Scott Donovan's List: Prehistory

ARTICLECOMMENTS (6)Updated February 22, 2010
Israeli Archaeologist Digs Up Proof for Bible
AP
An Israeli archaeologist says newly excavated ancient fortifications in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of the Bible's King Solomon.

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A journalist looks over newly excavated fortifications outside the Old City walls in Jerusalem, Monday, Feb. 22 2010. An Israeli archaeologist says the ancient fortifications date back 3,000 years to the time of the Bible's King Solomon and offer evidence for the accuracy of the biblical narrative.

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.

If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.

That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.

While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history -- including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar -- others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.

Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."

"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.

Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings.

The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard long section of an ancie

ARTICLECOMMENTS (3)Updated March 01, 2010
Massive Head of Pharaoh Unearthed in Egypt
AP
Egypt's Culture Ministry says a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists has unearthed a large head made of red granite of an ancient pharaoh who ruled Egypt some 3,400 years ago.

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AP Photo / Supreme Council of Antiquities

Feb. 28: Egypt's Culture Ministry says a team of Egyptian and European archaeologists has unearthed a large head made of red granite of an ancient pharaoh who ruled Egypt some 3,400 years ago. The newly unearthed red-granite head, part of a huge statue of the ancient pharaoh Amenhotep III, was found at the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the city of Luxor.

CAIRO -- Archaeologists have unearthed a massive red granite head of one Egypt's most famous pharaohs who ruled nearly 3,400 years ago, the Egyptian Supreme Council of Antiquities announced Sunday.

The head of Amenhotep III, which alone is about the height of a person, was dug out of the ruins of the pharaoh's mortuary temple in the southern city of Luxor.

The leader of the expedition that discovered the head described it as the best preserved sculpture of Amenhotep III's face found to date.

"Other statues have always had something broken: the tip of the nose, the face is eroded," said Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, who has led the led the Egyptian-European expedition at the site since 1999. "But here, from the tip of the crown to the chin, it is so beautifully carved and polished, nothing is broken."

The head is part of a larger statue found several years ago, along with the parts of the body, the back slab, and the ceremonial beard which Souruzian says will soon be connected with the head.

Amenhotep III, who was the grandfather of the famed boy-pharaoh Tutankhamun, ruled from 1387-1348 B.C. at the height of Egypt's New Kingdom and presided over a vast empire stretching from Nubia in the south to Syria in the north.

Sourouzian said the pharaoh was famous for leading Egypt at the peak of its ancient civilization, when pe

110 Million Years Ago, T.rex Was Everywhere
AP
A foot-long piece of bone unearthed in Australia is the first evidence that ancestors of the mighty T. rex once lived in the Southern Hemisphere.

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The female Tyrannosaurus rex must move her tail to the side for sex, according to new paleobiological findings highlighted in The Discovery Channel show "Tyrannosaurus Sex."

WASHINGTON -- A foot-long piece of bone unearthed in Australia is the first evidence that ancestors of the mighty T. rex once lived in the Southern Hemisphere.

The remains are from an animal much smaller than the famed predator, but add to the knowledge of how this type of dinosaur evolved.

The discovery is reported in Friday's edition of the journal Science by a team of researchers led by Roger B. J. Benson of the department of earth science at England's University of Cambridge.

"The new discovery tells us that 110 million years ago, in the middle of their history, tyrannosaurs were everywhere. So the question is, why did they achieve giant size as apex predators in the north, but dwindle away in the south?" Benson said in an interview via e-mail.

Dinosaurs dominated the land for 170 million years, holding the place in the ecology that mammals do today, Benson explained. Learning about how species change and diversify, and about mass extinctions in the past, can help us understand modern threats, he said.



Fossilized remains are all that's left of the once mighty dinosaurs that dominated our planet. Here, the neatest recent finds. 


Tyrannosaurus rex is among the most well-known dinosaurs. A predator weighing up to 7.5 tons, other dinosaurs must have known him well too. Here, a complete picture of the "tyrant lizard."

In addition, he said, learning about ancient creatures helps in understanding the evolution of modern animals.

