Latest Neanderthal Stories

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New analytical techniques are changing long-held, simplistic views about the evolutionary history of humans in Europe.  The study, reported in the journal Trends in Genetics, found that many cultural, climatic, and demographic events have shaped genetic variation among modern-day European populations and that the variety of those mechanisms is more diverse than previously thought. Recent advances in paleogenetics, or the study of...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from the University of Cambridge finds that the DNA similarities between Neanderthals and modern humans are more likely to have arisen from a shared common ancestor than from interbreeding. Previously, it has been suggested that the shared parts of the genome sequence between the two populations was the result of interbreeding, but the new research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of...

April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Two recent articles in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show that the Later Stone Age (LSA) and Modern Culture both emerged much earlier than was previously thought. A team of international scientists from South Africa, France, Italy, Norway, the USA and Britain dated and directly analyzed organic objects found in the archaeological layers at Border Cave, South Africa in the Lebombo Mountains near the border of...

Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A recent genetics study has shown evidence that another branch of the human evolutionary tree may have existed alongside Neanderthals, fueling the ongoing feud between paleontologists and geneticists. According to the study published this week in the journal Cell, a team of geneticists led by Joseph Lachance and Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania found DNA evidence of an interbreeding with an unknown archaic species of...

redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online A team of researchers has provided the first molecular evidence that Neanderthals not only ate a range of cooked plant foods, but also understood their nutritional and medicinal qualities. Neanderthals, who disappeared between 30,000 and 24,000 years ago, were thought to be mostly meat-eaters.  Dietary extensiveness is growing as more research is being conducted. The researchers, led by the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona...

Unique arm morphology in Neanderthals was likely caused by scraping activities such as hide preparation, not spear thrusting as previously theorized, according to research published July 18 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. The researchers, led by Colin Shaw of the University of Cambridge, took muscle measurements of modern men performing three different spear thrusting tasks and four different scraping tasks. They found that muscle activity was significantly higher on the left side of...

By using a new cutting-edge dating technique, researchers have discovered that the practice of painting cave art started as early as 40,000 years ago, or 10,000 years earlier than previously believed. A team of British, Spanish and Portuguese researchers, led by Dr. Alistair Pike of the University of Bristol, investigated some 50 paintings in 11 different caves in northern Spain. Since the paintings had no organic pigment, they could not use radiocarbon dating to determine their age, so...

The reconstruction of 27 complete human limb bones found in Atapuerca (Burgos, Spain) has helped to determine the height of various species of the Pleistocene era. Homo heilderbergensis, like Neanderthals, were similar in height to the current population of the Mediterranean. Along with its enormous quantity of fossils, one of the most important features of the Sima de los Huesos (SH) site in Atapuerca, Burgos, is the splendid state of the findings. They are so well conserved that the 27...

According to a new paper published in the latest edition of the Journal of Human Evolution, researchers from Germany and the UK claim that they have identified the oldest known musical instruments on Earth. The research, conducted by experts from Oxford University and Tuebingen University, used carbon dating to discover that flutes crafted from the bones of birds and ivory from mammoth tusks were from between 42,000 and 43,000 years old, BBC News reported on Friday. The flutes, which...

Lee Rannals for RedOrbit.com Wolfson College is taking a giant leap forward by attempting to discover the legendary Yeti through analyzing samples of teeth and hair. The college, which is part of Oxford University, is asking for Yeti samples so it can use the latest DNA technology to analyze the fabled beast's genome against other species in the world. "As part of a larger enquiry into the genetic relationship between our own species Homo sapiens and other hominids, we invite...