Discovery News: Born Animal

"Culture of Death" Identified Among Burly Human Ancestors

Soon at Discovery News you will find out when language and singing probably first emerged. The world's first conversation and songs likely occurred thousands of years before documented history. The Stone Age? Think much earlier. To find out just how long ago, please check the news page a bit later this week.

In the story, I wasn't able to include information about yet another human family tree discovery. Ignacio Martinez Mendizabal of Alcala University and his team have been studying hominid remains at Sima de los Huesos ("The Pit of the Bones") cave site in Atapuerca, Spain. The remains belonged to Homo heidelbergensis, a tall, muscular ancestor to Neanderthals.

What's left of them. Photo credit: Javier Trueba, Madrid Scientific Films

Twenty eight of these individuals were all buried in the Spanish cave.

"The most probable hypothesis to explain this incredible accumulation points to an anthropic origin, thus involving the first evidence of a 'culture of death' and a symbolic behavior in the human lineage," Mendizabal told me.

The cave could therefore represent the earliest evidence for organized burials among anyone on the "family of man" ancestral tree. There's another interesting new study on early burials in Ireland caves, but I believe those finds date to much later.

If you have 10 minutes, please watch this segment from the BBC and Discovery production, Walking with Cavemen. Also, for those on the U.S. East Coast, you can hear me talking more about cavemen on NPR today at around 2:30/2:45.

A Neanderthal Tooth and Other Images from This Week's News

Sometimes we can't use all of the photographs obtained during research for stories at Discovery News, so I'd like to share a few of them with you from this week. Let's begin with a big, dirty and worn down Neanderthal tooth.
(credit: Department of Human Evolution, Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology; Teresa Steele)

The tooth, shown from different angles, is a Neanderthal upper right premolar. Based on carbon and nitrogen isotopic analysis of the tooth, this individual mostly ate red meat during its lifetime. Steele and her colleagues determined the meat came from ancient, and now extinct, species of bison and aurochs—relatives to today's modern cattle. In essence, it was steak, and other beef cuts, at every meal for Neanderthals.

To completely change the subject, let's move on to Hungarian Mudi dogs, which barked their way to research fame in the first study to ever prove dogs understand the barks of other dogs. Believe it or not, canine experts previously theorized that dogs barked just for us, since adult wolves tend not to bark. Domestication did bring out the bark in mutts, but they seem to get their lingo as well as, if not better than, we do. Dog expert Peter Pongracz took these gorgeous shots in his own tulip-filled garden.

Angel

Chili

Fecske

Their fur reminds me of...
 

Then there was our recent story about how China's terracotta army was covered with beaten egg, found in paint that once covered the army's thousands of soldier, chariot and horse figurines. Imagine what went through the minds of local farmers in Shaanxi Province, China, who, in 1974, discovered the enormous mausoleum containing the figures.

Finally, scientists are starting to pay more attention to the thousands of seashells encased inside the walls of Egypt's pyramids. These shells include nummulites, marine organisms that lived millions of years ago and whose relatives are still around today. If you cut them in half and look at them from the top, they form a perfect spiral, as the below image illustrates.

Mathematicians, such as Fibonacci, studied such fossils in the Middle Ages. The perfect, natural order of the shells inspired later architects and artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci. An argument could therefore be made that a simple marine organism played a role in some of the world's most famous artistic creations.

But look for the nummulites, some of which are visible to the naked eye, should you ever visit the monuments of ancient Egypt. You might spot fossils for ancient relatives of sand dollars, squid and sea urchins too.

(Cheops)

Hear Simulated Neanderthal Speak

Would you like to hear a Neanderthal speak? Florida Atlantic University anthropologist Robert McCarthy studied 50,000-year-old Neanderthal skulls from France and reconstructed the way that these human-ish individuals spoke, based on the shape of their larynx. McCarthy believes they didn't have our facility for vowels. New Scientist today ran his computerized recreations of a Neanderthal saying the vowel "e."

