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Pastimes : R. Harmon's Earth 101 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: long-gone who wrote (75)	3/31/2000 5:47:00 PM
From: .Trev	Respond to of 183

Hadn't heard about the Red Haired American Natives, but it doesn't really surprise me having seen quite a few red haired Pathans in the bazaar at Peshawar in Pakistan's NW Frontier. Corse we have to remember those early Scots had far reaching bicycles, and lots of ambition, and loose fitting kilts. On a different tack, there are people wandering around the permafrost looking for other treasures than Woolly Mammoths I hear. Saw an interesting tv show the other evening on two expeditions to try to recover Virus DNA from people killed by the 1918 Flu virus. Last time around it killed between 40 and 100 million people world wide, and the medics are forecasting several hundred million if it ever comes back. The concern is that we are really no better prepared now than we were in 1918, and apparently it isn't patient enough to hang around and wait. It kills in a day or two. There was a villasge in Alaska where it claimed all but 14 out of a total population of 87.

To: long-gone who wrote (75)	4/1/2000 12:50:00 PM
From: Lilian Debray	1 Recommendation Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 183

"Neanderthal died out without passing on their genetic info." Professor Erik Trinkaus is keeping the debate alive. We have since found more elegant and effective ways to consume other people's thoughts and develop our own brain power <g>. S T. L O U I S, April 20 1999 ? A 24,500-year-old skeleton found in Portugal with characteristics of both early modern humans and Neanderthals shows the two groups interbred and may be ancestors of modern man. The hybrid skeleton of what was likely a 4-year-old boy refuted the widely held theory that early humans emigrated from Africa and displaced the Neanderthal population without interbreeding, Washington University anthropologist Erik Trinkaus said. The hybrid skeleton was the first evidence ever found that populations of early modern humans and Neanderthals interacted and interbred, Trinkaus said. ?This skeleton shows a mixture of features that are features of modern man,? he said in a telephone interview. Not a Rarity Many anthropologists support the so-called ?Out of Africa? theory of human origins that says modern humans evolved in Africa and spread across the world about 100,000 years ago. There is considerable evidence that Cro-Magnon people, who became modern humans, lived side-by-side with and interacted with Neanderthals, which died out about 30,000 years ago. ?This find refutes strict replacement models of modern human origins ? that early modern humans all emerged from Africa and wiped out the Neanderthal population,? Trinkaus said. Radiocarbon dating of the skeleton excavated in December showed it lived about 24,500 years ago, or 4,000 years after the time that early modern humans migrated across the Pyrenees and into the Iberian Peninsula where Neanderthals were already living, he said. ?This skeleton, which has some characteristics of Neanderthals and others of early modern humans, demonstrates that early modern humans and Neanderthals are not all that different. They intermixed, interbred and produced offspring,? Trinkaus said. He said the skeleton could not be dismissed as just a product of some unlikely, rare affair between members of the two groups. ?This is not a love child,? he continued. ?The results of admixture were there in the population 4,000 years after Neanderthals and early modern humans first met on the Iberian Peninsula.? Human Chin, Neanderthal Body A study published in 1997 of DNA taken from the Neanderthal skeleton discovered in Germany?s Neander valley in 1856 indicated it was too distant genetically to have been an ancestor of modern humans. But Trinkaus said that merely proved that Neanderthals were not modern man, which was already known. Though the skeleton?s skull was crushed when a farmer bulldozed the then-undiscovered site six years ago, Portuguese archaeologists led by Portugal?s director of antiquities, Joao Zilhao, subsequently found the well-preserved body and the intact lower jaw preserved in red ochre a few inches below the surface. The prominent chin was characteristic of early modern humans while the stocky trunk and short limbs reflected its Neanderthal origins, Trinkaus said. Other arm bones pointed to early modern human parentage. The skeleton was found when an archaeologist stuck his hand down a rabbit hole and pulled out the well-preserved skeleton?s left forearm. The body was buried in red ochre, with a pierced shell, indicating a ritual burial, Trinkaus said. The site is on a hillside near Leiria, Portugal, in the Lapedo Valley 80 miles north of Lisbon and 19 miles off the Atlantic Coast. members.iinet.net.au "Cannibalism In our time, we know of some peoples who eat or ate parts of humans in ritual ceremonies. It doesn't happen anymore, but not too long ago you could find indigenous people who would remove the brain of a person through the foramen magnum and eat it. (Eurgh!) The foramen magnum needed to be enlarged to achieve this, so the skull would have been a bit like a bowl when held upside down. If you can imagine what the skull would look like after this kind of treatment, then you are visualizing what some fossilized Neanderthal skulls look like. Very similar. Other skulls have been found where the brain looks like it's been removed with less, shall we say, finesse. Neanderthal fossils have been found where the bones and skull have been smashed and split. This is not usual. This doesn't prove they ate each other, but if they did, this practice may have been part of their culture, just as it was in many indigenous tribes in recent times. It might also indicate nothing more than hunger or greed." members.iinet.net.au