"For instance, in recent history paleontologists established that dinosaurs gave rise to birds. Prior to this, birds were a mystery," Benson expl

pdated April 04, 2010
Fossil Find May Be 'Missing Link' in Human Evolution
NewsCore
Scientists hope discovery of child skeleton will help them to work out what our ancestors looked like and to determine key dates in their evolution from ape-man to man-ape.

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A fossil skeleton of a child discovered in a cave system known as the Cradle of Humankind may represent a previously unknown stage in the evolution of man, The (London) Sunday Times reported.

The skeleton, which is almost complete despite being two million years old, is believed to belong to one of the hominid groups that includes humans.

Hominid fossil finds are usually little more than small bone fragments. Scientists hope such a complete find will help them to work out what our ancestors looked like and to determine key dates in their evolution from ape-man to man-ape. Experts who have seen the skeleton says it resembles Homo habilis, the first species of advanced human.

The skeleton was found by Professor Lee Berger, reader in human evolution and the public understanding of science at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, as he explored cave systems in Sterkfontein, a Unesco world heritage site.

The caves are the site of one of the world’s longest-running archeological excavations and are regarded as paleontological treasure troves. Jacob Zuma, the South African president, visited the university to view the find, which is to be announced this week.

The new fossil skeleton was found with a number of other partially complete fossils, encased within breccia sedimentary rock inside a limestone cave known as Malapa cave.

It's alive! Artificial DNA controls life
Synthetic genome blazes trail for new drugs and biofuels

JCVI via Science / AAAS
Blue colonies indicate a successfully transplanted genome in bacteria.
By Eric Bland

updated 1 hour ago
It may not quite be "Frankenstein," but for the first time scientists have created an organism controlled by completely human-made DNA.

Using the tools of synthetic biology, scientists from the J. Craig Venter Institute installed a completely artificial genome inside a host cell without DNA. Like the bolt of lightning that awakened Frankenstein, the new genome invigorated the host cell, which began to grow and reproduce, albeit with a few problems.

The research marks a technical milestone in the synthesis and implantation of artificial DNA. Venter expects the research will lead to cheaper drugs, vaccines and biofuels in several years — and dozens of other companies and researchers are working toward the same goal.

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"This is the first synthetic cell that's been made," said Venter. "We call it synthetic because the cell is totally derived from a synthetic chromosome, made with four bottles of chemicals on a chemical synthesizer, starting with information in a computer."

The research, published Thursday by the journal Science, combines two of Venter's past achievements.

  Discovery.com

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In 2007 Venter transplanted the genome of one Mycoplasma bacterium into another. Venter and his colleagues also synthesized a trimmed down, artificial version of Mycoplasma's DNA, a project known as the Minimal Genome Project. Attempts to implant the synthetic DNA all failed, until now.

In the current research, Venter and his colleagues, who include Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, first synthesized Mycoplasma's full genome. Then they added hundreds of

Updated May 21, 2010
Scientists Examine Fishy Origins of Human Life
LiveScience
Humans have hardy prehistoric fish ancestors to thank for paving the way to their eventual evolution, a new study suggests.

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Jason Smith

A Gladbachus shark fossil used in the research, pictured in the scientists' lab.

About 360 million years ago a mass extinction event hit the reset button on Earth's life, wiping out most of the fish that existed then near the time when the first vertebrates (all animals with backbones) crawled from water towards land. The species fortunate enough to survive set the stage for modern vertebrate biodiversity. 

"Everything was hit; the extinction was global," said study leader Lauren Sallan of the University of Chicago. "It reset vertebrate diversity in every single environment, both freshwater and marine, and created a completely different world."

The extinction hit near the end of the Age of Fishes (more commonly known as the Devonian Period, from 416 to 359 million years ago) for the broad array of species present in Earth's aquatic environments. 

Armored prehistoric fish called placoderms and lobe-finned fishes — similar to the modern lungfish — dominated the waters, while ray-finned fishes, sharks and tetrapods — vertebrate animals with four feet — were in the minority.

But between the Devonian Period and the following Carboniferous period, placoderms disappeared and ray-finned fishes rapidly replaced lobe-finned fishes as the dominant group, a demographic shift that persists today.


"There's some sort of pinch at the end of the Devonian," said study team member Michael Coates of the University of Chicago. "Something happened that almost wiped the slate clean, and, of the few stragglers that made it through, a handful then re-radiate spectacularly."

