# ***CRO-MAGNON 25,000 BP *** ICE AGE Prehistoric Children, Teens, Adults



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Review Excerpt: ..." Pre-historical fiction as a genre is a field against which competition can be expected to be stiff and the qualifying bar even for entry to the contest is very high indeed.

Jack Rourk's debut entry clears the bar with plenty of room to spare. A pastoral, quiet yet deeply moving and compelling story, CRO-MAGNON 25000 BP lacks a significant plot-line at the outset but makes it up with a beautiful portrayal of tribal life during the waning years of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon co-existence in a brief warm spell between ice ages. Rourk has touched on so many topics in so few pages and done it so well that it's almost hard to believe - early spiritualism and creation legends; astronomy; hunting; the development and "manufacture" of weapons; tribal justice; shamanism and medicine; tribal warfare; animal and human migration; and much more."... 

*CRO-MAGNON 25,000 BP [size=14pt]"A journey back to Ice Age Europe at the dawn of modern man and human culture." *_[/size]_

Publication Date: December 19, 2012
GRADE 6 TO ADULT: Total 187 CreateSpace Paperback Pages, 35,500 Words. Book # 1 of a series.

A JOURNEY BACK IN TIME TO ICE AGE EUROPE AT THE DAWN OF MODERN MAN AND HUMAN CULTURE.

*25,000 years ago:* When a young girl comes home to find her family and tribe killed, she must flee for her life from the killers who came from the east. Escaping the killers, she realizes she has nowhere safe to run. Or live. Where to run? Where will she now live with all of her tribe dead?

She remembers a story her tribe's shaman told around the campfire many times, about a young shaman and wise man long ago, who had stayed with her tribe for a short time, when he was on his sacred spirit journey. The story said he was from a great tribe far to the west and south. It would be a journey of nearly two moons across a hostile and dangerous landscape filled with predators like saber cats, lions, and hyenas.. She sets out to the west, to the lands of the setting sun in today's Southern France. It was her only choice...and it changes her life forever.

US: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00AR0T3Q0

UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AR0T3Q0 

*A KU Selection*


----------



## Ann in Arlington (Oct 27, 2008)

Jack ----------------------

Welcome to KindleBoards, and congratulations on the book! 

This is just a friendly reminder that KindleBoards is a Readers and Kindle Fan forum. Authors are always welcome to post anywhere but, as you browse the 'boards, please keep in mind that self-promotion, of any sort, is ONLY allowed here in the Book Bazaar.

A brief recap of our rules follows: (Note that this doesn't mean you've done anything wrong; we just want you to have a ready reference, so post this note in every thread.  )

--*Please bookmark this thread (using your browser's bookmark/favorite function) so you can update it as we ask that authors have only one thread per book and add to it when there is more information.* You may start a separate thread for each book (or you may have one thread per series of books, or one thread for all of your books, it's your choice).

--We invite you to use your book cover as your avatar and have links to your book and website in your signature. Instructions are posted here

--While you may respond to member posts to your thread at any time, you may only bump your thread (back-to-back posts by you) once every seven days. Once you've responded to a member, that resets the clock to zero and you must wait seven days to post, unless another member posts before then.

--We ask that Amazon reviews not be repeated here as they are easy to find at your book link. Also, full reviews from other sites should not be posted here, but you may post a short blurb and a link to the full review instead.

--Although self-promotion is limited to the Book Bazaar, our most successful authors have found the best way to promote their books is to be as active throughout KindleBoards as time allows. This is your target audience--book lovers with Kindles! Please note that putting link information in the body of your posts outside the Book Bazaar constitutes self promotion; please leave your links for your profile signature that will automatically appear on each post. For information on more ways to promote here on KindleBoards, be sure to check out this thread:
Authors: KindleBoards Tips & FAQ.

All this, and more, is included in our  Forum Decorum. Be sure to check it from time to time for the current guidelines and rules.

Thanks for being part of KindleBoards! Feel free to send us a PM if you have any questions.

Betsy & Ann
Book Bazaar Moderators


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

CRO-MAGNON 25,000 BP "A journey back to Ice Age Europe at the dawn of modern man and human culture." [/size][/i]

Publication Date: December 19, 2012
GRADE 6 TO ADULT: Total 187 CreateSpace Paperback Pages, 35,500 Words. Book # 1 of a series.

A JOURNEY BACK IN TIME TO ICE AGE EUROPE AT THE DAWN OF MODERN MAN AND HUMAN CULTURE.

25,000 years ago: When a young girl comes home to find her family and tribe killed, she must flee for her life from the killers who came from the east. Escaping the killers, she realizes she has nowhere safe to run. Or live. Where to run? Where will she now live with all of her tribe dead?

She remembers a story her tribe's shaman told around the campfire many times, about a young shaman and wise man long ago, who had stayed with her tribe for a short time, when he was on his sacred spirit journey. The story said he was from a great tribe far to the west and south. It would be a journey of nearly two moons across a hostile and dangerous landscape filled with predators like saber cats, lions, and hyenas.. She sets out to the west, to the lands of the setting sun in today's Southern France. It was her only choice...and it changes her life forever.

