Did human diseases kill the Neanderthals? Tropical illnesses carried by Homo sapiens from Africa to Europe and Asia may have wiped out our distant cousins 40,000 years ago

Homo sapiens and Neanderthals lived alongside each other in the Levant

The two species existed in an 'equilibrium' for tens of thousands of years

A 'disease barrier' kept Homo sapiens from Neanderthal territory


By RYAN MORRISON FOR MAILONLINE November 2019

Neanderthals may have been wiped out by tropical diseases carried by homo sapiens as they migrated out of Africa more than 130,000 years ago, a new study has revealed.

Archeological evidence suggests that Eurasian Neanderthals first came into contact with our human ancestors in an area known as the Levant in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The two species survived together for tens of thousands of years before the Neanderthals began disappearing and modern humans expanded beyond the Levant.

In a new report, researchers from Stanford University suggests that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals were locked in a 'disease stalemate' for tens of thousands of years.

Neanderthals and homo sapiens co-existed for tens of thousands of years in the Levant but a breakdown in an invisible disease barrier may have led to modern humans overwhelming the Neanderthals and then spreading out

The Levant includes a number of modern countries including Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Egypt and Iraq.

Gilli Greenbaum from the Stanford team said: 'Our research suggests that diseases may have played a more important role in the extinction of the Neanderthals than previously thought.

'They may even be the main reason why modern humans are now the only human group left on the planet.'

The team used mathematical models of modern disease transmission to show how the unique diseases held by Neanderthals and modern humans could have created an 'invisible disease barrier' between the two species.

This would have discouraged homo sapiens from entering enemy territory for fear of contracting a disease they had no immunity over.


Researchers believe the mutual fear of contracting diseases held by both Neanderthals and Homo sapiens is behind their ability to co-exist for tens of thousands of years

The researchers claim this 'uneasy equilibrium' was eventually broken due to interbreeding between the two species.

The hybrid humans born of these unions may have carried immune-related genes from both species, which would have slowly spread through modern human and Neanderthal populations.

As these protective genes spread, the disease burden or consequences of infection within the two groups gradually lifted.

Eventually, a tipping point was reached when modern humans acquired enough immunity that they could venture beyond the Levant and deeper into Neanderthal territory with few health consequences.

At this point, other advantages that modern humans may have had over Neanderthals — such as deadlier weapons or more sophisticated social structures — could have taken on greater importance.

It is believed that their inefficient stone tools (recreation pictured) saw Neanderthals perish 40,000 years ago, while the homo sapien community boomed to become the origin of modern day humans

The reason modern humans replaced Neanderthals and not the other way around, is to do with the severity of the diseases that both species carries, according to the researchers.

'The hypothesis is that the disease burden of the tropics was larger than the disease burden in temperate regions,' said study co-author Noah Rosenberg.

'An asymmetry of disease burden in the contact zone might have favoured modern humans, who arrived there from the tropics.'

He said the modelling found that even small differences in disease burden between the two groups at the outset would have grown over time, eventually giving homo sapiens the edge.

Dr Greenbaum said: 'It could be that by the time modern humans were almost entirely released from the added burden of Neanderthal diseases, Neanderthals were still very much vulnerable to modern human diseases.


After the disease barrier no longer affected modern humans they would have been able to overwhelm the Neanderthals with their superior tools and weapons

'Moreover, as modern humans expanded deeper into Eurasia, they would have encountered Neanderthal populations that did not receive any protective immune genes via hybridization.'

The way the Neanderthals succumbed to homo sapiens is similar to what happened when Europeans arrived in the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries and decimated indigenous populations with their more potent diseases.

If this new theory about the Neanderthals' demise is correct, then supporting evidence might be found in the archaeological record.

'We predict, for example, that Neanderthal and modern human population densities in the Levant during the time period when they coexisted will be lower relative to what they were before and relative to other regions,' Greenbaum said.

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Nature Communications.

Recent human ancestors may have spent a lot of time climbing trees, fossilised leg bones suggest

Scientists studied the structure of leg bones from two fossilised species

The more ancient species had a structure that indicates it walked on two legs

But the more modern species was similar to gorillas and orangutans and indicates it spent more time in the trees

By JOE PINKSTONE FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 31 March 2020

Recent human ancestors may have regularly climbed trees, research suggests.

