carolinafrica:
Neanderthal (Discovery Channel)
This revealing two-part drama documentary combined the latest scientific research with a stunning mixture of drama and cutting edge 3D animation to reconstruct the lives of these remarkable early humans. In the second part, the advanced Cro-Magnons arrive and a new Ice Age is dawning.
Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals coexisted on Earth until competition drove one of them to extinction. This program, set in the southwest of France 35,000 years ago, uses re-creations of cinematic proportions to reconstruct life in the Neanderthal world at the time Cro-Magnons first entered the scene.
All aspects of Neanderthal clan life are examined, including tool- and weapon-making, hunting and gathering, health and healing, childbirth, rituals, and making fire. Footage of skeletal remains and the scholarly research of eminent palaeontologist Chris Stringer and Oxford University’s Paul Pettitt support the documentary.
(Source: youtube.com, via theolduvaigorge)
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — On a bluff overlooking a sweep of Southern California beach, scientists in 1976 unearthed what were among the oldest skeletal remains ever found in the Western Hemisphere.
Researchers would come to herald the bones — dating back nearly 10,000 years — as a potential treasure trove for understanding the earliest human history of the continental United States. But a local tribal group called the Kumeyaay Nation claimed that the bones, representing at least two people, were their ancestors and demanded them back several years ago.
For decades, fights like this over the provenance and treatment of human bones have played out across the nation. Yet new federal protections could mean that the vast majority of the remains of an estimated 160,000 Native Americans held by universities, museums and federal government agencies, including those sought by the Kumeyaay, may soon be transferred to tribes.
(Source: dead-men-talking)
Meet the grandparents: researchers use forensics to rebuild 27 faces of man’s ancestors, stretching back 7 million years
Picture: Homo erectus lived one million years ago. One theory is that the species originated in Africa and migrated to India, China and Java. Another holds that they evolved in Asia and migrated to Africa
An exhibition in Dresden, Germany has used forensic technology to recreate some of the most distant members of the human evolutionary ‘family’ - ancestors stretching back seven million years.
The 27 model heads were created using fossil remains, and includes a glimpse of sahelanthropus tchadensis, an ancestor dated to about seven million years ago, when our ‘hominid ‘ancestors’ first originated in Africa.
Forensic anthropologists use similar computer-assisted techniques to police teams attempting to reconstruct human remains - and the near-complete skulls of ancestors such as sahelanthropus tchadensis have allowed researchers to reconstruct lifelike faces of what out ancestors might have looked like.
This looks absolutely amazing! Click through to read the rest of the article and to see more great images.