A HOT NEW RELEASE in Amazon's Children's Historical Fiction and Children's Prehistory!

http://www.amazon.com/CRO-MAGNON-25-000-BP-ebook/dp/B00AR0T3Q0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1356465001&sr=1-2&keywords=cro+magnon


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump                bump                  bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

jackz4000 said:


> bump  bump  bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bbbbump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

b u m p


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

b u m p


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

bump

_reminder -- one word posts are discouraged and may be deleted at the moderators' discretion. Please see our Forum Decorum. Thanks -- Ann_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Confirmed within the last couple months that dogs were domesticated as far back as 33,000 years ago. Last year when I wrote this story I was certain of it, but did not have the DNA evidence--but it all seemed to point to a later date than 11,000 or 12,000 years ago and made perfect sense.  Dogs are not only mankind's best friend, but our oldest too.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

25,000 years ago: today's Southern France: When a young girl returns to her home on the Rhine River she finds her family and clan killed. Greatly out numbered she must flee for her life from the killers who came from the east. She takes to her small boat escaping on the river. With nowhere safe to go she rides the river's current taking the river into the unknown.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Today we are living in a warm interglacial period of the same Ice Age our ancestors lived in. Many people think the Ice Age was one long chunk of time of severely and brutally cold weather and that would be wrong. The climate and weather varied a great deal and the climate could change from hot to cold in as little as a decade and could last from a decade to a thousand years before changing back.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Writing Book II and about mid-way through. Over the last 30 years so many discoveries have been made that most of the old information is hopelessly dated and our ancestors were much more intelligent than we were made to believe.    Of course they didn't celebrate Easter like we do--but you can be certain they had springtime rites after a difficult winter.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

In the past whenever these ancient Cro-Magnons are depicted they have wild and crazy hair. Long and stringy and scraggly looking really sloppy. Recent studies indicate this was probably not the case in the Upper Gravettian period 25,000 or 30,000 years ago. Instead they would have needed to trim their hair and both males and females would display neat coifs nothing like we see in books and movies.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Before the electric light the night sky was a profound source of wonder and storytelling for humans--even in early humans who would have looked up and created stories to understand it. Some of the brightest stars in the sky would have formed a pattern they were familiar with and today we call them constellations.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

So many experts draw conclusions based on what bones and artifacts are found belonging to early European people living 20,000 and 30,000 years ago. In reality there are precious few artifacts to base their theories on with all organic materials like wood, leather, cloth, fur, sinew, and skin etc having decomposed long ago. They are left with very rare fossilized bones. partial skeletons, skulls, stone tools, shells and other ornaments which if all collected together would all fit in the back of a small truck. What speaks to us the most is the art they left behind.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Scientists don’t agree on when man first learned to master fire and theories range over vast periods of time ranging from a million to two hundred thousand years ago. By the time of Cro-Magnon some 50,000 years ago, fire had been mastered by both Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon and they would have been able to create fire whenever they wanted. They more than likely would carry a small container, like a hollowed-out bull horn, filled with some hot coals on a bed of moss if they were traveling. 

Otherwise they would carry a small fire kit with them consisting of flint, iron pyrite, and dry kindling to get a fire started. With readily available fire at his cave or portable, man became a much more difficult adversary for the many animal predators who possessed their own deadly advantages like speed, keen eyesight, scent recognition, size, sharp teeth, night vision, and deadly claws. With the mastery of fire man finally had a tool the lions, saber cats, wolves, and hyenas feared.

In time, more tools would follow which transformed man from prey to apex predator. In CRO-MAGNON  25,000 BP man has become the apex predator who still must be wary of the animal predators. In turn, they have learned to be very wary of him.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

We have to imagine a world where there were very few humans and the land was teeming with herds of herbivores, various deer species, horses, bison, aurochs, woolly mammoth, ibex, woolly rhinoceros, and many other grazers and browsers. They were the prey animals, although both the mammoths and rhinoceros would have been very difficult prey. The predators would have included lions, saber-cats, bears, wolves, panthers, hyenas, and humans. Neanderthals who had populated Europe for a couple hundred thousand years seem to have all but vanished by 25,000 years ago, with the last of them living in Southern Spain.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Everywhere one turns we find new digs and new information from today’s modern archaeologists disputing time worn inaccuracies. Usually we find that many things happened much earlier than they were supposed to. A little over a year ago a couple archaeologists were digging on the island of Crete seeking human artifacts that were approximately 10,000 years old. The belief was that it was not until 10,000 years ago the island had been settled by humans, since it was far from land and not easily accessible by raft or primitive boat. If you look at Crete on a map you can easily see it is far from the Libyan coastline in North Africa and also far from the coastline of Asia Minor to the east.

The archaeologists found exactly what they were not expecting to find. They found stone tools radio carbon dated to over 120,000 years ago. I think the most recent dating put the tools at 110,000 years ago. Our ancient ancestors were certainly better sailors than anyone had imagined.  I can only think that they built rafts or very primitive boats to reach this island over 200 miles off the coast of North Africa. I am sure they didn't swim the Mediterranean Sea.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Whenever we go back in time to try and understand what life was like it gets foggier the further back we try to go. With the help of historians, archaeologists, and researchers we get a fairly good idea about life up to the period of the Roman Empire. Of course there are many holes and areas about we know very little and have to depend on writers and historians of the period and weight the accuracy of their words.