Analysis of two extinct ancient hominins found a complex picture when trying to find how primitive hominins evolved to walk on two legs.

Analysis of leg bones found an older species likely walked on two legs but a more modern species spent a lot of time in the trees.

This convoluted timeline points to a diverse evolution of locomotion culminating in the upright humans that walk Earth today.


Pictured, the internal bone structure of the head of the femur of a gorilla. A similar structure was seen in a relatively recent human ancestor indicating a complex route to the two-legged animals we see today

Pictured, CT-based digital renderings of the StW 522 (Australopithecus africanus, left) and StW 311 (Paranthropus, RIGHT) fossils. The top two images show the fossils as they are preserved. The bottom two images show a cross-sections through the fossils to reveal the trabecular bone, whose distribution reveals these individuals practiced different frequencies of climbing

An older fossil, belonging to Australopithecus africanus that lived up to 2.8million years ago, had a bone structure similar to its more modern counterparts.

But a younger fossil, belonging to an unknown species thought to be Paranthropus robustus or early Homo regularly adopted highly flexed hip joints — indicative of tree-dwelling species such as orangutans and chimpanzees.

Hominins are members of the human family tree more closely related to one another than to apes.

Today, only one species of this group remains, Homo sapiens, to which everyone on Earth belongs.

The study, led by the University of Kent, analysed and compared the internal bone structures of two fossil leg bones from South Africa, discovered more than 60 years ago and believed to have belonged to a creature which lived between one and three million years ago.

For both fossils, the external shape of the bones were very similar, showing a more human-like than ape-like hip joint, suggesting they were both walking on two legs.

The researchers also examined the internal bone structure, because it remodels during life based on how individuals use their limbs.

Pictured, an aerial photograph of the site where the fossils were found and analysed in South Africa

But when they analysed the inside of the spherical head of the thigh bone, it showed they were loading their hip joints in different ways.

The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by Dr Leoni Georgiou, Dr Matthew Skinner and Professor Tracy Kivell at the University of Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation.

Dr Georgiou said: 'It is very exciting to be able to reconstruct the actual behaviour of these individuals who lived millions of years ago and every time we CT scan a new fossil it is a chance to learn something new about our evolutionary history.'

Dr Skinner said: 'It has been challenging to resolve debates regarding the degree to which climbing remained an important behaviour in our past.

'Evidence has been sparse, controversial and not widely accepted, and as we have shown in this study the external shape of bones can be misleading.'

LUCY HAD A SMALL BRAINhttps://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/our-ancient-ancestor-lucy-had-small.html

The Book of Revelation, The X-Files, and the Hermeneutics of Suspicion
https://scholars.wlu.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1424&context=consensus
Harry O. Maier
Associate Professor of New Testament Studies
Vancouver School of Theology


Entertainment and the End of Politics

Scenario One
Special FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder enter a large
underground room in a top-secret GS Intelligence building.
In it they discover row upon row of filing cabinets as far as the
 eye can see. Each one is filled with tens of thousands of cards. On each
I card is the name of a GS citizen and the date and place of his elementary school vaccinations, coinciding roughly with the suspected crash of an alien spaceship at Roswell Airforce Base shortly after WW 11. With each card is a slide with a sample of blood. Irrefutable proof of what Mulder has been telling Scully all along: the GS government has been engaged in a covert scheme to inject each citizen with a secret chemical agent designed, Mulder hypothesises, to make them more susceptible to social control as part of a grand scheme involving a to-thedeath-battle with extraterrestrials. Gntil now the government has been successful in its ability to dupe the American public. Mulder, however, intends to blow its cover and reveal the lies and deception of the GS government

 Scenario Two
Neo Anderson is seated before Mopheus, an undercover agent who believes that Neo is “The Chosen One”, the one destined to save human civilisation. But first Neo must choose whether he wants to learn “the truth” or not. Mopheus offers him the choice between taking a blue pill or a red pill. The former will return him to his daily life and he will forget ever meeting Mopheus. The red pill offers him the promise of revelation.

