Thursday, August 19, 2021

To Adapt to a Changing Environment 400,000 Years Ago, Early Humans Developed New Tools and Behaviors

When the East African Rift Valley transformed dramatically, new weapons arose and trade expanded

An overview of the Olorgesailie basin landscape, where the archeological site exists that contains stone weapons and tools (Human Origins Program, Smithsonian)

Four hundred thousand years ago, extreme environmental changes rocked the East African Rift Valley. Fresh water periodically dried up, and vast grasslands faded away—taking with them the large grazing animals hunted by early humans. But ecological instability didn’t drive people out of the region or into extinction. Instead, it sparked them to adapt with major leaps forward in their behavior and culture. Early humans developed more sophisticated stone tools and weapons, expanded trade networks, and even evidenced the growth of symbolic communication.

That’s the key finding of an eight-year-long study published today in Science Advances that revealed the ecological context behind changes in early human lifestyle as seen through artifacts. Richard Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, and colleagues paired a sedimentary drill core holding a million years of Africa’s environmental history, with archaeological excavations from Olorgesailie, Kenya, to show these dramatic, simultaneous developments.

“Some pretty radical things were going on here,” says Potts. “A change began from reliable living conditions to an era of uncertainty and repeated disruption in those crucial conditions for life.”

Potts and colleagues spent nearly three decades studying 1.2 million years of human habitation at the Olorgesailie site. Until now the story has been one of two very different eras separated by a mysterious gap at a key point in prehistory. For 700,000 years, between 500,000 and 1.2 million years ago, life at Olorgesailie looked much the same. Thousands of tools and animal bones show that the same primitive stone Acheulean hand axes—sharpened but clunky hand-held chunks of rock—remained in vogue and large grazing mammals, the outsized relatives of zebras, elephants and even primates, inhabited the area.

Unfortunately, the geologic layers accumulated between about 320,000 and 500,000 years ago have long since washed away, with whatever evidence they once contained. That period turns out to be a key 180,000 year-long era of evolutionary flux. “The next time we pick up the story, 320,000 years ago, the hand axes are no longer around,” Potts explains. “They’ve been completely replaced by a new way of life and technology.”

As detailed in a trio of 2018 studies, which Potts and colleagues also authored, by 320,000-years-ago early humans had replaced fist-sized stone axes with smaller, sharper, more sophisticated blades and projectile points that evidenced Middle Stone Age technology. The cumulative behavior in the culture during the Middle Stone Age—modifying and improving upon the achievements of others—begins to appear regularly around Africa during this same period of time. And abstract thinking can be seen in the design of such tools. While making a hand ax basically involves improving an existing rock’s shape, making blades and points means the toolmaker must have begun by first visualizing the ideal shape of such a tool, then reworking the rock to serve that purpose

The materials chosen to craft some of those tools weren’t available locally. They evidence the expansion of ancient trade networks. Early humans sourced black obsidian for projectile points from at least 50 miles away. They also began to use color, chiseling red or black manganese rocks likely used to make pigments and adorn their weapons, or themselves—a practice scientists often associate with the development of symbolic thought.

Based on the recovery of thousands of bones, the area’s animal inhabitants changed as well. One of the 2018 studies concludes that a staggering 85 percent of local mammal species turned over during the same key period of ecological transition and changing early human behavior. “The large grazers disappeared after hundreds of thousands of years of typifying East African ecosystems, and they were replaced by animals more like what you’d see on safari today,” Potts explains. “What instigated such a change? [At the Olorgesailie site] we were missing the layers that could tell us what happened.”

To reconstruct the environment in which these changes occurred, the team turned to a site just 15 miles away, in the adjacent Koora basin—where the depression of an ancient lake ~~basin lies~~ can be seen beneath a grassy plain. In 2012, Potts’s team engaged a Kenyan company to drill a 456-foot-deep hole, less than two inches in diameter, and extract a sedimentary ~~drill~~ core preserving a record of one million years of the East African Rift Valley’s environmental history.

For nearly a decade, dozens of experts from institutions around the world delved into the core, analyzing microscopic organisms and plant remnants, and tracking seasonal and rainfall shifts in soils, to chart how the region’s environment changed over the past one million years. They found out that after hundreds of thousands of years of stability, dramatic shifts occurred beginning about 400,000 years ago—extreme swings occurred between wet and dry periods, lakes shrunk and new types of vegetation periodically replaced large grasslands. Geological evidence at Olorgesailie also shows how some 400,000 years ago earthshaking tectonic activity began to reshape the region—segmenting the landscape, raising hills and cliffs, and draining huge lakes—shifts that made the area more sensitive to changes like more variable rainfall.