Each year we learn a little more about the ancient Egyptians and Sumerians from 5000 to 6000 years ago and then it gets darker the farther back we go. Going back 25,000 or 30,000 years ago it is a dark mysterious time to look for our ancestors, for the roots of our human culture and civilizations. This was Ice Age Europe and Cro-Magnon or EEMH (Early European Modern Humans) were living in Europe and many other places in the world. They were not much different than us today. They had the same brain size (slightly larger) and physical characteristics that we have and they thought like we do. Physically and cognitively they were very much like us.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Socialization while cooking and eating food around the protective fire helped to spur communication—which led to language and the exchange of ideas. Man’s day no longer ended with the dark night. By the light of a fire stories would be told and information exchanged. Ideas for better hunting strategies or making a better tool or shelter or…abstract thought. Fire literally lit up the night and just because the sun had set man could now still work on his tools or create new ones. Of course fire would have many other uses, such as fire-hardening the sharp tip of a wooden spear so it would be stronger and sharper. Cauterize a wound. Heating flint cores for striking sharper tools. He could use fire to stampede a herd of deer or bison or even woolly mammoth culling off the slowest or driving them into a box canyon or off a cliff. Man would have found many helpful ways to use fire to his advantage. All he had to do was think.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

For the last 10,000 years Earth's climate has been relatively stable with some variations which may warm or cool for a few hundred years. Like the fairly recent Medieval Warming or The Little Ice Age or many other moderation’s over the last 10,000 years. We can't image the chaotic climate of the Pleistocene. 

Living in the late Pleistocene climate changes would have been far more dramatic where changes could keep occurring each decade with rapid pulsing. Ten years of cold would follow ten years of warmer temperatures and the northern glaciers would grow and then melt and then grow again. Huge lakes were created when it warmed only to freeze over when it chilled.  Only to grow larger a decade or a century later.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Thank you very much to everyone who bought Cro-Magnon during it's Kindle Countdown Deal.  Your support is really appreciated and it was great to see it get dual #1's in it's categories for 5 days. Thank you, Jack


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

In all of the old books and movies etc people from the stone age are always portrayed as having long scraggly hair and wicked beards. This is silly. More than likely their hair and beards were trimmed or they would just get in the way. Researchers and ethnographers have only to look at hunter gatherers discovered in the past 100 years who never had outside contact to see this. Our native American Indians,pre-Columbian,  both north and south plucked their hairs out and usually wore their locks braided or cut.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I am going to take a wild guess that these successful sea voyages all probably occurred at different periods of glacial maximum when the sea level was 300 or 400 feet lower than present and some scattered islands existed which are submerged today. Even if that is the case these ancient sea voyages are remarkable to consider from such primitive people. I have a feeling these voyages were not isolated events and some groups would become skilled at island hopping and exploring the countless islands in the Aegean Sea. 

It is remarkable to think that early **** Sapiens made those voyages 120,000 years ago, but it is amazing to think that they were following previous primitive people like the Australopithecus or Neanderthals.  

I get a picture in my mind of our ancient Early Modern **** Sapien ancestors setting off to sea in a small boat.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Right now I'm working on books 2 and 3 in the series and finding some of the new research fascinating.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Upon close inspection most of these paintings were actually painted rather fast. In a few hours at most for each one. Skilled deft hands made these and one does not get that experience from 1 painting in a few hours. Each painter must have painted much more than 1 panel in his/her entire lifetime to be so skilled. It would make more sense that each skilled painter probably painted over 10 (maybe 50 or 200) works in their lifetime and became expert at doing so. Where did all those go?


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Now it would be sort of normal to think that art was a progression like most other things humans do. Art historians and archaeologists of the day had very fanciful theories about "schools of art" where technique and skills were developed over countless thousands of years. The paintings and engravings must have developed over the ages, like tool making. They didn't begin with the most sophisticated stone tools, they learned over time how to flake and make better stone tools over time. Yet sophisticated Art seems to just explode upon the scene? Or did it?


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Chauvet cave in France is very interesting not only because of the art, but because a landslide (earthquake) sealed it 28,000 years ago and it was unseen and untouched until a cave explorer (amateur archaeologist) discovered it in 1994. A perfect time capsule untrammeled and pristine and immediately quarantined and carefully studied. 

The fascinating thing is they found very little evidence of many humans entering the cave over this 5000 year period. Meaning there probably were not large groups of people that went there to see the paintings. No crazy parties. No tribal ceremonies or magical hunter rites or art lover appreciation. This was a very special place for...something. Probably shaman-centric. Not for the tribe to partake in. There is a last final set of footprints in the mud of a young child and an adult (female I think) around 28,000 years ago and then the earthquake/landslide sealed it until 1994.

Recent dating reveals that the oldest paintings at Chauvet cave to 36,000 years ago, not 32,000.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

For years most researchers though that some European Pleistocene animals--like lions and rhinos did not venture much further north than central France. But, with Ice Age lion skeletons just discovered in northern Siberia--it's time to re-think.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The great thing about science is that it is continually updating itself. What was considered gospel just 15 or 20 years ago gets tossed out as new discoveries and evidence is presented. Our current knowledge of the Late Pleistocene and Cro Magnon people has grown by leaps and bounds in just the last decade.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Very recently archaeologists and others have realized that we haven’t given people of the ancient world enough credit for what they were able to do and how they were able to do it. Everything happened earlier than we like to believe. It becomes increasingly clear that most ancient people were more advanced than we had been taught. They were capable of so much more than we give them credit for. So many things happened earlier than we think or were developed earlier than we like to think. Even for relatively recent ancient times. Our data is too little.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

25,000 years ago there were very few Cro-Magnon people living in France, mostly in small groups. Today over 66 million people live there, while in the Pleistocene there may have only been a couple thousand humans living at the time at the most. Understanding their world and the climate and weather helps us to understand their life, at a time when most only lived until they were thirty-five.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

***99 cents! On Sale Now as Kindle Countdown Deal til October 2*** Only 99 cents, Reg $3.99 Save 76% On Amazon.com and UK!!!