Neo chooses the latter and thereby sees the truth masked behind what he had mistaken for reality. He sees that what humankind believes is reality is in fact an illusion fabricated by a powerful computer programme called “The Matrix”. Although it appears to be 1999, in truth it is the Century and humans are farmed to feed a machine in control of theearth. Neo is the Chosen One destined to make the Matrix crash and to free humankind from its servitude to illusory “reality”. Following a crash course in learning to discern fact from fiction, Neo enters the Matrix where he battles computer simulations of FBI agents (virtual bodyguards of the“The Operating System”). An apocalyptic battle ensues and Neo Anderson proves himself the long-promised Messiah, the “New Son of Man” his name coincidentally denotes, the one to free the world from its slavery to the illusion of virtual reality.

These are the cultural stepchildren of the Book of Revelation. Apocalypse of course literally means “uncovering”. Each of our scenarios treat its audience to a privileged uncovering of a secret alleged to be hidden by everyday reality. Like John of Patmos who travels to heaven to report the contents of a revelation uncovered by the breaking of a seven-sealed
scroll (Revelation 5: 1-6:1), hit-TV show X-File characters Scully and Mulder, as well as Matrix film characters Neo Anderson and Mopheus offer their audiences revelatory journeys to break the seals of secrecy.

Recent studies have scrutinized the role of the Apocalypse in shaping cultural expectations in these last years leading up to a new millennium. For example, Mark Kingswell’s Dreams of Millennium: Report From a Culture on the Brink (Toronto: Viking, 1996) and the consciousness and expectations of western European societies.

 Eugen Weber’s Apocalypses: Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs through the Ages (Toronto: Random, 1999; the content of the Barbara Frum Lecture Series broadcast by the CBC in Spring, 1999) offer thumbnail sketches of the role of the Book of Revelation in shapinges, even in their most secular forms. 

These studies excellently show how millennial thinking borrowed from the Apocalypse has dominated western views of progress and social ideals. Not noted, however, is the degree to which it has provided millennial themes with a counterpoint of suspicion. The Marxist class-free worker’s Paradise of an inevitable historical dialectic discovers its tonality in the hymns of the vindicated saints of Revelation 19:6-8 and the final four chapters of the Apocalypse. So does the Nazi Thousand Year Reich. But it is suspicion that furnishes these political philosophies with their dissonant melodies. Marx insisted he was unveiling the true economic processes at work in the bourgeois construction of ideology.


The National Socialists claimed to uncover a Marxist-Jewish conspiracy to destroy the German race. Ronald Reagan’s depiction of America, “The City on the Hill” pitted against the intrigues of “The Evil Empire” of the Soviet Union, provided the rationale for the largest build-up of mili- tary arms in recorded history. Suspicion makes these theories powerfully captivating; paranoia is especially immune to disconfirmation since every attempt to prove it unwarranted can always be turned around as a subtle temptation from the enemy to drop one’s guard. It is to these apocalyptic modulations of suspicion that our two scenarios sketched above join in chorus.

A Hermeneutic of Sacred Texts: Historicism, Revisionism, Positivism, and the Bible and Book of Mormon 
Alan Goff Brigham Young University - Provo 
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=5718&context=etd
Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, and the Mormon Studies Commons

.......What I and others term revisionist readings of the book of Mormon have
within the past thirty years attempted to explain the book of Mormon as a product
of Joseph Smiths environment as an american frontier novel rather than an
ancient document which the book claims to be this attempt to revise the
understanding of the book of Mormon from within the community of Mormons
aims to expose the text to to the scrutiny of reason and empirical research ham
16 all I want to do is subject the scrutiny itself to reasoned inquiry
the literary position I take up is that of a literary approach to biblical texts
the philosophical position I take up is hermeneutics although what is called
hermeneutics in biblical criticism meaning essentially interpretation and
what is called hermeneutics in philosophy have common roots the latter is much
more fully developed in philosophical circles I1 use the word as it is used by
philosophers hermeneutics opposes the truth claims frequently made in
readino readigo
revisionist discussions of the book of Mormon specifically the claims my
hermeneutical approach opposes are those that assert that they can tell us
precisely what the text means free of interpretation and bias to establish the
position and ideological interests of the commentator is necessary before we
grant authority to the interpretation that follows
I first examine some of these truth claims call them positivism or historicism
they are the same to me the theoretical issues I discuss in the first chapter I
apply in the later ones I want my own truth claims about what the text means to
be exposed to the same criticism that I expose others to be exposed to the same 
criticism that I expose others to