The researchers analyzed the vertebrate fossil record and pinpointed a critical shift in diversity to the Hangenberg extinction event. The Hangenberg event hit 15 million years after another extinction event — t

ARCHAEOLOGY

Skeletal Remains of Ancient Human Sacrifice Found in China
By Ker Than
Published June 24, 2010 | National Geographic
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AP/Imaginechina
Chinese archaeologists study human and animal skeletons in a sacrificial relic site of the Western Zhou Dynasty (1100 BC -771 BC) in Luoyang city, central China's Henan province.
Sacrificial remains of humans and animals, believed to be at least 2,700 years old, have been found in central China's Luoyang city (map), Chinese archaeologists say.

The bones are part of a recently discovered burial complex covering nearly a quarter acre (945 square meters) and containing 14 tombs, a water channel, and 59 pits from the Western Zhou dynasty. (Related: "Ancient Mass Sacrifice, Riches Discovered in China Tomb.")

During the Western Zhou period (1100 B.C. to 771 B.C.), the sacrifices of animals — and sometimes humans — to ancestors or deities were a routine part of Chinese culture. The sacrifices were often made to bless houses, said David Sena, a China historian at the University of Texas at Austin.

"In general, there's been a tendency to describe Western Zhou as a more humanistic period, when the practice of human sacrifices" — which were commonplace during the preceding Shang Dynasty — "were waning," Sena said.

"But I think the archaeological evidence shows quite clearly that human sacrifices persisted throughout the Zhou period as well."

Many of the sacrifices unearthed at the site would have been intended to bless the foundations of homes, buildings, and tombs, Sena said.

"For people of that time, to walk into a building that hadn't been properly consecrated would have been seen as much more dangerous than walking on top of [buried] sacrificial victims," he said.

Animals sacrificed during the Western Zhou period included horses, dogs, pigs, and other types of farm animals. Large, elaborate bronze vessels were often used during the sacrifice ceremonies to "offer meat, grain, ale, and other types of alcohol to ancestors,

ARCHAEOLOGY

10,000-Year-Old Weapon Found Near Yellowstone
Published June 29, 2010 | Associated Press
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Casey A. Cass/University of Colorado
June 28: University of Colorado research associate Craig Lee holds a 10,000-year-old atlatl dart that had been frozen in an ice sheet near Yellowstone National Park. The dart was straight when it was entombed and became bowed from the melting and barely survived being snapped in half by a passing animal.
BOULDER, Colorado -- Researchers say they have found a 10,000-year-old hunting weapon in melting ice near Yellowstone National Park.

The University of Colorado announced the discovery Tuesday. Research associate Craig Lee said the spear-like wooden dart had been frozen in an ice sheet for 10,000 years and became bowed as the ice melted. It's made of birch and looks like a bent tree branch.

Lee says increased global temperatures are causing glaciers and ice fields to melt, releasing artifacts as well as plant material and animal carcasses.

"We didn't realize until the early 2000s that there was a potential to find archaeological materials in association with melting permanent snow and ice in many areas of the globe," Lee said. "We're not talking about massive glaciers, we're talking about the smaller, more kinetically stable snowbanks that you might see if you go to Rocky Mountain National Park."

Lee, a specialist in the emerging field of ice patch archaeology, said the dart had been frozen in the ice patch for 10 millennia. 

The dart Lee found -- an atlatl dart, part of a spear-like hunting weapon -- was from a birch sapling and still has personal markings on it from the ancient hunter, according to Lee. When it was shot, the 3-foot-long dart had a projectile point on one end, and a cup or dimple on the other end that would have attached to a hook on the atlatl. The hunter used the atlatl, a throwing tool about two feet long, for leverage to achieve greater velocity.

Leviathan was an aggressive 17m-long predator which may have preyed on other whales
By Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News
Researchers have discovered the fossilised remains of an ancient whale with huge, fearsome teeth.

Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists have dubbed the 12 million-year-old creature "Leviathan".

It is thought to have been more than 17m long, and might have engaged in fierce battles with other giant sea creatures from the time.

Leviathan was much like the modern sperm whale in terms of size and appearance.

Continue reading the main story
At the same time in the same waters was another monster... they might have fought each other

Dr Christian de Muizon
Natural History Museum, Paris
But that is where the similarity ends. While the sperm whale is a relatively passive animal, sucking in squid from the depths of the ocean, Leviathan was an aggressive predator.