UK Link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00AR0T3Q0?*Version*=1&*entries*=0


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

My sincere thanks to everyone who bought _Cro-Magnon 25,000 BP_ last week on a Kindle Countdown Deal. I hope you enjoy the trip back to the past.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Last week the media was filled with the news of the recently discovered cave paintings in Indonesia which were dated to 40,000 years ago. This would make them as old as those found in southern France. Most of the paintings seem to be simple hand stencils with red ochre and it will be interesting to see if subsequent testing confirms the 40,000 year old date. Definitely much more work needs to be done.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Until recently both Ireland and England were connected to the continent of Europe. Not by some small land bridge, but by a long and wide piece of land called Doggerland, now lying submerged below the ocean.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Over 100,000 years ago there were Neanderthals living in Western Europe, though there were never very many of them at one time. In layers of sediment beneath Cro-Magnon layers some of their tools and bones are recovered. By 35,000 years ago their numbers were greatly reduced and by 25,000 years ago they would have been extremely rare.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

We have absolutely no idea what speech was like for people 25,000 years ago though speech was the #1 means of communicating and it evolved over a long expanse of time.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Most people think the Ice Age was a huge solid block of time where it was extremely cold, but it's not that simple. From 21,000 to 18,000 years ago it was the coldest in the Northern Hemisphere impacting North America and Eurasia with very cold temperatures. Prior to that the temperatures were erratic it would shift back and forth from cold to warm, sometimes a complete climate change within less than a decade and that could last 10, 100, or 2000 years and then it would quickly shift back. Forget the idea of slow changes. The changes were rapid and deadly.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

This crazy weather makes me wonder how people 25,000 years ago dealt with a climate that was more erratic than ours.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Most scholars and researchers differ on many things about Cro-Magnons, but there is one thing they all agree on. Probably the greatest invention of the period that allowed mankind to survive was something very tiny. The sewing needle. It gave them the ability to tailor and insulate clothing without any cold air leaks. This was probably invented by a woman.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The news this week was pretty incredible about the archaeological discovery of prehistoric engravings etched on a large clam shell. In itself, not that remarkable--but when it was dated to approximately 500,000 years ago--that is incredible. To think our very distant ancestors also had a flair for symbolic thought surprised many of the experts. These were created by **** Erectus, a species that preceded early **** Sapiens.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Neanderthals throw a monkey wrench into our understanding of life 25 and 35,000 years ago. We know through DNA evidence that our ancestors mated with Neanderthals, but that it was very limited. How much contact between the 2 groups is a mystery with scant evidence, but many theories. Over the years many of those theories have been shown to be false.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

pppssssttt. Advance notice. From 12/26 through 1/1 Cro Magnon will be a 99 cent Countdown Deal US and UK.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Thank you everyone for making this such a successful sale and only half-way through. Will end 1/1 at 11:59 PM.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The Sale ended a few days ago and Thank You everyone for making it successful.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I have a problem with many of the theories about people when we go far back in time since we really have scant evidence left behind. Plus we have little context about their lives and thoughts. Though the more recent ancient Egyptians left behind far more, even they are a mystery to us in many significant ways.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Over the past 5 years we have learned much more about Neanderthals, who it is thought went extinct by 25,000 years ago. It is not known exactly why they went extinct and there is no shortage of theories. They may have endured in small numbers for an extra few thousand years, but the oldest bones found date from 25,000 years ago.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Many think that people 25,000 years ago made all their tools from stone and refer to it as The Stone Age. But we know for a fact they made tools from many other materials. We have found tools made from bone, sea shell, ivory, and antler, with some being very tiny like sewing needles and others larger like a staff or harpoon. Although it has crumbled to dust I am sure they were also experts working with wood.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

It is only in the last 3700 years that mankind has learned to work with metals, beginning at first with copper. During the countless years and generation after generation man make tools and implements from stone and bone. From time to time small improvements in technology would appear. For over 1,000,000 years man and his ancestors really were in the stone age and our use of metals is very recent. You may wonder, "Why did it take so long?" I've wondered why myself.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Recent discoveries on the Coa River Valley on the borders of Portugal and Spain are of great interest. Here we find many animals chiseled into the outdoor rock faces with some as old as 27,000 and 30,000 years old. One interesting discovery is that these figures and symbols were once painted though over the millenniums the paint has all eroded. I would guess that each year or two these figures and symbols had to be repainted since their primitive paint would not have lasted very long exposed to the elements.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

When we look at the great works of art created over the last few thousand years one has to be impressed. And we are similarly impressed when we see the cave art and mobile art of 25,000 and 35,000 years ago.

But the humble origins of these artistic expression goes so far back in time and prehistory, back to 250,000 and 500,000 (long before **** sapiens) years ago when mankind's predecessors kindled the flame of artistic expression. It is fascinating to think a few pieces of those small sculptures survived and have been found is remarkable.

Art must be in our DNA.

Read here: http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/archaeology.php?id=The-world-s-oldest-sculpture


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

For years schools have taught that North America was first "discovered" by ancestors of Indians who trekked across the land bridge at the Bering Strait some 11,000 years ago. Before that North America was devoid of humans, or so the story went. If you offered a theory of earlier human settlement you were ridiculed by the experts.

It is becoming more obvious over the last few years that others preceded them by thousands of years. Some think by 10,000 years and a few others put it back to 50,000 years ago based on recent finds. 

Here is a recent find nearly 16,000 years old, not the oldest by far, but very convincing that the America's had people here much further back in time than experts had even guessed. Here:

http://www.archaeology.org/news/3064-150306-oregon-agate-tool


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Long before they shared the landscape with modern humans, Neanderthals in Europe developed a sharp sense of style, wearing eagle claws as jewelry, new evidence suggests.