Paleoanthropologist Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum in London, notes that previous efforts to explore how ancient environment influenced evolution have been compromised because cores from distant oceans or lakes paint a global picture but miss how ecosystems changed locally, where ancient people lived. “It’s what’s been needed from East Africa for a long time, to have a core that ties in closely to a site with good evidence of human occupation covering a long period of time,” says Stringer, who wasn’t involved with the research.

Without large plains to sustain them the large grazing relatives of zebras, giraffes and elephants were replaced with smaller specimens. Baboons, for example, shrunk to only about one-fourth the size of their predecessor Theropithecus oswaldi. And without the giant “lawnmowers of the Pleistocene” and their constant browsing, entirely different vegetation sprouted. This one-two punch meant that early humans had to learn new ways to gather foods, as well as ways to hunt different animals.

Stringer notes that early humans were completely attuned to their local environment and knew how to exploit its plant and animal resources on a daily basis. “So changes in the environment meant that they had to learn completely new patterns of behavior and that’s an obvious pressure on the human population to change,” he says. “If hunter gatherers don’t adapt to the environment, they die.”

Since ecological changes have also occurred in more recent times, the authors pored over studies of more than 150 historically known and living hunter gatherer communities to see how they responded in similar situations. When resources become unpredictable, it seems, they often tend to respond in the same way the Olorgesailie inhabitants did. They’ve been observed to forage more widely, extend trading networks and invest more time and energy in their tools and technology.

University of Cambridge archaeologist and geochronologist Nick Blegen cautions that if ecological variability was a key driver behind the behavioral and cultural changes in early humans, we should also expect to see evidence of that variability at a wider sampling of early human fossil sites. So far, there aren’t enough quality environmental reconstructions like this one to know.

“As past environments are reconstructed from many East African rift basins, will they all show a shift from stable lake environments to variable lake and grassland ecosystems at the same time as hominins shifted from large handheld tools to more diverse technologies?” asks Blegen, who wasn’t involved in the research. “If so, then Potts et al. are on to something. If not, then we cannot blame an inconstant environment for everything, and we’ll have to find another explanation, or explanations, for the evolution of modern human behavior.”

And while more modern human behavior clearly developed at the site another major question remains—who exactly might these adaptable people have been?

Though tens of thousands of stone tools have been found, the site has so far yielded only one described early human fossil, a partial brain case of Homo erectus from about 900,000 years ago. But this species has only been associated with more primitive tools and isn’t known to have survived in the area as late as 320,000 to 500,000 years ago.

No fossils can be found from the key transitional period at the site because the layers that once might have held them have vanished. Homo naledi lived in Africa during this period but hasn’t been found associated with tools. Homo heidelbergensis likely persisted into the Middle Stone Age, but it’s not known if they ever adopted more modern tools.

Interestingly, both genetic studies and the oldest-known fossil evidence suggest that our own species, Homo sapiens, may have arisen during this time period, though perhaps not here in the southern Kenya rift. Middle Stone Age technology like that found at the Olorgesailie site is typically associated with fossils of Homo sapiens rather than other species. “It’s like these components are here in the behavior, in the archaeological record, that look like the root of human adaptability and that this occurred at the outset of our own species,” Potts says. “I think that we’re potentially dealing with some representative of an ancestral group to H. Sapiens.”

By Brian Handwerk

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
OCTOBER 21, 2020

‘Lost’ Marble Skull Sculpted by Baroque Artist Bernini Found Hidden in Plain Sight

Pope Alexander VII commissioned the work, which sat unidentified in Dresden for decades, as a reminder of mortality

A curator's archival research identified a previously unattributed marble skull as a lost masterpiece by Bernini. (© SKD / Photo by Oliver Killig)

By Isis Davis-Marks

SMITHSONIANMAG.COM
JUNE 1, 2021

For decades, a skillfully carved rendition of a skull sat largely overlooked in Germany’s Pillnitz Castle. Who crafted the cranium has long been a mystery, but new research detailed in “Bernini, the Pope and Death,” an exhibition on view at the Dresden-based Semper Gallery, suggests the marble head’s creator was none other than famed Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

“Everybody had the same reaction to it,” curator Claudia Kryza-Gersch tells the Art Newspaper’s Catherine Hickley. “We were standing around a table, looking at it. The question of course was—who made it? And since it has Roman provenance, someone jokingly said ‘maybe it’s a Bernini?’”

