by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 11, 2007 | Neandertals, Tool use
The general consensus on the Neandertal mind is that it remained static for many hundreds of thousands of years. In Antiquity, Terry Hopkinson at the University of Leicester presents new evidence that Neandertals gradually innovated and developed technology throughout...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 10, 2007 | Consciousness
Consciousness in science is much discussed but little resolved, and as an abstract idea it’s pretty slippery. How language and consciousness are fundamentally related is likewise unknown. Many of the ways we first learn language are unconscious. Without...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 10, 2007 | Beads, Infants, Ochre, Prehistoric humans, Preserved animals, Twins
Twenty-seven thousand years ago, a human parent or parents buried their ten-month-old twins. They decorated their babies with red ochre and jewellery, and sheltered them under the shoulder blade of a mammoth. The huge animal scapula protected the infants, and their...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 9, 2007 | Ancient genomics, Genes, Neandertals
Did Neandertals and humans interbreed? Every couple of years this question cycles through the press, generally instigated by a scientific article presenting new evidence either way. Erik Trinkaus, who compares the bones of ancient humans and Neandertals, is the best...
by Christine Kenneally BH | Jul 9, 2007 | Ancient genomics, Genes, Preserved animals
Since last year when researchers announced their goal of reconstructing the Neandertal genome, the story has been getting play from many angles in all sorts of publications. In the team’s most recent announcement, covered pretty much everywhere by everyone, they...
