigt innebär det att utlöpare från samma 'skumma gäng' i N-Europa kunde ha besökt Afrika och Blombos Caves under några varma årgångar för ca. 70.000 år sen...

“A critical datapoint has emerged that disproves the “Out of Africa” concept; specifically, recent data shows that non-Afri- can people have neither M91, P97, M31, P82, M23, M114, P262, M32, M59, P289, P291, P102, M13, M171, M118 (haplogroup A and its subclades SNPs), nor M60, M181, P90 (haplogroup B SNPs) in their Y-chromosomes. In fact, according to the data obtained from the “Walk Through the Y” (chromosome) international project conducted by Family Tree DNA (Texas and Arizona) [see Appendix] not one non-African participant out of more than 400 individuals in the Project tested positive to any of thirteen “African” sub- clades of haplogroup A…”

“A higher variance of the DNA in Africa, which was a cornerstone of the “Out of Africa” theory, is explained by Figure 3, in which haplogroup A has been evolving (mutation-wise) for 132,000 years, while the non-European haplogroups are much younger. Hence, there is a lower variability in the latter. The same is related to language variability, which has also been used as an argument of the African origin of non-Africans. We believe that those arguments upon which the “Out of Africa” theory was based were, in fact, conjectural, incomplete and not actually data-driven. Therefore, we are left holding the question of the origin of Homo sapiens.”

http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=19566

[Boreas]

Erik Trinkaus (2007) beskriver morfologiska drag av europeiska människor, typ 'modern' - knuten till Gravettian - och jämför dom med mellan-paleolitiska fynd från Afrika. Vid sidan om sammanfall i huvuddragen beskriver han en rad väsentliga olikheter. Hans tolkning är att dessa olikheter visar en separat, plesimofisk, utveckling över tid - äventuellt med inslag av korsning med neanderthaler...

"A challenge in detecting signals of gene flow between Neandertals and modern human ancestors," state the study authors in the report, "is that the two groups share common ancestors within the last 500,000 years, which is no deeper than the nuclear DNA sequence variation within present-day humans. Thus, even if no gene flow occurred, in many segments of the genome, Neandertals are expected to be more closely related to some present-day humans than they are to each other."

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2012/article/genetic-studies-of-modern-populations-show-varying-neandertal-ancestry

John Hawks senaste studie av relationer mellan dagens populationer och 'arkaiska människor' - neander och denisovan - visar nya genetiska samband från pre-historisk tid.

John Hawks, Associate Professor of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin—Madison, reports the results of a study of the comparison of East Asian region samples (Japanese, Han Chinese in Beijing, and Han Chinese originating in South China) with European region samples (Tuscans, British, Finn, CEU, and Spanish) taken from the 1000 Genomes Project in his weblog entitled The Malapa Soft Tissue Project. Here he concludes that "the Europeans average a bit more Neandertal than Asians", suggesting that "Europeans may have mixed with Neandertals as they moved into Europe, constituting a second process of population mixture beyond that shared by European and Asian ancestors". [2] More interesting still were the differences detected among the samples within each of the two regions. Within the East Asian region, the North China population was found to have more Neandertal indicators than the South China, and within the European region, the southern populations more than the northern, with the Tuscans having "the highest level of Neandertal similarity of any of the 1000 Genomes Project samples". [2] Hawks relates the results of research on African populations, as well, which also show variability. He points to the Yoruba people, a West African population, having significantly more Neandertal genome similarity than the Luhya, an East African population. "We now know from examination of genetic variation within Africa today," states Hawks about the possible implications, "that some of today's diversity can be traced to ancient population structure in Middle Pleistocene African populations. For example, Neandertals could be more closely related to some African populations than others today because Neandertals actually exchanged genes with some ancient African populations.

http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/march-2012/article/genetic-studies-of-modern-populations-show-varying-neandertal-ancestry