Per the German Press Agency (DPA), Kryza-Gersch spotted the skull while preparing for a separate Caravaggio exhibition at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister (Old Masters Picture Gallery). She then had it moved to the restoration workshop at the Dresden State Art Collections.

“There was something about seeing the object out of its glass case,” Kryza-Gersch tells the Art Newspaper. “I was so overwhelmed. It’s scary—it has an aura.”

Curious about the skull’s origins, the curator began researching it in the Dresden archives. She soon came across the papers of Raymond Le Plat, art advisor to Polish king Augustus the Strong, and found a reference to a “famous death head” sculpted by Bernini. Further investigation indicated that Pope Alexander VII, who led the Catholic Church between 1655 and 1667, commissioned the cranium within days of taking office.

According to the Gemäldegalerie’s website, the pope kept the eerily lifelike piece of white Carrara marble on his desk as a “reminder of the fragility of human existence.” Though a plague befell Rome shortly after his ascension, Alexander’s proactive response to the threat ensured that the city escaped relatively unscathed, as Taylor Dafoe reports for Artnet News.

Writing for Artnet News in 2017, Menachem Wecker pointed out that artists throughout history have created similarly macabre symbols. Inspired by the Latin phrase memento mori, which roughly translates to “remember you must die,” these paintings, sculptures, drawings and tokens seek to remind viewers of their own mortality. Though the objects may appear morbid to modern viewers, Artnet notes that they often carried “optimistic, carpe-diem messages” about making the most of one’s time on Earth.

After Alexander’s death in 1667, the head—“so realistically sculpted that it could almost be mistaken for a genuine human skull,” according to the Gemäldegalerie—was transferred to his nephew, a prominent antiquities collector. In 1728, Augustus acquired the marble sculpture, as well as 164 antique statues and four Baroque works. It was subsequently moved to Dresden.

Until recently, the Dresden State Art Collections had listed the skull as an unattributed work, notes a separate DPA report. Held in the archaeology department, it attracted little interest from curators more interested in ancient artifacts than modern ones. As a result, a supposedly lost masterpiece by one of art history’s most renowned sculptors remained hidden in plain sight for almost 200 years.

“This time, all the pieces came together like a beautiful puzzle,” Kryza-Gersch tells the Art Newspaper.

Born in Italy in 1598, Bernini displayed artistic talent from an early age. At just 8 years old, locals later claimed, he created a stone head that “was the marvel of everyone,” as Arthur Lubow wrote for Smithsonian magazine in 2008. Bernini’s father encouraged the young artist to continue honing his craft, and by his mid-20s, he had established himself as one of Rome’s most preeminent sculptors. Among his famed creations are a life-size rendering of David, the triumphant Biblical warrior who slayed the giant Goliath, and an intricate depiction of Daphne, a mythological Greek nymph who transformed into a laurel tree to escape the unwanted advances of the god Apollo.

The newly identified Bernini skull—as well as a painting showing Alexander resting his hand on the marble sculpture—is on view in Dresden through September 5.

China wants to build a Tibet with more wealth and less Buddhism

Buddhist nuns walk past a poster showing Chinese President Xin Jinping and former Chinese leaders Jiang Zemin, Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Hu Jintao in Potala Palace square in Lhasa, during a government-organised tour of the Tibet Autonomous Region, China, October 15, 2020. Picture taken October 15, 2020. REUTERS/Thomas Peter (REUTERS)8 min read . Updated: 31 Oct 2020, 08:15 AM ISTBloomberg

For China, showcasing Tibetans singing the Communist Party’s praises helps affirm its legitimacy to rule the region

In Tibet, often called the 'Roof of the World' because of its high elevation along the Himalayas, ethnic Tibetans comprise about 90% of the 3.5 million people spread across an area the size of South Africa

Sitting in a home built by Chinese authorities near Tibet’s capital of Lhasa, one of the highest cities in the world, Sunnamdanba tells foreign journalists on a government-sponsored tour how much the Communist Party has improved life -- and how irrelevant religion has become for him.

“I could have never dreamed my life would be so good," the 41-year-old father of two, who by tradition uses only one name, said in comments translated by a local official. Foreign journalists can only report from the region on trips organized by the government.