Researchers identified eight talons from white-tailed eagles - including four that had distinct notches and cut marks - from a 130,000-year-old Neanderthal cave in Croatia. They suspect the claws were once strung together as part of a necklace or bracelet.

More here: http://www.livescience.com/50114-neanderthals-wore-eagle-talon-jewelry.html


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Next month the exact replica of Chauvet Cave will open to the public in Ardeche in southern France. The $65 Million dollar project has been 10 years in the making.   It will feature cave art over 36,000 years old of incomparable quality.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

FLASH SALE!!! 99 cents 3 Days


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Just a quick note of thanks to everyone who was able to buy Cro-Magnon during last weeks Flash Sale. Thank you, Jack


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Recently some stone tools were found made by our far distant ancestors some 3.3 Million years ago. Probably made by Australopithecus a species long before **** Sapiens or even **** Erectus or **** Habilis. The tools were quite crude compared to the stone tools made by Cro Magnon and those that came after them. 

Our stone tool making suddenly became much more sophisticated about 45,000 years ago and many experts puzzle over why it took so long.  It is staggering to me that humans only began making tools from copper and bronze a scant 6000 years ago and yet for about 200,000 years we **** Sapiens only used stone or bone. What ever took us so long?


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

For many years experts theorized that over hunting by man led to the extinction of mammoths. Genetics now shows us that though man's hunting didn't help, that the mammoth was slowly walking towards extinction by inbreeding.

"The nearly complete genome of two Siberian woolly mammoths has been sequenced by an international team of researchers. One of the mammoths lived in northeastern Siberia some 45,000 years ago. The other is thought to have been from one of the last mammoth populations, which lived on Russia's Wrangel Island, and is only 4,300 years old. "With a complete genome and this kind of data, we can now begin to understand what made a mammoth a mammoth-when compared to an elephant-and some of the underlying causes of their extinction which is an exceptionally difficult and complex puzzle to solve," Hendrik Poinar of McMaster University said in a press release. It has long been thought that human hunters contributed to the demise of the woolly mammoth, but the study suggests that multiple factors were at play over their long evolutionary history. The analysis showed that the animal populations suffered and recovered from a severe decline some 250,000 to 300,000 years ago. The final severe decline occurred in the last days of the Ice Age. "We found that the genome from one of the world's last mammoths displayed low genetic variation and a signature consistent with inbreeding, likely due to the small number of mammoths that managed to survive on Wrangel Island during the last 5,000 years of the species' existence," said Love Dalén of the Swedish Museum of Natural History." _Archaeology Magazine _


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

One of the greatest areas of expert disagreement concerns the painted caves of France and other examples of rock art discovered worldwide dating back to 15,000 to 40,000 years ago. The biggest question of "why" remains unexplained, although there are a couple tantalizing theories, though incomplete. We just don't know why. For sure they weren't painting their menu--the animals they usually ate or hunted. Not even for sympathetic magic. We can also throw out painting-as-art or our idea of art. By better understanding them, in time and through the process of elimination we just may stumble upon the answer. Any tradition that spans 30,000 years has a foundational belief.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

One of the major reasons human populations were so low during the Ice Age was the wildly erratic climate and weather that impacted plant, animals, and humans over a 100,000 year period. Image having weather and climate just like today and suddenly within 10 years the temps spike hotter and wetter. After 30 or 100 years of that the temps suddenly plunge to Siberian temps for 1000 years. Gone are all the forests and trees retreat to the south and survive in isolated pockets called a refuge. 

Coupled with that is a suddenly arid climate and forest and grasslands become tundra and steppe lands. As food supplies became harder to find only the smart and strong and lucky can survive and groups would shrink or expand depending on the vagaries of the climate. It definitely kept humans on their toes and when changes came they had to think.   Some experts believe meeting all the challenges caused humans to become more innovative and smarter.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

VIZCAYA, SPAIN-Plant pollen found in the Paleolithic tomb of Spain's Red Lady suggests that she had been buried with flowers. The tomb, discovered in El Mirón Cave in 2010, contained the 18,700-year-old remains of a woman aged between 35 and 40 years old at the time of death. Her bones, reddish in color from ochre, had been placed between the wall of the cave and an engraved block that had come away from the roof. Ochre was also found in the sediments around the remains. The pollen analysis, conducted by Maria José Iriarte and Alvaro Arrizabalaga of The UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country, and Gloria Cuenca of the University of Zaragoza, revealed a high concentration of plants from the goosefoot family that were not present at this time in other parts of the cave. "They put whole flowers on the tomb, but it has not been possible to say whether the aim of placing plants was to do with a ritual offering for the dead person, or whether it was for a simpler purpose like, for example, to ward off the bad smells associated with the burial," Iriarte said in a press release. _Archaeological Institute of America_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The famous Lascaux Cave in Southern France has many monochrome and polychrome paintings with some animals over 25 feet long. But there is one tiny enigmatic engraving which could easily be missed. It is almost hidden. This is known as the Large Sorcerer, or the Wizard.

"At the lower, southern edge of the Apse where it turns into the Nave, scratched across a deteriorated painting of a large, black cow is a one meter high hut form, with tepee-like descending bands of finely scratched lines. They converge near the top of a loose bundle, through which one can discern a bird's head and eye, along with several other disconnected eyes, two of which appear to be aligned with a dotted line crossing a forehead. The vertical bands continue to converge and narrow above the dotted line, making a witch-like hat. The all-over effect is that of a human figure inside a dried grass costume, accompanied by a bird.

