anthropology news
Mar. 13th, 2009 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivendellroseAnother wrinkle in efforts to figure out the exact story of Human evolution - turns out, Peking Man might have lived '750,000 years ago—200,000 years earlier than prior estimates.'
I'll have to look into the dating mechanism being used here - I'm not sure I knew about quartz-dating. If it's a relatively new method, there's still a possibility it might not be calibrated properly, but... hell, still an interesting detail. Especially since it actually neatly clears up some questions. As the article puts it, "It was always a bit puzzling as to why you'd have [Homo erectus subspecies like Peking Man] persisting until relatively late in continental Asia," she said, "when you didn't really see them persisting, for example, in Africa."
On a totally different archaeology note - here's a link to the discovery of human remains that were "treated for vampirism" in their own era - the skeleton of a woman from 17th (?) century Italy. I'm pretty sure the original article I read gave the date for the skeleton and noted that it was the earliest found so far, but... unfortunately, I can't seem to find that version of the story anymore. Either way, I was a bit surprised that the answer seemed to be sticking a brick in the body's mouth. Hadn't heard that one before.
I'll have to look into the dating mechanism being used here - I'm not sure I knew about quartz-dating. If it's a relatively new method, there's still a possibility it might not be calibrated properly, but... hell, still an interesting detail. Especially since it actually neatly clears up some questions. As the article puts it, "It was always a bit puzzling as to why you'd have [Homo erectus subspecies like Peking Man] persisting until relatively late in continental Asia," she said, "when you didn't really see them persisting, for example, in Africa."
On a totally different archaeology note - here's a link to the discovery of human remains that were "treated for vampirism" in their own era - the skeleton of a woman from 17th (?) century Italy. I'm pretty sure the original article I read gave the date for the skeleton and noted that it was the earliest found so far, but... unfortunately, I can't seem to find that version of the story anymore. Either way, I was a bit surprised that the answer seemed to be sticking a brick in the body's mouth. Hadn't heard that one before.
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Date: 2009-03-13 09:53 pm (UTC)Thanks for the links! :)
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Date: 2009-03-14 02:17 am (UTC)