Asked about the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s 85-year-old spiritual leader now living in exile and condemned by China as a separatist, Sunnamdanba said: “I never met him and I don’t understand him."
And Buddhism, the religion that has for more than a millennium been the foundation of Tibetan culture? “I spend most of my time and energy now on work and making a living," he said. “There’s less time to spend on religion."

Why hang a portrait of President Xi Jinping in your living room? “None of this could have happened without the party."

Legitimacy to Rule

For China, showcasing Tibetans singing the Communist Party’s praises helps affirm its legitimacy to rule the region, something that’s weighed on Beijing’s ties with the West since a failed uprising in 1959 forced the Dalai Lama to flee and set up a government-in-exile in northern Indian. It’s become more important recently as politicians in the U.S., Europe and India accuse China of using forced labor, detentions and re-education campaigns to assimilate ethnic minorities in its borderlands.

The Trump administration’s newly appointed special envoy for Tibetan issues met with the head of the exiled Tibetan administration this month, generating outrage from China. India, which only recognized Beijing’s sovereignty over the area in 2003, also recently venerated a Tibetan soldier who died fighting against China this year in the worst fighting along the border since a 1962 war.

Tensions have risen in other areas as well. Earlier this year, a Chinese government effort to make Mandarin Chinese the language of instruction at schools in a region inhabited by ethnic Mongolians sparked street protests. And in Xinjiang, a province directly north of Tibet, outrage over China’s move to detain more than a million minority Uighur Muslims in re-education camps has led some U.S. lawmakers to push for the actions to be declared “genocide."

Xi has personally defended the moves in Xinjiang, saying they are necessary to stem terrorism and improve the lives of people. In comments last month, he called the party’s policies “completely correct," urged more economic development and pushed for more nationalism in education to “allow the sense of Chinese identity to take root in people."

Sinofication of Buddhism

At a meeting on Tibet issues in August, Xi told officials to “actively guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society, and promote the Sinofication of Tibetan Buddhism."

In Tibet, often called the “Roof of the World" because of its high elevation along the Himalayas, ethnic Tibetans comprise about 90% of the 3.5 million people spread across an area the size of South Africa. Their language bears no relation to Chinese, most are Buddhists, and many consider the Dalai Lama their spiritual head -- if not their political leader.

In 2008, deadly riots erupted in Lhasa, leaving at least a dozen dead. A spate of self-immolations by ethnic Tibetans followed a few years later, with the Dalai Lama’s followers and human-rights activists attributing the actions to government oppression. Beijing has blamed the Dalai Lama for fomenting the unrest, and that sentiment continues to be expressed by officials today who see religion as the root cause of some of Tibet’s biggest challenges.

“Due to some outdated conventions and bad habits -- particularly the negative influence of religion, people put more attention on the afterlife, and their desire to pursue better living this life is relatively weaker," Tibet Governor Qi Zhala told reporters at a briefing that was part of the trip. “Therefore, in Tibet, we’ll need to not only feed the stomach, but also fix the mind."

Tibetans are allowed to continue with religious practices only under strict controls: Those who openly show reverence and support for the Dalai Lama can face harsh punishment.

‘This Is How You Control Tibet’

“Now they want Buddhism to be taught in Chinese language," Lobsang Sangay, president of Tibet’s exiled government, told a seminar in Washington on Sept. 28. “This is how you control Tibet and this is how you control the Himalaya belt. This is how you control Asia."

But Beijing is also investing heavily in Tibet, betting that new roads, jobs, better housing and improved access to education and healthcare will bring stability to the region. It’s also counting on modern life to erode the sway that religion has had over Tibet since the seventh century.

“A gift makes you indebted to the giver," said Emily Yeh, a professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who is the author of the book “Taming Tibet: Landscape Transformation and the Gift of Chinese Development." “The bottom line is loyalty to the state and the party."

Tibet is crucial to Beijing for strategic purposes. Its mountainous terrain abuts a 4,000-kilometer (2,500-mile) border with countries including India, Nepal and Myanmar, forming a natural security barrier. Beijing has recently reinforced troops stationed in Tibet as it prepares for a long winter in its high-altitude standoff with India.

“To govern a country, it’s necessary to govern the border," Xi told the Tibet symposium in August, where the party set policy directions for developing the region. “To govern the border, it’s required to stabilize Tibet first."

Family Relocations

For Xi, the key to snuffing out calls for independence in Tibet and strengthening Communist Party rule is delivering economic growth in one of China’s poorest regions.

