More Interesting Stuff

Jawbone Fossil Fills a Gap in Early Human Evolution

"Mr. Seyoum, a graduate student in paleoanthropology at Arizona State University, had made a discovery that vaulted evolutionary science over a barren stretch of fossil record between two million and three million years ago. This was a time when the human genus, Homo, was getting underway. The 2.8-million-year-old jawbone of a Homo habilis predates by at least 400,000 years any previously known Homo fossils."

You Know Me

I love history:

Japan's Kamikaze Winds, the Stuff of Legend, May Have Been Real

"Storms in 1200s could have helped thwart attacks by Mongolian Emperor Kublai Khan's fleets, a study of lake sediments finds."

And prehistory:

Europe Was a Melting Pot From the Start, Ancient DNA Reveals

"Scraps of DNA harvested from a tiny fragment of the man's 37,000-year-old leg bone show that, genetically speaking, he was remarkably similar to people living in Europe today."

And I'm fresh out of snark, so I'll have the leave it at that.

Do You Suppose...

...that's what killed him?

Otzi the Iceman was at increased risk of heart disease: DNA reveals 5,300-year-old mummy was predisposed to blocked arteries

Climbing over the Alps when you have heart disease would not have been a great idea, even if his doctor did tell him to get some exercise.

Cute

Cool!!

I've traveled through the Alberta badlands. It is truly an amazing place - not to mention surreal.

Too Much Information

"Elephants, antelopes and horses are among modern animals who defecate in socially agreed hotspots - to mark territory and reduce the spread of parasites.

But their best efforts are dwarfed by the enormous scale of this latrine - which breaks the previous record "oldest toilet" by 220 million years.

Fossil "coprolites" as wide as 40cm and weighing several kilograms were found in seven massive patches across the Chanares Formation in La Rioja province.

Some were sausage-like, others pristine ovals...

Giant prehistoric toilet unearthed in colours ranging from whitish grey to dark brown-violet."

A Six Part Series On The Celts...

...very, very interesting, to me anyway:

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3


Part 4


Part 5


Part 6


And a bit about the Druids:

Sometin' to watch while you do the laundry.

'Nother Round Up

But, but, but...


I thought pipelines were bad things:

Derailed Saskatchewan train spills more than 91,000 litres of oil

The Illustrated and Explained Caber Toss, right here in Knuckledraggerland, too.

The Scottish are coming. Hurrah! Hurrah!

This is, well, sad and a bit funny.

Man kills himself inside Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris

So, does that increase his chances of going to heaven or diminish them? (I know. I know. I'm bad, and that's a sick joke. Poor man.)

Speaking of freshly departed Frenchmen: Depardieu, Newly a Russian, Will Play Frenchman in Chechnya

"Mr. Depardieu made it clear that his strident antitax sentiments had not eased, despite his qualification as a Russian tax resident for a flat 13 percent income tax levy. Speaking in English, he used an expletive to describe taxes in Britain, which he said had prompted film directors to leave that country."

And, Australia gets it's own L'Anse aux Meadows?

1000-year-old coins found in Northern Territory may rewrite Australian history

"Australian scientist Ian McIntosh, currently Professor of Anthropology at Indiana University in the US, is planning an expedition in July that has stirred up the archaeological community.

The scientist wants to revisit the location where five coins were found in the Northern Territory in 1944 that have proven to be 1000 years old, opening up the possibility that seafarers from distant countries might have landed in Australia much earlier than what is currently believed."

Trust a Democrat:

Boxer uses Okla. tornado to push carbon tax

Yup. I'd let him have his way:

Prehistoric crocodiles ruled the roost in South America, study finds

Science

No question goes unasked:

How did dinosaurs have sex?

Inneresting

Stonehenge may have been burial site for Stone Age elite, say archaeologists

"Dating cremated bone fragments of men, women and children found at site puts origin of first circle back 500 years to 3,000BC"

[---]

"More than 50,000 cremated bone fragments, of 63 individuals buried at Stonehenge, have been excavated and studied for the first time by a team led by archaeologist Professor Mike Parker Pearson, who has been working at the site and on nearby monuments for decades. He now believes the earliest burials long predate the monument in its current form."

It is very, very interesting - and mysterious. I've been to Stonehenge, back in the days when you could walk right up to it and touch the stones.

Luv It!

I was searching for information about the time, long, long ago when present day Vancouver Island was actually connected to the mainland and I came across this website: The Underwater Archaeological Society of British Columbia. On their website they have a series of images that rotate, one after the other. On one of them it says: Life's a Beach. And Then You Dive

LOL!!