.......In addition to discussing the interpretive issues of positivism historicism and
hermeneutics I also intended to read particular passages in the book of Mormon
and subject them to a hermeneutical critique Thomas Alexander advocates a
historicist historic historicism position I intend some time in the future to explore the philosophical
difficulties of such a position in more than a theoretical sense by reading his
reconstruction of Mormon doctrine article I intended as part of this project to
examine his attempt to explain how contemporaries would have understood what
he claims to be a repudiation of the doctrinal content of the book of Mormon by
Joseph Smith in his later life I intended also to examine Michael Quinns book
which makes similar historicist historic historicism claims about the possibilities
of seeing things as people in an earlier age did about magic and early Mormonism 
particularly
about the book of Mormon finally I intended to examine Anthony Hutchinson
claims about the book of Mormon and other scripture none of these projects
have I been able to complete as part of this thesis
As part of my own reading of the book of Mormon I also intended to cover
much more ground I have examined four narratives from the book the stealing
of the daughters of the lamanites Lamanites narrative the broken bow incident the nahom
narrative and the building of the ship narrative I originally intended much
more I intended to write about the other narratives in first and second nephi the
obtaining of the brass plates story although I do discuss this narrative
somewhat and the tree of life vision I began for example analyzing the tree of
life passages but after seventy pages of commentary and having analyzed only
twelve verses of text I concluded that the section was too extensive to complete for
this project such projects await other opportunities I want and still hope that
my analysis of the book of Mormon text complements my theoretical discussion
about interpretation.

Our ancient ancestor 'Lucy' had a small brain like an ape but a slower development leading to an extended period of childhood just like humans

'Lucy' and 'Dikika Child' from 3 million years ago had ape-like brain structure

But these two A. afarensis species had brains that grew over time, like humans

Fossils suggest that A. afarensis infants had a long dependence on caregivers

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED 1 April 2020

Human ancestors who lived over three million years ago had an ape-like brain structure but human-like brain growth that showed prolonged periods of care.

The findings are based on analysis of eight fossil skulls of Australopithecus afarensis – the species to which the famous early human ancestor ‘Lucy’ belongs.

A. afarensis inhabited East Africa more than three million years ago and is widely accepted to be an ancestor to all later hominins, including the human lineage.

Remains of both Lucy and 'the Dikika Child’ show the brain of this early species was organised like that of an ape, but grew over time at a rate more comparable to humans.

Animation shows what kind of brain ancient ancestor 'Lucy' had






+

Brain imprints in fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis (famous for 'Lucy' and the 'Dikika child' from Ethiopia pictured here in frontal and lateral view)

‘This fossil has played a pivotal role in allowing paleoanthropologists to ask and answer several major questions about how we became human,’ said senior author Zeresenay Alemseged, a paleoanthropologist from the University of Chicago.

‘We can now say the organisation of the brain was more ape-like.’

A.afarensis inhabited East Africa more than three million years ago, and is widely accepted to be ancestral to all later hominins, including humans.

The researchers used scanning technology to analyse the skull of ‘the Dikika Child’, also known as Selam, that lived in Ethiopia 3.3 million years ago, as well as scans of Lucy and other fossils from Hadar in Ethiopia.

The Dikika Child’ – the remains of which were discovered in Dikika, Ethiopia in 2000 – is the earliest child ancestor discovered so far.

She belonged to the same species as Lucy, the famous fossil discovered in Hadar in Ethiopia in 1974 – and a forebear of Homo sapiens.

Years of fossil reconstruction, and counting of dental growth lines, yielded an fairly well-preserved brain imprint of the Dikika Child, and a precise age at death.

Based on analysis of her dental records, the team's experts calculated an age at death for the little female of just 861 days (2.4 years).