Since 2016, China has spent more than $11 billion on poverty alleviation efforts in Tibet. Authorities say they’ve pulled 628,000 people above the country’s absolute poverty threshold, which Beijing currently defines as those with annual earnings of less than approximately $600 -- or $1.64 a day.

Those efforts have included building roads to far-flung villages, securing safe drinking water and providing access to health care. But they’ve also fueled concern about the loss of Tibetan culture, in particularly due to widespread relocations of families.

Sunnamdanba is among roughly 266,000 Tibetans who have been relocated to new villages over the past five years as part of Xi’s poverty alleviation campaign. He said his family now makes about $13,000 annually, four times what it used to make in a good year, from his job as a security guard, his wife’s work as a cleaner and renting out three rooms in their new home to Chinese tourists.

The government’s stance that it hasn’t forced anyone to move as part of the poverty alleviation drive was backed up by an ethnic Tibetan researcher who studies relocations in the region. Asking not to be named for fear of retribution, the researcher said he is aware of villages where only two out of 120 households took up the offer to be relocated.

However, a new drive by the government to move 130,000 people from fragile ecosystems at high elevations has been less flexible. According to the researcher, villagers in these locations aren’t given a choice.

‘I Believe in the Party’

Those presented to reporters on the trip appeared happy to change locations. Among them were 35-year-old Luoce, who used to graze animals on his grassland some 5,000 meters (16,000 feet) above sea level, where he says the thin air gave him nosebleeds.

In 2017, he moved to a so-called relocation village and now works as a security guard and firefighter. His earnings have tripled thanks to his wages and various government subsidies, including one he receives to not graze animals on his land for environmental reasons. Luoce’s goal is to give his seven children the education he never received.

“I believe in the party and in science more than I believe in religion," he said through a government translator.

Still, a poorly executed relocation program could also leave people worse off and foment the very kind of instability improved economic conditions were meant to prevent.

A notable example of this occurred in Inner Mongolia about a decade ago, when provincial authorities relocated herdsmen from the steppe to so-called milk villages. China’s dairy industry imploded shortly afterward following a tainted milk scandal, forcing many of the herdsman to eke out a living doing odd jobs.

Disadvantaged Underclass

Large-scale resettlement involves major changes to social structures, family links, culture, lifestyle, communities and class structure, according to Robbie Barnett, who headed Columbia University’s Modern Tibetan Studies Program until 2018 and has written about the region since the 1980s.

“It’s impossible to overstate the enormity of these new forms of development and economic policy in Tibet and Tibetan areas, particularly resettlement," he said. “To put it at its crudest, the risk is that, while some will prosper, many farming and herding communities will be transformed into a dislocated, disadvantaged underclass."

Officials interviewed during the reporting trip spoke extensively about that risk, and highlighted two solutions: Teaching Tibetans new skills to make money, and expanding education.

Outside Shigatse, Tibet’s second-largest city, low-income families are growing mushrooms -- something Tibetans haven’t traditionally done -- and then selling them to a government-financed company. More than 600 kilometers away in Nyingchi, authorities are planning to spend more than $100 million on a vocational training center designed for students who failed a test to continue onto high school after compulsory education in Tibet ends after grade nine.

One of those students is Suolanyixi, the 19-year-old son of pepper farmers. He’s already mastered the cappuccino in his quest to become a professional barista, and hopes to one day land a job at one of the roughly half-dozen five-star hotels in Lhasa.

And while none of the other students who’ve studied coffee making at the school has ever gotten a job outside of Tibet, Suolanyixi is not ready to rule out the thought -- something that would further the Communist Party’s goal of integrating the region with the rest of China. “Maybe if I am lucky," he said in fluent Mandarin Chinese.

Himalayas, Near and Far: Two Astronauts. Two Clear Days. Two Gorgeous Views.

By NASA EARTH OBSERVATORY MARCH 5, 2021

May 23, 2012

Two astronauts. Two clear days. Two gorgeous views around the roof of the world.

Astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) shot these photographs of the Himalayas, the Tibetan Plateau, and the Indo-Gangetic plain.

The wide view above, taken in May 2012 by astronaut Don Pettit shows a dramatic 1000 kilometer (600 mile) stretch of the snow-capped peaks of the Himalayas. The Ganges/Ganga Plains occupy the foreground, and the numerous lakes and mountain glaciers of the Tibetan Plateau are visible beyond the mountains. The major rivers on the plains—the Ganges, Ghaghara, and Gandak—have transported vast amounts of sediment from the Himalayas over millions of years and deposited much of it in very large alluvial fans.