I was actually looking for info about the rising sea levels through geological time. I knew that the stretch of water between Vancouver Island and the lower mainland was once land and ancient human settlement sites dating from that era have been found underwater there. Global warming zealots want us to believe that rising sea levels are a recent phenomenon.

"Helmut"?

That's a German name! What was he doing in France???

That's 'Cause It's ...

...colder here:

First feathered dinosaur fossils found in North America

"Scientists in Canada have unearthed the first fossils of a feathered dinosaur ever found in the Americas, the journal Science reported on Thursday.

The 75 million year old fossil specimens, uncovered in the badlands of Alberta, Canada, include remains of a juvenile and two adult ostrich-like creatures known as ornithomimids."

Looks like he's ready to do the chicken dance. Oops. Is that raaaaaacist?

Ever Wondered...

....how a pair of Tyrannosaurus' mated?  Me neither. But apparently there are some scientists who have.

Oetzi's Life After Death

Oetzi is still making news. I remember there was a feud between Italy and Austria about which country could claim him as their own, since his remains were found essentially on the border between the two countries. Seems maybe France can get a piece of him, too.

"New clues have emerged in what could be described as the world's oldest murder case: that of Oetzi the "Iceman", whose 5,300-year-old body was discovered frozen in the Italian Alps in 1991.

Oetzi's full genome has now been reported in Nature Communications.

It reveals that he had brown eyes, "O" blood type, was lactose intolerant, and was predisposed to heart disease.

They also show him to be the first documented case of infection by a Lyme disease bacterium.

Analysis of series of anomalies in the Iceman's DNA also revealed him to be more closely related to modern inhabitants of Corsica and Sardinia than to populations in the Alps, where he was unearthed."

Too bad, Austria.

I must say, though, I've seen some Saskatchewan farmers that bear a striking resemblance to him.

Seems he died of a wound sustained in a fight.

Poor old goat:

"Oetzi was about 159cm tall (5ft 2.5in), 46 years old, arthritic, and infested with whipworm."

That'd be enough to get him run outta town, I would think.

Seems it was the Italians who did him in, too.

His last supper was quite sumptuous. No pizza, though, or lasagne.

And it's amazing what they can figure out using modern science.

From Pangaea to...

...Amasia in only 500 million years. Since the Great Global Warming Scam is receding into history, let's see if we can create a global panic about that. After all, we need to do something. I don't think the sky is going to fall.

Those Pesky Humans...

...were at it 10,000 years ago...but it was mostly climate:

Humans and Climate Contributed to Extinctions of Large Ice Age Mammals, New Study Finds

"The genetic history of six large herbivores -- the woolly rhinoceros, woolly mammoth, wild horse, reindeer, bison, and musk ox -- has shown that both climate change and humans were responsible for the extinction or near extinction of large mammal populations within the last 10,000 years."

How Mammoths Lost the Extinction Lottery

"Woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos and other large animals driven to extinction since the last ice age each succumbed to a different lethal mix of circumstances. This conclusion — the result of a huge analysis of fossils, climate records and DNA — hints that it could be more difficult than thought to identify the species at greatest risk of disappearing today."

Climate Change Caused Extinction of Big Ice Age Mammals, Scientist Says

"A renewed assault is being made on the popular idea that the mass extinction of large mammals in North America around 10,500 years ago was the result of human hunting.

The overkill hypothesis was first put forward more than a century ago and has been widely accepted for the past 30 years. But it does not square with the known facts and has become more a faith-based credo than good science, said Donald Grayson, an archaeologist at the University of Washington."

I wonder if a segment of the ancient human populations blamed their fellow humans? C'est la Vie. But it just goes to show that human ingenuity and adaptability can get us out of some pretty tight spots - like a changing climate, for instance.

Related: Let's have a moment of silence for all these creatures that used to walk on pretty much the same ground that I do but went extinct, not that long ago. (There's a great little map at the link showing the extent and retreat of the ice sheets during the last ice age bringing us into the contemporary inter-glacial period. Damn we're lucky!)

And No...

...It wasn't me or any of my relations:

Saskatchewan dinosaur recognized as new species

Just An Interesting Reminder

We were all "Aboriginals" at one time before we built empires:

Aboriginal Britain

Part 1



Part 2



Part 3



Part 4



Part 5



Part 6

Older Than The Hills

If you've been following my blog long enough you will probably have read somewhere that I used to live in Manitoba a long time ago, but not that long ago.