The research team used scans of Lucy (remains found at Hadar in 1974) and the Dikika Child (found in Dikika 2000), as well as other fossils from Hadar in Ethiopia

Brains do not fossilise, but as the brain grows, the tissues surrounding its outer layer leave an imprint in the bony braincase. The Dikika child's endocranial imprint reveals an ape-like brain organisation, as shown above, and no features derived towards humans

Fossilised cranial remains also revealed an ape-like brain organisation, and no features derived towards humans.

However, a comparison of infant and adult specimens indicated more human-like protracted brain growth, which was likely critical for the evolution of a long period of childhood learning in hominins.

‘By understanding childhood emerged 3.5 million years ago, we are establishing the timing for the advent of this milestone event in human evolution,’ said Professor Alemseged.

‘As early as 3 million years ago, children had a long dependence on caregivers.

‘That gave children more time to acquire cognitive and social skills.’


Brain imprints (in white) in fossil skulls of the species Australopithecus afarensis shed new light on the evolution of brain growth and organisation. Fossil reconstruction, and counting of dental growth lines, gave a preserved brain imprint of the Dikika Child

While brains do not fossilise, they leave imprints on the inside of the skull, which can reveal information about the structure and development of the organ.

Analysis of these brain imprints revealed key differences in the structural organisation of human and A.afarensis brains.

For example, the team found the placement of a fissure that separates the anterior and posterior parts of the brain closer to the front of the brain in A.afarensis, like chimpanzees.

WHO WAS 'LUCY'?

'Lucy' is the fossil remains of a female Australopithecus afarensis, one of the oldest early humans.

Lucy was unearthed from a palaeontological dig site called Hadar, in northern Ethiopia, in 1974.

The remains — which comprise 40 per cent of a complete skeleton — have been dated to 3.2 million years ago.

She had a small skull and walked upright — although some experts believe she may have spent time dwelling up trees as well.

In 2016, researchers proposed that Lucy may have died falling out of a tree.

In humans, this fissure – called the lunate sulcus – is pushed further down in the brain.

The researchers calculated the endocranial volume, or brain mass, of the A.afarensis infant and found evidence of a prolonged period of brain development compared with chimpanzees.

They believe brain growth in A.afarensis was long-lasting, suggesting their children, like those of modern humans, had a long dependence on caregivers.

The 3.2 million-year-old ape Lucy was the first A.afarensis skeleton ever found and is considered to be the world's most famous early human ancestor.

‘Lucy and her kind provide important evidence about early hominin behaviour,’ said Professor Alemseged.

‘They walked upright, had brains that were around 20 per cent larger than those of chimpanzees, may have used sharp stone tools.

‘Our new results show how their brains developed, and how they were organised.’

The findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

Ancient human ancestor ‘Lucy’ was less intelligent than an ape, study claims — casting doubt on just how bright our early cousins were

Lucy was long thought as smart as great apes as she had a similarly-sized brain

However researchers found that blood flowed to her brain at a slower rate

They did this by measuring the size of the holes in the skull that arteries go into

Intelligence levels are strongly indicated by the rate of blood flow into the brain

We likely gained intelligence rapidly because of social complexity not brain size

By IAN RANDALL FOR MAILONLINE November 2019

Early human ancestors like 'Lucy' may have been less intelligent than the great apes of today — like chimps, gorillas and orangutans — a study has found.

Lucy, a so-called 'Australopithecus', was one of the first early humans, sporting a relatively small brain compared to us but various human-like features.

Researchers had previously assumed that Lucy was of a similar intelligence to great apes, based on the fact that they all have similarly sized brains.

However, researchers found that — despite this — blood flowed less rapidly to Australopithecine brains than those of modern great apes.

In fact, the tiny, window-like openings for arteries in the skulls of modern apes would have allowed for as much as double the rate of blood flow to the brain.

Blood flow rates to the brain are known to be indicative of both the brain's rate of metabolism and its level of intelligence.

According to the researchers, the findings indicate that intelligence developed much faster in modern human species, likely in step with rising social complexity.

Early human ancestors like 'Lucy', pictured in this reconstruction, may have been less intelligent than the great apes of today — like chimps, gorillas and orangutans — a study found

WHO WAS 'LUCY'?

'Lucy' is the fossil remains of a female Australopithecus afarensis, one of the oldest early humans.

Lucy was unearthed from a palaeontological dig site called Hadar, in northern Ethiopia, in 1974.