Due to the oblique viewing angle from the ISS, the curve of Earth’s limb defines the horizon visible from orbit. This photo view is close to the magnificent view that would have greeted Pettit’s eyes that day because the lens he used (16 mm) is fairly close to the focal length of the human eye (about 25 mm). To the unaided eye, Chomolungma/Mount Everest, the highest peak on Earth (8,848.86 meters or 29,031.7 feet) is indistinguishable in this panoramic view.

December 5, 2017

The second photo was shot by astronaut Randy “Komrade” Bresnik in December 2017 while looking southwest through a much longer lens (420 mm). It shows details from the part of the range that includes Mount Everest, which appears without its usual cloud cover. The extensive monsoon cloudiness that brings rain had not yet set in, though southerly winds blew up some of the major valleys onto the Tibetan Plateau, causing cloud streamers to rise. Two of the largest valleys that cut through the Himalaya Range lie just east and west of Chomolungma/Everest.

Another reason for the clarity of the air on this day was that the usually hazy air pollution of the region was blown away by the winds. A gray mass of air pollution (upper left) still obscured some of the landscape detail on the plains.

Learn more about astronaut photography in the Picturing Earth video series: part 1 Astronaut Photography in Focus; part 2 Window on the World; and part 3 Behind the Scenes.

Astronaut photograph ISS031-E-67020 was acquired on May 23, 2012, with a Nikon D2Xs digital camera using a 16 millimeter lens. Astronaut photograph ISS053-E-317703 was acquired on December 5, 2017, with a Nikon D5 digital camera using a 420 millimeter lens. Both were provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, Johnson Space Center. The images were taken by members of the Expedition 31 and Expedition 53 crews. The images have been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Caption by Justin Wilkinson, Texas State University, JETS Contract at NASA-JSC.

Edge Of Tibetan Plateau From Space

Posted by

Deborah Byrd

June 22, 2016

The southern-central edge of the Tibetan Plateau near the border with western Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim is pictured in this Sentinel-2A image from 1 February 2016. Image via ESA. — The southern-central edge of the Tibetan Plateau near the border with western Nepal and the

ESA released this image as its Earth observation image of the week on June 17, 2016. It’s a Sentinel-2A satellite image of the Tibetan Plateau. ESA said:

The Tibetan Plateau was created by continental collision some 55 million years ago when the north-moving Indian Plate collided with the Eurasian Plate, causing the land to crumple and rise. And rise it did. With an average elevation exceeding 4,500 meters (14,800 feet) and an area of 2.5 million square kilometers (about a million square miles), it is the highest and largest plateau in the world today.
The plateau is also the world’s third largest store of ice, after the Arctic and Antarctic. In recent years, rising temperatures have caused rapid melting.
Part of the Himalayas is visible along the bottom of the false-colour image, with the distinct pattern of water runoff from the mountains. At the end of these rivers and streams we can see the triangle-shapes of sediment deposits – alluvial fans – formed when the streams hit the plain and spread out.
One large alluvial fan is visible in the upper-central portion of the image, while smaller ones can be seen on the left.
Alluvial fans are subject to flooding, and these areas are increasingly at risk as climate change taking its toll on the world’s glaciers causes accelerated melting.

Bottom line: A Sentinel 2A image of the southern-central edge of the Tibetan Plateau.

Via ESA

Feral dogs aggravate biodiversity crisis in Himalayas

The booming population of strays causes economic hardship, risks the spread of disease and threatens conservation efforts – but NGOs and some state governments are taking action

Dogs are a part of Himalayan life and culture. A dog rests outside a Karma Samten Ling monastery in Ngarwal, Annapurna Conservation Area [image by: Debby Ng]

Mahima Jain
March 23, 2021

Wherever there are people, dogs seem to follow. Ecologist Chandrima Home knows this better than most.

Back in 2013, Home was studying feral domestic dogs in Spiti Valley, in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, for her doctoral degree. She travelled extensively in the Himalayan landscape to understand the impacts of the animals.

“I estimated there were about 1,000 dogs in 25 villages covering over 4,000 square kilometres,” said Home. The canine population in India is an estimated 60 million, of which 35 million are feral or free-ranging. These numbers might be lower in the mountains, but they also have a more powerful impact.

In January 2021, the Himachal Pradesh government described the density of feral dogs as an “imminent threat” to the state’s ecosystem. This was in response to a survey conducted by a government-run conservation project called SECURE Himalaya, the forest department and Zoological Survey of India, which found there are on average nearly three feral dogs per 100 sq km in the remote, high-altitude region of Lahaul and Pangi.