Here's how a Neanderthal supposedly would have sounded:

And here's how the computer recreates a human saying the same vowel:

Watch a Lecture on Ancient Humor

Since it's tax time, here's a freebie for you. Earlier this week, Discovery News ran a feature about ancient humor. The story included some commentary by classicist Owen Ewald, who recently gave a lecture on the subject at Seattle Pacific University. The university kindly provided a videotape of his entire 45 minute lecture, "What Are You Laughing At? Humor in the Ancient World." Sit back, relax and enjoy. 

Exhibit Celebrates Family Resemblances

As you sit around the Easter, or other springtime celebration, dinner table, notice how your relatives share similar physical (and probably behavioral) characteristics. A recent University of Manchester exhibit celebrated this very phenomenon. It investigated physical resemblances, as well as similarities in character, temperament, talents, health and other factors.

Katherine Davies and Professor Jennifer Mason from the university's School of Social Sciences want to know why resemblances seem to matter so much to people and what they mean.

Davies said, “Family resemblances can be the source of great pleasure and can help people to feel connected to loved ones, including those who have died."

“But not all resemblances are welcome," she added. "Sometimes people can feel upset or worried by them, for example where a mother fears that her son might inherit his grandfather’s criminal tendencies, or maybe someone feels they may inherit an illness or take after someone they don’t like.”

However, she concluded, “Resemblance is an important aspect of who we are, and investigating family resemblances can help us to understand what it means to be related, for good or ill."

"Kate Rowles - Home and Away"
The below is a still from a video of Kate and her mother singing the Home and Away (Australian soap opera) theme tune to each other, in an effort to make close and make personal the lyrics. The video project explored the significance of this process for relationships - between parent and child, life and death, belonging and separation.
The photo was chosen not only because of the strong physical likenesses between Kate and her mother, which are emphasized by the shot taken in profile and the light and shadows, but also because the researchers liked the way that it demonstrated how resemblances can be found in behavior, in what we do, in voice and in sound.

Here's an image taken by award-winning professional photographer Charlie Meecham. It shows a grandmother with her granddaughter.

Rosanna Farrell - Reversed Roles
This is a picture of Rosanna's mother and grandmother. Rosanna feels it shows how her mother has now taken on a maternal caring role. In this picture she is arranging flowers to the delight of Rosanna's grandmother.

Andrew Stevenson - No Fake Copies
Andrew believes that while bloodline and physical appearance can reflect family resemblance, often it is our behavior that unites us, as in these two gentlemen of Derbyshire sharing a meal together.
The photo was chosen because it shows the way resemblance can be part of ordinary everyday life, like what and how we eat, body posture and demeanor, the clothes we wear, the places we go, the people we spend time with. The researchers said the 'no fake copies' motif adds a nice play on the distinction between individuality, similarity and duplication.

Here's What Vikings Really Looked Like

"Vikings have more fun" could have been a horse cart bumper sticker during the Viking Age from 750-1050 A.D. Swedish archaeologist Annika Larsson has just determined that the intrepid Norse wore vivid colors, flowing silk ribbons and glittering bits of mirror, and that their lifestyle probably matched this more free spirited look. You have to put your mindset back 1,000 years to imagine what impact the styles had on conservative Medieval folks who later forbid such clothing. Even archaeologists were aghast when they saw women's clothing clasps in graves. "Traditionally (the placement of the clasps) has been explained by the clasps having fallen down as the corpse rotted. That sounds like a prudish interpretation, said Annika Larsson, who took the below photos of the human "Viking models."


Now maybe it's just me, but that fellow's garb reminds me of an Icelandic horse, which isn't a bad thing at all.

Animals were very integrated into Viking life, with archaeological remains showing that typical livestock animals were raised then, such as goats, sheep and pigs. We also have the Vikings to thank for developing, through selective breeding, the Norwegian forest cat

and the Border collie, which many regard as the world's most intelligent breed of dog. Given how cool the Vikings were, the dogs were indeed smart to hang around them. Here's one such canine giving sheep "the eye," an intimidating look to tell them just where to go.