The remains — which comprise 40 per cent of a complete skeleton — have been dated to 3.2 million years ago.

She had a small skull and walked upright — although some experts believe she may have spent time dwelling up trees as well.

In 2016, researchers proposed that Lucy may have died falling out of a tree.

Evolutionary biologist Roger Seymour of the University of Adelaide and colleagues measured the sizes of the canals that pass through the skulls of living great apes and compared them to those found in the fossilised skulls of human ancestors.

Among the species the researchers studied were gorillas, orangutans and pan apes — which include chimpanzees and bonobos.

They also looked at modern humans (Homo sapiens) and our three million-year-old distant 'cousins', Australopithecus.

The size of these canals reveals the rate at which each animal was capable of supplying blood flow to its brain — which, in turn, is related to both the brain's metabolic rate and intelligence.

The researchers found that modern gorillas have twice the rate of blood flow in the arteries that pass through these canals than Australopithecus did, despite them all having similarly sized brains.

Furthermore, the team report that even smaller-brained apes — specifically chimpanzees and orangutans — have higher rates of blood flow to their brains than Australopithecus did.

This would suggest, in turn, that Australopithecines like Lucy were less intelligent than modern day chimps, gorillas and orangutans.

'Lucy' is the fossil remains of a female Australopithecus afarensis, one of the oldest early humans. The remains — which comprise 40 per cent of a complete skeleton — date to 3.2 million years ago. Pictured, a reconstruction of Lucy's skull based on existing fragments

The team report that even smaller-brained apes — specifically chimpanzees, pictured, and orangutans — have higher rates of blood flow to their brains than Australopithecus did

'The results cast doubt over the notion that the neurological and cognitive traits of recent great apes adequately represent the abilities of Australopithecus species,' the researchers wrote in their paper.

'The use of modern primates as a proxy for hominin evolution may have prevailed historically due to similar brain sizes.'

The fact that gorillas have twice the rate of cerebral blood flow than Australopithecus is 'surprising', the researchers noted.

Lucy was unearthed from a palaeontological dig site called Hadar, in northern Ethiopia, in 1974

'The Australopithecus have been placed between great apes and humans on the basis of several measures relating to brain and intelligence,' they added.

'Apparently, the underlying assumptions that cognitive ability, brain metabolic rate and blood flow rate all scale with brain size in parallel — and that the patterns evident in living (simple-nosed) primates apply to hominins — are incorrect.'

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

New research: Lucy fell from a tree 3.18 million years ago!https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2020/04/recent-human-ancestors-may-have-spent.html

WHEN DID HUMAN ANCESTORS FIRST EMERGE?

The timeline of human evolution can be traced back millions of years. Experts estimate that the family tree goes as such:

55 million years ago - First primitive primates evolve

15 million years ago - Hominidae (great apes) evolve from the ancestors of the gibbon

7 million years ago - First gorillas evolve. Later, chimp and human lineages diverge

A recreation of a Neanderthal man is pictured

5.5 million years ago - Ardipithecus, early 'proto-human' shares traits with chimps and gorillas

4 million years ago - Ape like early humans, the Australopithecines appeared. They had brains no larger than a chimpanzee's but other more human like features

3.9-2.9 million years ago - Australoipithecus afarensis lived in Africa.

2.7 million years ago - Paranthropus, lived in woods and had massive jaws for chewing

2.6 million years ago - Hand axes become the first major technological innovation

2.3 million years ago - Homo habilis first thought to have appeared in Africa

1.85 million years ago - First 'modern' hand emerges

1.8 million years ago - Homo ergaster begins to appear in fossil record

800,000 years ago - Early humans control fire and create hearths. Brain size increases rapidly

400,000 years ago - Neanderthals first begin to appear and spread across Europe and Asia

300,000 to 200,000 years ago - Homo sapiens - modern humans - appear in Africa

50,000 to 40,000 years ago - Modern humans reach Europe

Humans' ancient ancestors developed bows and arrows 20,000 years earlier than thought – allowing them to survive while the Neanderthals were wiped out

Archaeologists excavated some 140 fossils from Grotta del Cavallo cave in Italy

Homo sapiens had weapons 40,000 years ago, not 20,000 years as believed

This could therefore have seen the species thrive while Neanderthals perished

By JACK ELSOM FOR MAILONLINE October 2019

Neanderthals were wiped out because they lacked the cutting-edge hunting weapons wielded by homo sapiens, archaeologists have suggested.