According to Dr Christian de Muizon, director of the Natural History Museum in Paris, Leviathan could have hunted out and fed on large sea creatures such as dolphins, seals and even other whales.

"It was a kind of a sea monster," he said.

"And it's interesting to note that at the same time in the same waters was another monster, which was a giant shark about 15m long. It's possible that they might have fought each other".

The researchers speculate that Leviathan was able to feed on very large prey up to 8m long. It would catch the prey in its huge jaws and tear it apart quickly and effectively with its giant teeth.

The Leviathan skull was discovered in 12 million year-old sediments in Peru
A 3m-long fossilised skull of the creature was discovered by researchers in southern Peru in 2008. Dr de Muizon's student, Olivier Lambert was among them.

"It was the last day of our field trip when one of our colleagues came and told us that he thought he'd found something very interesting. So we joined him and he showed it to us," he said.

"We immediately saw that it was a very large whale and when we looked closer we saw it w

SCITECH

Egypt Announces Discovery of 4,300-Year-Old Tombs
Published July 08, 2010 | Associated Press
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SAQQARA, Egypt -- Egyptian archaeologists on Thursday unveiled a newly-unearthed double tomb with vivid wall paintings in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo, saying it could be the start for uncovering a vast cemetery in the area.

The tomb includes two false doors with colorful paintings depicting the two people buried there, a father and a son who served as heads of the royal scribes, said Abdel-Hakim Karar, a top archaeologist at Saqqara.

"The colors of the false door are fresh as if it was painted yesterday," Karar told reporters.

Humidity had destroyed the sarcophagus of the father, Shendwas, while the tomb of the son, Khonsu, was robbed in antiquity, he said.

Also insribed on the father's false door was the name of Pepi II, whose 90-year reign is believed to be the longest of the pharaohs. The inscription dates the double tomb to the 6th dynasty, which marked the beginning of the decline of the Old Kingdom, also known as the age of pyramids.




July 8: Egyptian Antiquities chief Zahi Hawass shows to the media the false door of the unearthed 4,300 year old tomb that belongs to Khonsu the son of Shendwas, both served as heads of the royal scribes during the Old Kingdom, in Saqqara near Cairo, Egypt. Egyptian archaeologists have unveiled their latest discovery, two 4,300-year-old tombs carved out of stone and unearthed in the ancient necropolis of Saqqara near Cairo (AP).
Egypt's antiquities chief, Zahi Hawass, said the new finds were "the most distinguished tombs ever found from the Old Kingdom," because of their "amazing colors." He said the area, if excavated, could unveil the largest cemetery of ancient Egypt.

The paintings on the false doors identified Shendwas and Khonsu as royal scribes and "supervisors of the mission," meaning they were in charge of delegations overseeing the supply of materials used for pyramids construction.

A single s

Tiny Fragment Holds Oldest Writing Ever Found in Jerusalem
Published July 12, 2010 | Associated Press
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AFP
Archaeologists in Jerusalem have uncovered an ancient clay fragment dating back some 3,400 years, the oldest-ever sample of writing found in the Holy City. The clay chip is a key find which indicates the importance of the city in the Bronze Age.
JERUSALEM -- Archaeologists say a newly discovered clay fragment from the 14th century B.C. is the oldest example of writing ever found in antiquity-rich Jerusalem.

Dig director Eilat Mazar of Hebrew University says the 2-centimeter (0.8-inch) long fragment bears an ancient form of writing known as Akkadian wedge script.

The fragment includes a partial text including the words "you," "them," and "later."

It predates the next-oldest example of writing found in Jerusalem by 600 years, and dates roughly four centuries before the Bible says King David ruled a Jewish kingdom from the city.

Mazar said Monday that the fragment likely came from a royal court and suggested more could be found in the most ancient part of Jerusalem, located in the city's predominantly Palestinian eastern sector.

Researchers believe the tablet may be part of a "royal missive" sent from the Canaanite ruler of Jerusalem to the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep IV (better known as Akhenaten), who lived in the 14th century BC, according to AFP. 