How Your Ancient Ancestors Affected Your Height

Although human height varies a great deal, the average height among societies remains mostly consistent across the board. As a result, the average Pygmy, for example, is much smaller than the average Croatian. New research conducted by Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology researchers Robert Walker and Marcus Hamilton found that the past population density and location of our ancestors contributed to these size distinctions. If your distant ancestors lived in a crowded place with limited resources and a higher incidence of disease, you have a greater likelihood of being short, according to the findings. That's because natural selection favored earlier maturation and earlier births to combat the possibility of dying before reproduction.

Conversely, if your distant ancestors lived in less densely populated areas that were more open, like tundra, savanna and desert regions, you have a greater likelihood of being tall. Colder climates also seem to favor big people, probably because, by their very nature, these places result in less population density. But lifestyle also comes into play. Pastoral groups, such as the Maasai and other nomadic herding tribes, also tend to be tall.

Numerous studies and surveys over the years have documented the average height of people based on the country in which they live. Taking those into account, here is a rough listing of the rankings, starting with the tallest. The average adult male Croatian is just over 6 feet tall while the average adult Indonesian was reported as being just over 5'2".

1. Croatia
2. Netherlands
3. Iceland
4. Germany
5. Sweden
6. Norway
7. Estonia
8. Canada
9. Australia
10. Finland
11. Belgium
12. U.S.A. (ranking represents the national average, as heights varied widely among different ethnic groups within all of the listed countries)
13. Spain
14. U.K.
15. Lithuania
16. New Zealand
17. Poland
18. Italy
19. Israel
20. France
21. Switzerland
22. Malta
23. Korea
24. Portugal
25. Argentina
26. Singapore
27. Japan
28. Taiwan
29. Cote d'Ivoire
30. China
31. Brazil
32. Gambia
33. India
34. Philippines
35. Vietnam
36. Indonesia

Bigger tends to be better when it comes to fertility rates in small scale societies, such as in existing hunter-gatherer groups. For most people, however, size is what you make of it, as 5'3" basketball superstar Muggsy Bogues, the shortest person to ever play in the NBA, proved. (Nature photo.)

All Blue-Eyed People Share a Common Ancestor

Ol' blue eyes used to refer to Frank Sinatra, but now it might apply to the 6,000-10,000-year-old common ancestor of all blue eyed people. University of Copenhagen researchers just determined that a single genetic mutation at that time resulted in all of the blue eyed individuals afterwards.

Originally all people had brown eyes, they discovered. The genetic mutation created something akin to a switch that turned off the ability to produce brown eyes. Who knew that the old country pop ditty "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue?" held some scientific truth? The gene essentially dilutes the color-producing melanin in the eye, turning brown into blue. The same gene involved in the process codes for hair and skin color.

Whenever there's a fairly recent common ancestor diversity lessens, so it's also interesting to note that although we perceive all sorts of variation in blue eyes, there's actually not much in terms of melanin variation. Brown eyed people, on the other hand, show a great deal of variation in the way that their DNA controls melanin production.

The above means New England Patriots' Quarterback Tom Brady

is distantly related to

and to Discovery's own Mike Rowe.

Hourglass Figures: A Perennial Favorite

Fuller, curvaceous figures have been preferred throughout human evolution. Many shamanistic objects, for example, depict females as having extremely narrow waists and very full hips.

What’s interesting is that recent studies seem to support the link between waist and hip ratio to health and fertility. For men, a lower waist to hip ratio is more the norm.

A vivid illustration of the hourglass shape is seen in a recently analyzed Jomon clay figurine made by hunter gatherers in Japan. The Jomon culture lasted from 10,500 to 300 B.C. It’s not yet clear how this object was used. The ancient world was full of such figurines, across many regions and cultures. Something to contemplate as many of us concern ourselves with the extra tummy/hip/thigh bulges that seem to occur over the holiday season.