An excavation of animal bones in the Grotta del Cavallo cave in southern Italy found our ancestors' superior spears and bows and arrows allowed them to kill animals more easily than the primitive cavemen.

It's believed that their inefficient stone tools saw Neanderthals perish 40,000 years ago, while the homo sapiens community boomed to become the origin of modern day humans.

Professor Stefano Benazzi, at the University of Bologna in Italy, said: 'The advanced hunting strategy is related to a competitive advantage.

Neanderthals (drawing pictured) were wiped out because they lacked the cutting-edge hunting weapons wielded by homo sapiens, archaeologists have suggested

'This study offered important insight to understand the reasons for the replacement of Neanderthals by modern humans.'

The team excavated more than 140 fossils of animal remains from the Grotta del Cavallo, home to the first known 'Upper Paleolithic' settlement in Europe.

Scientists have found evidence that early homo sapiens were using spears, arrows and darts at least 40,000 years ago - 20,000 years earlier than previously believed

They used a digital microscope and found 'cut marks' on the animal remains, which confirmed the animals had been hunted and killed intentionally with refined tools.

Dr Katsuhiro Sano, of Tohoku University in Japan, said: 'The impact fractures showed similar patterns of experimental samples delivered by a spear thrower and a bow, but significantly different from those observed on throwing and thrusting samples.'

It is believed that their inefficient stone tools (recreation pictured) saw Neanderthals perish 40,000 years ago, while the homo sapien community boomed to become the origin of modern day humans

The team also found traces of ochre, plant gum and beeswax, which were likely used as homemade glue to steady the arrow heads.

Researcher Chiaramaria Stani said soil samples retrieved from the cave ruled out any 'organic contaminants' from the site and confirmed the presence of a mixture of silicate and iron oxides.

Neanderthals are known to have used spears and even arrows to hunt, but never mastered the bow and arrow.

While our ancestors lived with Neanderthals in Europe for more than 5,000 years, little is known about why Neanderthals went extinct.

Different theories include violence, disease, natural catastrophe, interbreeding and competition.


An excavation of the Grotta del Cavallo cave in southern Italy found our ancestors' superior spears and bows and arrows allowed them to kill animals easier than the primitive cavemen (Neanderthals preparing food pictured)

Dr Sano said: 'Modern humans migrating to Europe equipped themselves with mechanically delivered projectile weapons, such as a spear thrower-darts or a bow and arrow, which allowed modern humans to hunt more successfully than Neanderthals.'

The findings, published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, come just days after 257 fossil footprints were found in Western France, which suggested Neanderthals were much taller than was first believed.

The prints were likely made by a group of young individuals along the shoreline around 80,000 years ago.

Dr Isabelle de Groote at Liverpool John Moores University said: 'The discovery of so many Neanderthal footprints at one site is extraordinary.'


WHO WERE THE NEANDERTHALS?

The Neanderthals were a close human ancestor that mysteriously died out around 50,000 years ago.

The species lived in Africa with early humans for hundreds of millennia before moving across to Europe around 500,000 years ago.

They were later joined by humans taking the same journey some time in the past 100,000 years.

The Neanderthals were a cousin species of humans but not a direct ancestor - the two species split from a common ancestor - that perished around 50,000 years ago. Pictured is a Neanderthal museum exhibit

These were the original 'cavemen', historically thought to be dim-witted and brutish compared to modern humans.

In recent years though, and especially over the last decade, it has become increasingly apparent we've been selling Neanderthals short.

A growing body of evidence points to a more sophisticated and multi-talented kind of 'caveman' than anyone thought possible.

It now seems likely that Neanderthals buried their dead with the concept of an afterlife in mind.

Additionally, their diets and behaviour were surprisingly flexible.

They used body art such as pigments and beads, and they were the very first artists, with Neanderthal cave art (and symbolism) in Spain apparently predating the earliest modern human art by some 20,000 years.

