Bringing the deep past to life.
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What are the oldest archaeological sites in Europe? Often when talking about important sites in human evolution the focus on Africa but there are some extremely ancient sites in Europe and they show some of our oldest, smallest ancestors were capable of leaving Africa.
What happened to the last Neanderthals? When did they go extinct? How long did we live alongside them? Those are the questions we're trying to answer today based on some interesting new research that just came out. Iberia may just be the most interesting place to study neanderthals! Sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1df7nuanp6HL762xsBiRTMv79oqPBL1qS6BeMckxdVvI/edit?usp=sharing
Did we ever meet Gigantopithecus, the greatest ape to ever live? The answer is a tad complicated.
The people of North Sentinel Island are perhaps the most isolated people on earth. But what can we really say about them? In our brief contacts with them can we get an idea about how they live? How long their community has been there? And why they resist contact so determinedly? Sources: The Sentinelese by Pandit, T. N The Sentinel Islanders by M. Sasikumar In The Forest by Vishvajit Pandya A…
How far can we get human genetic information? What's the oldest ancient DNA? It's tricky because DNA degrades over time. However, fortunately proteins can bind to minerals in our teeth and provide a wealth of information. This is the science of paleo-proteomics. Join me as I investigate how proteins can store genetic information, what can that tell us about human evolution and who was paranthropus…
The asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs was one of the worst days in the history of the Earth and yet our ancestor survived. I've been trying to find out what we know about who that was? Does palaeontology have any idea? If so, what fossils do we have? And what does all of this have to do with a little mouse thing eating flowers? Couldn't have done this without the help of Andrew Schwartz!
Before writing there was what?? According to our best understanding of archaeology before writing came clay tokens. These simple lumps of dry mud played an incredibly important role in human development. They may be responsible for large numbers, writing, administration, board games and everyone's favourite, powerful bureaucracies. Massive thanks to Dr. William (Brad) Hafford. Video could not have…
Check out the map for yourself https://www.arcgis.com/apps/instant/3dviewer/index.html?appid=233cada52d434e9fa4d1741c92e308da The teams paper on Rapa Nui quarrying https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0336251
Merry Christmas! Check out @HistoryTime Quiz: https://play.howstuffworks.com/quiz/can-score-difficult-american-history-quiz#google_vignette Thumbnail and Editing by Cheyenne De Wolf
As the title suggests the 8.2ka event was a bummer for some. Sources: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-021-01628-4 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0033589406000949…