Called the 'Big Sorcerer', or the 'Wizard' this figure was identified in 1949 by Maxine Vaultier who visited Lascaux with the abbé Breuil and F. Windels. In Breuil's Four Hundred Centuries of Cave Art, a photograph of the 'big sorcerer' is juxtaposed with a photo of a French Guinea sorcerer clad from head to foot in a plaited-fibre costume. There is a vague, eerie resemblance between the two figures."

_ text: Eshleman (2003) _


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

There are many differing theories on cave art, some better than others.  'Was there an underlying, not easily detected, bedrock of belief that expressed itself in contrasting ways? In geological terms, was there a subterranean chamber of molten rock that rose to the surface in different places to form batholiths, each similar to others in its origin but each shaped by the forces of erosion to display its own hills and valleys? Today, many archaeologists are reluctant to seek generalities of this kind. They prefer to see each society as possessing its own unique culture, that is, the set of beliefs and norms that individuals learn from birth and with which they creatively interact. There is, of course, truth in the concept of the uniqueness of human cultures, but it is by no means the whole story' [D. Lewis-Williams & D. Pearce 2005].


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Thoughts on Cave Art by Dr.Jean Clottes: 

"This might be done by non-initiates who participated in the ritual in their own way and with their own means. Finally, hand stencils enabled them to go further still. When somebody put his or her hand on to the wall and paint was blown all over it, the hand would blend with the wall and take its new colour, be it red or black. Under the power of the sacred paint, the hand would metaphorically vanish into the wall. It would thus, concretely, link its owner to the world of the spirits. This might enable the 'lay people', maybe the sick, to benefit directly from the forces of the world beyond. Seen in that light, the presence of hands belonging to very young children, such as those in Gargas, stops being extraordinary (Clottes & Lewis-Williams 1998, 2001)."


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Although these people in Southern France painted many different animals that existed at that time, some animals were painted far more than others. The reasons are not known and only theories and I won't even bother with them. One animal that stands out from all of the others and is painted almost lovingly and in great detail and mood is the horse. Beyond question this was a very important animal and is the #1 subject beginning 36,000 years ago through to 12,000 years ago, a time-span of 24,000 years. Amazing.

This was not the horse of today. It was a smaller horse. Similar to Przewalski's horse of today and not a large graceful thoroughbred we may see in the Kentucky Derby. 

Just why this ancient horse was the favorite animal in the cave paintings I don't know, but I have a couple of ideas.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The biggest impact made upon these Early European Modern Humans was the varying and changing climate in the Northern latitudes. For the last 10,000 years we have known a fairly stable climate which has been beneficial to humans. But that has not been the norm for the last 2 Million years. The changing climate not only influenced the weather, but determined just what plants would grow in a particular area and that determined whether herbivores would be in their area to hunt.

Usually they had to keep traveling and moving from place to place in search of food and where and at what time of year it would appear. Changing camps and moving 4 or 5 times per year would have been normal for hunter gatherers. They just didn't go wandering about in search of food. They would have to be organized and know what time of year to go north or south or east or west. For that you would have to be able to record...time.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Something interesting since people supposedly couldn't drink milk until about 5000 years ago. Yet somehow it seems they were getting milk from some buffalo or bovine animal 49,000 years ago to use as a binder with paint. Strange. I think getting a hold of a wild buffolo to milk would be difficult, unless maybe they killed it first? Or could they have been raised?

"Researchers studying residue on a stone tool found in South Africa's Sibudu Cave have discovered a powdered paint mixture made of milk and ochre that dates to 49,000 years ago. While ochre was being used in what is now South Africa as early as early as 125,000 years ago to produce paint powder, this is the first time milk proteins have been identified in an ochre-based paint. The milk likely came from a bovid such as a buffalo or impala, and the paint might have been used for body decoration or to adorn a stone or wooden object. "Although the use of the paint still remains uncertain, this surprising find establishes the use of milk with ochre well before the introduction of domestic cattle in South Africa," University of Colorado Museum of Natural History curator Paola Villa said in a press release. "Obtaining milk from a lactating wild bovid also suggests that the people may have attributed a special significance and value to that product." _Archaeology Magazine_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Discoveries made in the last 5 to 10 years help to give us a much better understanding of our ancient ancestors and how they interacted with each other and the planet. Still we have only begun to scratch the surface and have so many other discoveries to make. PBS recently aired a 5 part series, First Peoples, which includes some of this new information. Here's a link to where you can watch the episodes and catch up to some of the latest science. 

http://video.pbs.org/program/first-peoples/


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

FLASH SALE! 99 CENTS NOW! Regularly $3.99


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Of course humans killed them, that's what we do.

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/science-news/deadliest-predator-mankind-wiped-out-ancient-mammals-study-finds-n409526


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

This recent discovery is curious.

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/features/f0144-worlds-greatest-ever-haul-of-supersize-cave-lion-bones-found-in-urals/


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

I was really surprised at a recent find that was made. Looks like people 32,000 years ago were eating... oatmeal. 

PALEOLITHIC HUNTER-GATHERERS GROUND OATS

FLORENCE, ITALY-Tests conducted by a team led by Marta Mariotti Lippi of the University of Florence reveal that a stone pestle recovered from Grotta Paglicci in Apulia in the 1950s had been used to grind dried oats some 32,000 years ago. Hunter-gatherers of the Gravettian culture heated the carefully gathered grains first, a process that would help preserve them in the cool, damp climate, and make them easier to grind. The resulting powder may have been used for making porridge or bread, and it would have made the oats easier to carry. Other grinding stones have been found to have been used to process roots and cattails. "If we were to look more systematically for ground stone technology we would find this is a more widespread phenomenon," Matt Pope of University College London told The Herald Scotland. For more on the era, go to "New Life for Lion Man." _Archaeology.org _


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Many people are surprised when they discover how precisely ancient people tracked the sun, moon, and stars. I'm not surprised at all. The skies were the main event, especially at night with only firelight to diminish the brightness of the night sky. The movements and phases would have been incredibly important in a world without TV or Internet or Electricity. It was the main event tracked for thousands of years by our ancestors.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

We used to think that ancient people were solely meat eaters, but recent discoveries clearly demonstrate they ate a broad variety of foods. On the coasts seafood would have been a mainstay of diet. 