SEE 

The Bow: A Techno-Mythic Hermeneutic: 

Ancient Greece and the Mesolithic (1981)

James Harrod

1981, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 49,3: 425-446

Religion,

Ethnology,

Mesolithic,

Arc

Cats and ferrets CAN be infected with coronavirus but it is hard for dogs to catch the disease, scientists discovers

Researchers in China deliberately infected animals with coronavirus in the lab

They found that cats can pass COVID-19 on via respiratory droplet transmission

However, experts noted that there is no evidence that cats can infect humans

Ferrets were highly susceptible and could be used as a model to test treatments

By IAN RANDALL FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 2 April 2020

Cats and ferrets can be infected with coronavirus and spread it to other animals, but it is hard for dogs to catch the disease, scientists have discovered.

Experts deliberately infected the animals with coronavirus to see whether they would contract illness as a result or be able to pass it on to other animals.

The team also found that chickens, ducks and pigs are not susceptible to the virus.

The findings come after four isolated cases of pets being infected with the novel coronavirus, including two dogs in Hong Kong and a cat in Belgium.

A second cat was also revealed this morning to have tested positive for the virus after its owner fell ill — unlike the Belgian cat, however, it is not exhibiting symptoms.

In all four cases, the pets are believed to have caught the virus from their humans.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has noted that there is no evidence to suggest that household pets are capable of spreading the disease.


Cats and ferrets can be infected with coronavirus but it is
 hard for dogs to catch the disease, scientists have discovered (stock image)

The study was undertaken by Jianzhong Shi of the State Key Laboratory of Veterinary Biotechnology in Harbin, China, and colleagues.

'Cats and dogs are in close contact with humans and therefore it is important to understand their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 for COVID-19 control,' the researchers wrote in their paper.

To investigate, the researchers infected five domestic cats — each around eight months old — with the coronavirus via their noses.

After six days, two of the cats were euthanized and examined, with the team finding both viral RNA and infectious viral particles in both cats' nasal passages, tonsils, soft palates and windpipes.


Each of the three remaining cats were then placed in cages next to one of three uninfected cats.

After three days, the researchers detected viral RNA in the faeces of one of the new, originally-uninfected cats — and, when this cat was later euthanized and examined, the team also found viral RNA in its nose, tonsils, soft palate and windpipe.

This, the researchers wrote, indicates 'that respiratory droplet transmission had occurred in this pair of cats.'

The researchers also found that the four cats that ultimately were infected by the coronavirus were found to have produced antibodies against the virus — and none of the exhibited any symptoms from the infection.

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'Cats and dogs are in close contact with humans and therefore it is important to understand their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 for COVID-19 control,' the researchers wrote in their paper

Experts have said that pet owners should not be alarmed by the findings at present.

Virologist Linda Saif of the Ohio State University in Columbus told Nature that it should be noted that the results come from tests in which animals were deliberately infected with high doses of the virus — which does not reflect real-life conditions.

She added that there was also no evidence to suggest that the infected cats in the study secreted enough coronavirus to pass the infection on to humans — and more studies with different viral doses are need to understand possible transmission.

'The focus in the control of COVID-19 therefore undoubtedly needs to remain firmly on reducing the risk of human-to-human transmission,' added epidemiologist Dirk Pfeiffer of the City University of Hong Kong.

Nevertheless, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have advised that those infected with the coronavirus limit their contact with their pets until they have fully recovered.

The team also experimented with other animals, in addition to cats. Dogs were found to be less susceptible to the coronavirus — with only two of five deliberately infected animals found exhibiting viral RNA in their faeces, and none found to be containing infectious virus particles

The team also experimented with other animals, in addition to cats.

Dogs were found to be less susceptible to the coronavirus — with only two of five deliberately infected animals found exhibiting viral RNA in their faeces, and none found to be containing infectious virus particles.

However, ferrets were found to be highly susceptible to infection, which will likely see the animals used as a model to test potential vaccines and drug treatments.

Chickens, ducks and pigs, meanwhile, exhibited no RNA particles when either infected with the coronavirus or after being exposed to infected animals — suggesting that they likely do not play a significant role in spreading the virus.

A pre-print of the researchers' article, which has not yet been peer-reviewed, can be read on the bioRxiv repository.