ARCHAEOLOGY

Last Few Early Humans Survived in 'Eden,' Scientists Say
Published July 26, 2010 | NewsCore
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Arizona State University
These caves located off the South African coast sustained the human population through a devastating ice age.
A strip of land on Africa's southern coast became a last refuge for the band of early humans who survived an ice age that wiped out the species elsewhere, scientists maintained Sunday.

The land, referred to by researchers as "the garden of Eden," may have been the only part of Africa to remain continuously habitable during the ice age that began about 195,000 years ago.

Scientists' excavations showed how a combination of rich vegetation on land and nutrient-laden currents in the sea created a source of food that could sustain early humans through devastating climate changes.

"Shortly after Homo sapiens first evolved, the harsh climate conditions nearly extinguished our species," said Professor Curtis Marean, of the Institute of Human Origins at Arizona State University. "Recent finds suggest the small population that gave rise to all humans alive today survived by exploiting a unique combination of resources along the southern coast of Africa."

The idea that early humans were once reduced to a tiny remnant population arose from research showing that modern humans have far less genetic diversity than most other species. Some scientists suggested the human population could have fallen to as low as a few hundred individuals during this period, while others insisted the evidence to support this theory remains weak.


During his study, Marean discovered that the isolated caves around an area known as Pinnacle Point, South Africa, 240 miles (386 kilometers) east of Cape Town, were rich in ancient human artifacts.

In a paper due to be published soon, Marean and his colleagues argued the caves contain archaeological remains going back at least 164,000 years -- and possibly beyond.

The remains also showed that, despite the hardsh

SCIENCE

Caring for Animals Shaped Human Evolution, Scientists Say
By Jeremy Hsu
Published August 02, 2010 | LiveScience
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Masteruk/Wikimedia
Our love of all things furry has deep roots in human evolution and may have even shaped how our ancestors developed language and other tools of civilization.

This "animal connection" compelled humans to learn about and care for fellow creatures, said Pat Shipman, a paleoanthropologist at Penn State University. She added that the behavior seems highly abnormal for other animals on the rare occasions that, say, captive tigers nurture pigs or vice versa.

"The animal connection runs through the whole [human history] and connects the other big evolutionary leaps, including stone tools, language and domestication," Shipman explained. "Instead of being isolated discoveries, there's a theme here. It's very deep and very old."

Such nurturing behavior also paid off when humans learned to harness animals as living tools rather than just as food or companions, as detailed in the August 2010 issue of the journal Current Anthropology. That allowed people to essentially use the evolutionary advantages of dogs, cats, horses and other animals for themselves.

The seemingly unique human tendency still persists in modern societies – for instance, more U.S. households have pets than have children.




Mother Nature's creatures are beautiful, especially right after they're born. Following a spate of births at zoos and preserves around the world, we introduce you to the newborns.
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"You see homeless people on the streets with pets, and people in dire circumstances keeping pets," Shipman told LiveScience. "That suggests there's something humans get out of it, whic

ARCHAEOLOGY

Lost Civilization Under Persian Gulf?
Published December 08, 2010 | FoxNews.com
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Wikipedia
A historical map from 1851 shows the origins of the Arabian gulf.
A once fertile landmass now submerged beneath the Persian Gulf may have been home to some of the earliest human populations outside Africa, according to an article published Wednesday in Current Anthropology.

In recent years, archaeologists have turned up evidence of a wave of human settlements along the shores of the Gulf dating to about 7,500 years ago. But how could such highly developed settlements pop up so quickly, with no precursor populations to be found in the archaeological record? Jeffrey Rose, an archaeologist and researcher with the University of Birmingham in the U.K., believes that evidence of those preceding populations is missing because it's under the Gulf.

"Perhaps it is no coincidence that the founding of such remarkably well developed communities along the shoreline corresponds with the flooding of the Persian Gulf basin around 8,000 years ago," Rose said. "These new colonists may have come from the heart of the Gulf, displaced by rising water levels that plunged the once fertile landscape beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean."

Rose said that the area in and around this "Persian Gulf Oasis" may have been host to humans for over 100,000 years before it was swallowed up by the Indian Ocean around 8,000 years ago. 

"Where before there had been but a handful of scattered hunting camps, suddenly, over 60 new archaeological sites appear virtually overnight," Rose said. "These settlements boast well-built, permanent stone houses, long-distance trade networks, elaborately decorated pottery, domesticated animals, and even evidence for one of the oldest boats in the world."