BENIDORM, SPAIN-At the rock shelter site of Cova de la Barriada, archaeologists have discovered that even 30,000 years ago, vitamin-rich snails were part of the Iberian dinner table. Researcher Javier Fernández-López de Pablo told Livescience that the findings-hundreds of burnt snail shells found near fireplaces and alongside cooking tools-suggest the ancient inhabitants of the region ate the snails as a regular part of the diet more than 10,000 years before the mollusks were consumed in other parts of the Mediterranean. By harvesting only adults-the snails were about one year old when they were roasted- the region's Paleolithic inhabitants had developed a sustainable farming practice that persevered the availability of this food resource for thousands of years. In fact, the species of land snail represented at the site, Iberus alonensis, are still eaten in Spain as part of many favorite dishes." _Archaeology.Org_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

"....We know as a fact that they kept going into the deep caves for twenty thousand years at the very least in order to draw on the walls, not to live or take shelter there. Everywhere and at all times, the underground has been perceived as being a supernatural world, the realm of the spirits or of the dead, a forbidding gate to the Beyond which people are frightened of and never cross. Going into the subterranean world was thus defying ancestral fears, deliberately venturing into the kingdom of the supernatural powers in order to meet them." _Jean Clottes & Lewis-Williams_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Man has had such an enduring relationship with dogs that I'm sure goes back 40,000 years.

SIBERIA'S ANCIENT DOG BURIALS

EDMONTON, CANADA-Robert Losey of the University of Alberta has unearthed the remains of dogs in an ancient cemetery at Lake Baikal, Siberia. The dogs had been buried between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago alongside their humans. "The dogs were being treated just like people when they died," Losey said in a press release. "They were being carefully placed in a grave, some of them wearing decorative collars, or next to other items like spoons, with the idea being potentially that they had souls and an afterlife." Chemical analysis of the bones of these dogs indicates that they had been fed the same foods eaten by the people that lived in the settlement. Across the Siberian Arctic, Losey has found evidence of dogs wearing harnesses, perhaps for pulling sleds. He's also found evidence that people sometimes ate their dogs. "What can we learn about people's relationship with dogs in the past? The history of our working relationships with animals, and our emotional relationships, is what interests me," he said. To read more about the archaeology of dogs, go to "More than Man's Best Friend."

_Archaeology Magazine_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Just a quick update on dogs. In Siberia a dog who was someone's pet was just found and it's 12,000 years old. I continue to believe the partnership of man and dogs goes much farther back in time. We'll see.

Our human DNA is a tangled web with small contributions by Neanderthals and now, Denisovians. Rather startling stuff.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/origins.php?id=Denisovans-Helped-Modern-Humans-Survive


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

More info on those 12,000 year old pair of puppies found in Siberia. Most of us love our dogs and dogs have been mankind's friend and helper for many, many years. Some experts think they have been our companion for over 35,000 years. Some think longer. Evidence is hard to find. Recently some young domesticated pups were discovered in Siberia from over 12,000 years ago. Perfectly preserved.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/news/anthropology.php?id=Tumat-Dogs-from-Ice-Age-Russia


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Meanwhile. Here in the Americas the traditional academic view has been very rigid that no people came to the America's prior to Clovis people approx 12,300 years ago. If evidence is found it is dismissed, but slowly does the worm turn as more scientists and researchers see how inaccurate that "theory" is as object thousands of years older than Clovis keep appearing found by respected scientists.

I am quite sure people made it to the Americas at least 15,000 years ago and the bones do speak to us.

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/ancient-stone-tools-are-best-evidence-yet-early-peopling-americas?utm_source=sciencemagazine&utm_medium=facebook-text&utm_campaign=preclovis-4294


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

In Ice Age Europe the most dangerous animal would have been the Cave Lion or Panthera leo spelaea, which was similar to our lions of today but BIGGER. They were 25% larger with some growing to 800 pounds and hunted in cooperative groups and the male did not have a long mane like today's lions. At Chauvet the lions are painted alone and as if hunting in groups and these animals must have impressed our ancient ancestors.

Last year two baby Cave Lions were discovered in Siberian permafrost and plans have been made to clone them.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Painting many of the cave murals involved a considerable expenditure of time and resources for some paintings and yet some were executed in mere minutes with just a handful of deft strokes without any underlying sketches. Even Picasso marveled at those.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The most recent dog DNA tests show that dogs were domesticated in far Western Europe as far back as 16,000 years ago and about 14,500 in far Eastern Asia with nothing that old in the expanse between. Could be because they just haven't dug in the right place yet or dog domestication was limited to far East and West? 

Personally I think in time we'll find that dog domestication goes back at least 35,000 years, though I think not everyone domesticated dogs. In just the past decade that is a far cry from the idea that agriculture begat dog domestication 8,000 years ago.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Reading an interesting new book, *The First Signs: Unlocking The Mysteries To The Worlds Oldest Symbols* by _Genevieve von Petzinger_

Interesting research on the first system of written communication.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Just 10 or 20 years ago scholars thought there was "the great creative explosion" that occurred in Europe 40,000 years ago which demonstrated the first creative skills of our ancestors. The artwork in the caves and carvings and ochre paint along with sophisticated stone tools etc clearly demonstrated that this "human explosion" began 40,000 years ago. That was the rigid fact.