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Danger to native wildlife

“Dogs threaten local wildlife through direct predation, competition with other carnivores and through potential disease transmission,” said Kulbhushan Suryawanshi, a scientist at Indian NGO Nature Conservation Foundation (NCF). For instance, they have been recorded chasing snow leopards away from their kills.

While it is hard to estimate the direct impact dogs have on wild animals and endangered species, Home’s research has found that 48% of reported attacks by packs of dogs on native Indian species happen in or near protected areas. Nearly half of these cause the death of the attacked animal, with dogs preying on local wildlife like blue sheep, red panda, musk deer, red foxes, weasels, martens, pika and marmots. With many species already critically endangered, conflict with dogs can seriously impede efforts to help populations recover.

A yellow-throated marten, a small wild carnivore that is native to the Himalaya. Villagers had attempted to rescue this individual from a pack of six dogs, but the marten died from its injuries soon after the dogs were chased away [image by: Bikram Gurung]

A pack of feral dogs can be ferocious and can even attack a large animalThinlay N. Bhutia, Sikkim Anti-Rabies & Animal Health Division

“A pack of feral dogs can be ferocious and can even attack a large animal. They have a significant advantage over small livestock and wild animals that roam alone,” said Thinlay N Bhutia, programme coordinator and joint director of the Sikkim Anti-Rabies and Animal Health (SARAH) division, the first state-wide anti-rabies government programme in India.
Livestock losses lead to culture change

Research indicates that in some areas of the Himalayas, dogs are responsible for more livestock kills than wild animals.

One study analysed dog attacks in 29 villages in the Spiti Valley between April and June 2013. Based on interviews with herders and pastoralists, it found nearly 63.5% of livestock losses were because of dog attacks, particularly on sheep and goats. Snow leopards and wolves were responsible for 28.5% and 8% respectively. Of the USD 46,662 worth of livestock lost to depredation and disease in 2013, dog attacks accounted for USD 17,522 (40%).

Research assistant with the Himalayan Mutt Project, Ajay Narsingh Rana, coaxes a dog down from the roof of a house in Upper Pisang village, Annapurna Conservation Area. A sample of blood was collected from the dog and analysed for pathogens, and the dog was sterilised by veterinarians [image by: Debby Ng]

Home told The Third Pole that predation by domestic dogs has changed livestock compositions in the past decade. Many villagers have reduced their small livestock holdings due to this and other socio-economic factors.
Feral dogs as vectors of disease

Dogs often carry viruses, bacteria and parasites that can cause disease – and indirectly affect wildlife and livestock. Feral dogs can also travel long distances to remote places, thus potentially infecting wolves, snow leopards and other wild carnivores.

In 2012, thousands of dogs died in Sikkim due to an outbreak of canine distemper, a lethal viral disease. In 2014, researchers found that the same virus was killing tigers and red pandas in Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal

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Dog bites are also the main cause of rabies deaths in people. India, where about 20,000 people die from rabies every year, accounts for 36% of the global death toll from the disease. In remote Himalayan regions, where access to healthcare can be challenging, eliminating dog-mediated rabies is crucial.

Monitoring and population control

“Dogs are everywhere in the Himalayas. Camera traps documenting snow leopards at altitudes between 5,000-7,000 metres have spotted dogs. But we don’t know how abundant they are,” said Debby Ng, wildlife disease ecologist and co-founder of Himalayan Mutt Project (HMP), an organisation that carries out free neutering and vaccination of dogs in Nepal.

Suryawanshi, from NCF, explained that the problem often starts off small. Pets may be abandoned or left by pastoralists, who own dogs to guard their herds, during migrations. However, Suryawanshi said, the initially small population of strays then thrives on the food waste in rubbish dumps and left behind by tourists and military camps.

Dogs breed swiftly. They can have up to three litters a year, with as many as seven puppies per litter, who will then themselves breed quickly.

“Once dogs attain high densities, then it is very difficult to contain them,” Suryawanshi said. Dogs in this region are often a mix of Tibetan mastiff and local breeds. They are therefore bigger and more powerful than those in the plains, making them hard to catch.

As well as in Himachal Pradesh, the problem has been reported in Jammu & Kashmir, Ladakh, and parts of Uttarakhand and Sikkim. It is also a serious issue in Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan.
Human solutions for a human problem

In 2014, Ladakhi officials ordered the culling of 20 dogs after a woman was killed by a pack. (This was suspended after protests by animal rights activists.)

