tldrdailynews.com logo
Tag

Early Humans

All articles tagged with #early humans

Ancient Sparks: Evidence Pushes Fire Use by Early Humans Back to Over 1 Million Years
science17 days ago

Ancient Sparks: Evidence Pushes Fire Use by Early Humans Back to Over 1 Million Years

A non-invasive analysis of Wonderwerk Cave in South Africa finds burnt bones and heated remains dating from about 1.07 to 1.79 million years ago, likely linked to Homo erectus, well inside the cave rather than at the entrance. This suggests early humans actively used and possibly transported and maintained fire, pushing back the timeline for controlled fire use; researchers used bone fluorescence to distinguish true fire alteration from other changes, with findings published in PLOS One.

via ScienceAlert|
#archaeology#early-humans#fire-use
Ancient fire inside Wonderwerk Cave rewrites early human timeline
archaeology1 month ago

Ancient fire inside Wonderwerk Cave rewrites early human timeline

A new PLOS One study finds repeated burning in Wonderwerk Cave deposits dated to about 1.07–1.79 million years ago, among the oldest known records of hominin fire use. By analyzing 161 small-mammal bones with FTIR and bone luminescence, researchers detected heating deep inside the cave (at least 30 meters in) in distinct clusters, suggesting early Homo erectus populations carried and maintained fire for warmth, light, and protection—well before cooking became widespread.

via Archaeology News Online Magazine|
#archaeology#early-humans#fire-use
Ancient Ashes in East Africa: 100,000-Year-Old Cremation Hint Emerges
archaeology1 month ago

Ancient Ashes in East Africa: 100,000-Year-Old Cremation Hint Emerges

In Ethiopia's Afar Rift, burned bones dating to about 100,000 years ago may be the oldest evidence of cremation, implying early Homo sapiens engaged in or encountered cremation. The site also reveals thousands of stone tools and obsidian artifacts, indicating repeated visits and mobility shaped by seasonal floods, challenging climate-change–driven migration theories.

via Indian Defence Review|
#afar-rift#archaeology#cremation
Kenya’s 1.6-million-year-old bones reveal planned meat processing by early humans
archaeology1 month ago

Kenya’s 1.6-million-year-old bones reveal planned meat processing by early humans

Analysis of over 1,000 bones from FwJj 80 in Kenya’s Koobi Fora Formation shows cut marks and marrow-extraction damage from stone tools, indicating early Homo butchered carcasses and transported prime meat away from kill sites across diverse habitats. This suggests planning and flexible foraging that could have supported higher energy needs for brain growth and social cooperation, with patterns similar to older sites like FLK Zinj and Kanjera South, pointing to continuity in meat-use strategies across landscapes.

via Archaeology News Online Magazine|
#archaeology#butchery#early-humans
Ancient sea routes stitched Philippine islands 40,000 years ago
science2 months ago

Ancient sea routes stitched Philippine islands 40,000 years ago

Archaeologists find evidence that around 40,000 years ago, early humans around Mindoro crossed open seas to coastal sites, forming long-lasting maritime lifeways and networks that spread tools, plant-working techniques, and knowledge across the Philippine archipelago, with robot-assisted excavation helping preserve fragile clues and illuminate deliberate sea crossings rather than random drift.

via Earth.com|
#archaeology#early-humans#maritime-history
100,000-Year-Old Ethiopian Site Reveals Repeated Early-Human Visits
science2 months ago

100,000-Year-Old Ethiopian Site Reveals Repeated Early-Human Visits

Archaeologists at Halibee in Ethiopia’s Afar Rift have uncovered 100,000-year-old human remains, thousands of basalt stone tools, and diverse animal bones, indicating repeated, non-permanent visits by early Homo sapiens to a resource-rich savannah-woodland landscape long before their expansion into Eurasia; the site preserves three human remains with different post-mortem histories and suggests a pattern of occupation rather than a single burial, with most animals not clearly butchered and some exchange inferred from a small fraction of non-local obsidian, all exposed by erosion and discussed in a PNAS study.

via The Daily Galaxy|
#archaeology#early-humans#ethiopia
Tooth enamel decodes Africa's ancient landscapes shaping early humans
science2 months ago

Tooth enamel decodes Africa's ancient landscapes shaping early humans

Researchers analyze chemical traces in fossil tooth enamel from Ethiopia’s Afar region to reconstruct how landscapes and diets changed over the past ~4 million years. Enamel preserves signals of what plants ancient animals ate, revealing forests, wetlands, and grassy plains that expanded into open savannas around 2–3 million years ago. The data suggest early hominins like Australopithecus afarensis had flexible, mixed diets, and that environmental shifts helped drive human evolution, including tool use and upright walking.

via Yahoo|
#afar-region#early-humans#east-african-rift-valley
430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Redefine Early Human Tech in Greece
science2 months ago

430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Redefine Early Human Tech in Greece

Researchers analyzing wood remains from the Marathousa 1 site in central Greece report two wooden fragments dating to about 430,000 years ago that show shaping and wear consistent with human use (one alder digging/bark-stripping tool; another willow or poplar fragment). A third alder piece bears carnivore marks, not human modification. Together with stone tools and butchered animals at the lakeside site, the find constitutes the oldest known hand-held wooden tools and pushes back the timeline for wooden tool use by at least 40,000 years, highlighting early plant-based technology during the Middle Pleistocene and suggesting fierce competition with large carnivores.

via SciTechDaily|
#archaeology#early-humans#marathousa-1
Monte Verde’s Age Rewritten, Reshaping the First Americans’ Arrival
science3 months ago

Monte Verde’s Age Rewritten, Reshaping the First Americans’ Arrival

A new study re-dates the Monte Verde site in Chile to 4,200–8,200 years ago, far younger than the widely cited 14,500-year figure. The finding undermines its role as an early pre-Clovis reference point and prompts a reevaluation of migration theories into the Americas, suggesting older material may have been exposed or moved by geological processes rather than indicating very early human presence.

via The Daily Galaxy|
#archaeology#dating#early-humans
Ancient Humans Ate Plants Too: The Real Paleolithic Diet Revealed
science3 months ago

Ancient Humans Ate Plants Too: The Real Paleolithic Diet Revealed

New research synthesizes fossil and genetic evidence showing early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans ate a diverse, plant-inclusive diet in addition to meat. Plant remains at sites, evidence of processing, and early duplication of the AMY1 gene for starch digestion support a Broad Spectrum Species Hypothesis, challenging the long-held view that Paleolithic humans were hypercarnivores and reinforcing that our ancestors were flexitarians long before agriculture.

via AOL.com|
#amy1-gene#broad-spectrum-species-hypothesis#early-humans
Ancient Neanderthal Men Likely Paired More Often with Early Humans
science4 months ago

Ancient Neanderthal Men Likely Paired More Often with Early Humans

A study published in Science finds Neanderthal males interbred with human females more often than the reverse, suggesting a non-random partner pattern possibly driven by migration or social dynamics; researchers also note that hybrids from Neanderthal mothers and human fathers may have had lower survival, helping explain the persistence of Neanderthal DNA (up to about 2%) in modern European and Asian populations.

via Yahoo News UK|
#early-humans#interbreeding#mating-patterns