But in the last two decades so much of that theory has been refuted by direct evidence found in many places. Blomboss Cave in South Africa is just one of them which shows that our ancestors were already very creative 100,000 years ago. The more we find, the further back we have to push the clock it seems with human development.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Interesting Find:

FIREPLACES SUGGEST MODERN HUMANS OCCUPIED HOBBITS’ CAVE

WOLLONGONG, AUSTRALIA—Scientists have found evidence of fireplaces that were in use between 41,000 and 24,000 years ago in Liang Bua Cave on the island of Flores. The cave is known as the site where the remains of **** floresiensis, the diminutive hominin dubbed the “hobbit,” were discovered in 2003. It had been thought that **** floresiensis died out around 12,000 years ago, but recent research suggests that the species may have gone extinct some 50,000 years ago. “This new evidence for fire at the site fits in with the chronology of modern humans moving through Southeast Asia and into Australia around 50,000 years ago,” Mike Morely of the University of Wollongong told The Australian. No evidence of the use of fire by **** floresiensis over a period of about 130,000 years has been found in the cave, so scientists think the hearths were made by modern humans. “The gap’s narrowing between the two populations,” Morely explained. “We’ve got them in the same place and we’ve got less than 10,000 years between them.” If the two species did come in contact, it could help explain the demise of **** floresiensis. For more, go to "New Flores Fossils May Be Hobbit Ancestors."


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Many researchers believe that Neanderthal populations were small and this recent find seems to reinforce that view. 

SIGNS OF NEANDERTHAL CANNIBALISM FOUND IN BELGIUM

TÜBINGEN, GERMANY—Evidence of cannibalistic behavior among Neanderthals living in northern Europe between 40,500 and 45,500 years ago has been discovered in well-preserved bone fragments from the third cavern of the Goyet caves in Belgium, which was excavated nearly 150 years ago. A team of researchers from the University of Tübingen and the University of the Basque Country identified 99 Neanderthal bone fragments, thought to represent the remains of four adolescents or adults and one child, from the collection. A third of those remains bear cut marks, pits, and notches, interpreted by the researchers as evidence that the individuals had been skinned and cut up and had marrow extracted from their bones. “The many remains of horses and reindeer found in Goyet were processed the same way,” Hervé Bocherens of the University of Tübingen said in a report by The Sydney Morning Herald. Marks on a few of the Neanderthal bones from the site indicate that they had been used as tools. Mitochondrial DNA analysis revealed that the Goyet Neanderthals resembled Neanderthals from Germany, Croatia, and Spain. This suggests that Europe’s Neanderthal population was small.


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Rope and how to make it would have been very important 40,000 years ago and the making of rope required tools.

NEW THOUGHTS ON MAKING ROPE IN THE PALEOLITHIC

TÜBINGEN, GERMANY-Impressions of string have been found on fired clay, and string has been depicted in Ice Age artwork, but scholars have thus far known little about how European hunter-gatherers produced rope. Now according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Tübingen and the University of Liège, Paleolithic hunter-gatherers may have used mammoth ivory tools to weave rope out of plant fibers. UPI reports that a team led by Nicholas Conard of the University of Tübingen found a 40,000-year-old tool in Hohle Fels Cave that had been carved with holes lined with spiral incisions. Veerle Rots of the University of Liège used replicas of the device to produce rope from plant fibers available near Hohle Fels. Similar tools have been found at Paleolithic sites in the past, but they were thought to be shaft-straighteners, artwork, or even musical instruments. To read about a Paleolithic masterpiece from the same region in Germany, go to "New Life for Lion Man." _Archaeology Magazine_


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

The discovery of a 50,000 year old sewing needle found in a Siberian cave is the oldest sewing needle ever found. It may not seem like much, but the ability to make warm clothes in a changing environment would have been very important--like life and death important. Interestingly it was not made by a human. 

http://siberiantimes.com/science/casestudy/news/n0711-worlds-oldest-needle-found-in-siberian-cave-that-stitches-together-human-history/


----------



## jackz4000 (May 15, 2011)

Seems like breeding was quite liberal between groups of different Homos. 

"GENETIC STUDY TARGETS NEANDERTHAL MATERIAL IN MODERN HUMANS

DAVIS, CALIFORNIA—Live Science reports that evolutionary biologist Ivan Juric of the University of California, Davis, and his colleagues want to know why modern humans carry so few Neanderthal genes. A large population of modern humans and a small Neanderthal population are thought to have interbred thousands of years ago, but very little Neanderthal DNA has survived in the modern human genome. It had been suggested that many of the offspring of Neanderthals and modern humans failed to thrive, or were infertile. Juric’s team developed a computer model to simulate the effects of natural selection on the distance between segments of Neanderthal DNA and modern human genes, since less Neanderthal DNA has been found in regions close to modern human genes than in the inactive areas between genes. The results of the simulation suggests that Neanderthal gene variants are being slowly removed by natural selection. Now Juric wants to know which gene variants contributed by extinct human relatives have been deleted from the modern human genome. “Once we know more about the genes involved, we can ask what those genes do and what traits they are involved with in modern humans,” he said. “Then, we might be able to make some guesses about the traits of those early human-Neanderthal hybrids.” For more, go to “Decoding Neanderthal Genetics.”


----------