Experts stress that rather than brutal measures, tackling this issue needs a multi-pronged, systemic approach.

Bhutia, from SARAH, told The Third Pole that in recent years the state has reported fewer incidents of dog bites.

“By improving dog health, you can improve human health too,” said Helen Byrnes, a veterinarian at Vets Beyond Borders (VBB) and volunteer at SARAH.

Ng co-founded HMP in 2014 in Nepal to reduce community and wildlife conflict with dogs and stop culling. “The World Health Organization recommends a systematic animal birth control and vaccination drive [to prevent rabies and stabilise dog populations],” Ng pointed out.

Gim Geok Ng prepares a dog for sterilisation as children watch her from the window at Pisang village, Annapurna Conservation Area [image by: Debby Ng]

HMP covers villages in Annapurna Conservation Area, Nepal’s largest protected area. It has neutered 621 dogs and vaccinated over 800.

SARAH and HMP have similar approaches. Dogs are tracked by trained handlers with community support; experienced veterinarians vaccinate and sterilise them; and after post-op care they are released or returned to their owners.

“Sterilised dogs are healthier, more active and less aggressive,” said Byrnes.

SARAH, along with volunteers from VBB and Fondation Brigitte Bardot, has vaccinated over 320,000 dogs and sterilised 78,000 since 2005. This involves communication and cooperation at various levels, from local people to state departments such as animal husbandry and health.

Bhutia explained that the economic losses from an uncontrolled feral dog population (rabies, loss of livestock, threats to wildlife) are far higher than the cost of running a track-neuter-release programme.

“Once you estimate the losses it is easier to persuade any government to start a systematic state-level programme,” he said. Sikkim’s response to the problem has been strengthened as there are strong pet ownership laws and penalties for violating them, he added.

However, there are many barriers to ensuring a rabies-free state and controlling the dog population. Sikkim shares a border with China, Bhutan and Nepal, and dogs can move between countries. Citizens also bring in dogs from other states.

“These are not one-off projects; we have to do them for years,” Bhutia said.

Another important factor is waste management, Home pointed out.

NCF has implemented dog-proofing at some rubbish sites, and found that there were fewer dogs in villages with these measures.

“We have to move away from seeing this as a dog problem. It really is a human problem,” said Ng. “Humans bring dogs into these places, and human choices can keep their population in check or cause it to explode.”

China marks Tibet anniversary with call to accept Communist rule

Beijing marks 70th anniversary of founding of Tibet Autonomous Region, with a call to accept the Communist Party’s rule.

A man stands in front of a sign marking 70 years since Chinese rule over the Tibet Autonomous Region, on the Potala Palace Square in Lhasa, Tibet [File: Martin Pollard/Reuters]
19 Aug 2021

China has marked the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the roof of the world, with a call to accept the rule of the Communist Party.

Beijing has ruled the remote western region since 1951, after its People’s Liberation Army marched in and took control in what it called a “peaceful liberation”.

“Tibet can only develop and prosper under the party’s leadership and socialism,” Wang Yang, who heads a national organisation responsible for uniting all races and all parties under the leadership of the Communist Party, said at the event on Thursday in the region’s capital, Lhasa.

Paramilitary police officers swap positions during a change of guard in front of Potala Palace in Lhasa [File: Thomas Peter/Reuters]

The celebration, attended by almost 10,000 people, was held at the foot of the iconic Potala Palace, a sacred Buddhist site associated with the Dalai Lamas.

A nationwide live telecast of the celebration prominently featured a four-storey-high portrait of Chinese President Xi Jinping towering over the audience.

Propagandists in the 1950s and 1960s used to extensively display Mao Zedong’s portraits at rallies and celebrations to whip up a personality cult around him and cultivate loyalty.

Most leaders after Mao forbade the practice, although under Xi’s rule, his solo portraits as well as those with him and four previous leaders have been placed extensively in Tibet.

The party’s atheist Han leaders in Beijing have also made extra efforts to cultivate loyalty among Tibetans, many of whom are devout Buddhists and traditionally view the Dalai Lamas as their spiritual leaders.

Beijing brands the current Dalai Lama, exiled in neighbouring India, as a dangerous separatist and instead recognises the current Panchen Lama, put in place by the party, as the highest religious figure in Tibet.

As a mark of the party’s rule over Tibetan Buddhism, Wang presented the Panchen Lama with a commemorative plaque at the ceremony.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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