Hundreds of bleached bones and skulls recently found in the Sahara desert may be the remains of a long lost Persian army.
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VANISHED PERSIAN ARMY SAID FOUND IN DESERT
Bones, jewelry and weapons found in Egyptian desert may be the remains of Cambyses' army that vanished 2,500 years ago.

By Rossella Lorenzi
Sun Nov 8, 2009 10:30 PM ET
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Hundreds of bleached bones and skulls found in the desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert may be the remains of the long lost Cambyses' army, according to Italian researchers.
Alfredo and Angelo Castiglioni
The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

WATCH VIDEO: Take a closer look at a valley of bones that researchers think may belong to the fabled lost army of Cambyses II.

VIEW A SLIDE SHOW: See some of the remains found in the Sahara Desert.

"We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News.

According to Herodotus (484-425 B.C.), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa and destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimize his claim to Egypt.

After walking for seven days in the desert, the army got to an "oasis," which historians believe was El-Kharga. After they left, they were never seen again.

"A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear," wrote Herodotus.

A centur

Neolithic Saharan Skulls
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Crimson Guard Dec 3 2008, 03:12 AM Post #1

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Kiffians and Tenerians from the Sahara
posted on Thursday, August 14, 2008


Quote:
 

From an analysis of the skeletons and pottery in those two seasons, scientists identified the two successive cultures that occupied the settlement. The Kiffians, some of whom stood up to six feet tall, both men and women, lived there during the Sahara’s wettest period, between 10,000 and 8,000 years ago. They were primarily hunter-gatherers who speared huge lake perch with harpoons.

...

Elena A. A. Garcea, an archaeologist at the University of Cassino in Italy, identified ceramics with wavy lines and zigzag patterns as Kiffian, a culture associated with northern Africa. Pots bearing a pointillistic pattern were linked to the Tenerians, a people named for the Ténéré Desert, a stretch of the Sahara known to Tuareg nomads as a “desert within a desert.”

Christopher M. Stojanowski, an archaeologist at Arizona State University, said the two cultures were “biologically distinct groups.” The bones and teeth showed that in contrast to the robust Kiffians, the Tenerians were typically short and lean and apparently led less rigorous lives. Perhaps, Dr. Stojanowski said, they had developed more advanced hunting technologies for taking smaller fish and game.

The shapes of the Tenerian skulls are puzzling, researchers said, because they resemble those of Mediterranean people not other groups from the southern Sahara.


More:

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2008/08/kiffians-and-tenerians-from-sahara.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...-missions.html

_________________


I think that Tenerian resembling, is the key word, but looks obviously some kinda hybrid perhaps I think. My first impression is Khoisan for the Kiffians and Congoid/Europoid blend some of

PLANET EARTH

World's Largest Extinction Explained by World's Largest Volcanic Eruption
Published January 23, 2011 | FoxNews.com
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Steve Grasby, University of Calgary/NRCan
The shores of Buchanan Lake, Axel Heiberg Island, Nunavut, where researchers have discovered sediments deposited shortly after the worst extinction event in Earth's history.
It must have been one hell of an eruption.

About 250 million years ago, hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs were wiped from the face of the planet, 95 percent of the primitive life developing in the sea was wiped out -- and 70 percent of the critters evolving on the Earth's surface. And no one knew why -- until now. 

Researchers at the University of Calgary have discovered evidence suggesting that massive volcanic eruptions at the time burnt significant volumes of coal, producing choking clouds of ash and dust that had broad impact on global oceans, and may explain the massive devastation, an event known as the Permian extinction.

"Our research is the first to show direct evidence that massive volcanic eruptions -- the largest the world has ever witnessed --caused massive coal combustion, thus supporting models for significant generation of greenhouse gases at this time," said Dr. Steve Grasby, adjunct professor in the University of Calgary's Department of Geoscience and research scientist at Natural Resources Canada.

At the time of the extinction -- which some have labeled "the Great Dying" -- the Earth contained one big land mass, a supercontinent known as Pangaea. The environment ranged from desert to lush forest. Four-limbed vertebrates were becoming more diverse and among them were primitive amphibians, early reptiles and synapsids, the group that would one day include mammals.


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