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AndyinPA
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Anthropology

#1

Post by AndyinPA »

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-ne ... kyOTA0NQS2
Giving birth during the medieval ages was a decidedly daunting task. Without modern medicine to protect against infectious disease and other complications, both mothers and children faced high mortality rates—a fact that led many women to turn to talismans or religious artifacts to protect themselves and their unborn babies.

Now, reports Natalie Grover for the Guardian, a team led by Sarah Fiddyment of the the University of Cambridge’s McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research has found evidence confirming a long-held theory: that medieval women relied on “birthing girdles,” or long parchment scrolls, not only during pregnancy but also during delivery.

As the researchers write in the journal Royal Society Open Science, bodily fluids recovered from a late 15th- or early 16th-century girdle made out of four pieces of sheepskin parchment proved key to the study. Housed in the London-based Wellcome Collection, the artifact features many religious symbols, including a cross and inscribed invocations, notes Agence France-Presse (AFP). It measures nearly 4 inches wide and 10 feet long.

“This girdle is especially interesting as it has visual evidence of having been used and worn, as some of the images and writing have been worn away through use and it has many stains and blemishes,” says Fiddyment in a statement.

Experts theorize that women would have positioned these accessories around their wombs during labor as a protective measure.
(I put this in Archeology last night, but it doesn't really fit, so I started this thread. I'll delete the one in Archeology.)
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Re: Anthropology

#2

Post by Lani »

This little-known Native American society was once as powerful as the Aztecs and Incas
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/trav ... n-oklahoma
Located on the Oklahoma and Arkansas border, the Spiro Mounds were part of a city complex populated from 800 to 1450 A.D. At its peak, it supported a population of some 10,000 people. The Mississippian political, trade, and religious confederation incorporated more than 60 different tribes and stretched from the Gulf Coast of Florida to the Great Lakes and from the Rockies to the Virginia coast.

The Spiro population, along with other Mississippian groups across eastern North America, was once equal to the Aztecs and Incas, yet despite its size and sophisticated trade society, its legacy is not well understood.

“The people who lived [in Spiro] came to control what we call the Mississippian culture. So pretty much all the United States except for the far northeast and the far northwest, Spiro either had trade with, communication with or direct control over for over 350 years with almost no use of violent warfare,” he says.
Amazing story.
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Re: Anthropology

#3

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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/ ... e-language
But group size and social interaction are key in a different way, according to what Johansson finally reveals as his preferred thesis. This is partly inspired by the work of American anthropologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, who argues that cooperative childcare played an important role in evolution. Johansson agrees, and thinks that the cooperation necessary was the spark for the evolution of language in turn. “Because human children are so difficult to deliver,” he writes in the book, “having help can mean the difference between life and death.” Midwives and grandmothers turn out to be key.

Any such theory must pass what Johansson calls the “chimp test”: it must explain why chimpanzees, so genetically close to us, did not also evolve language. The idea that language evolved through status-seeking does not pass the chimp test, because chimps already have quite sophisticated politics without needing language. But this woman-centric theory does pass the test, because female chimps leave their birth troupe when sexually mature, and can easily give birth with no help. So special bonds of trust and cooperation are not necessary.

A cluster of such considerations – also taking into account evidence of tool use, culture, and other things – leads Johansson to conclude, in a disarmingly thrilling reveal: “The combination of trust and helpfulness, just the right family and group structure, a language-ready mind and an ecological niche in which cooperation was an advantage turn out to be unique to Homo erectus, and explain why no other animal possesses language.” That is, our ancestors had already begun to talk around a million years ago.
Fascinating article if you are into this sort of thing.
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by RTH10260 »

" explain why no other animal possesses language"

I would say that statement is incorrect, animals do communicate with each other, it's just that humans don't understand it. It's just not tailord along the line of human languages who have a common human origin. to humans it's just "noise" or chirps or screams etc.
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by AndyinPA »

RTH10260 wrote: Sat Aug 28, 2021 4:24 pm " explain why no other animal possesses language"

I would say that statement is incorrect, animals do communicate with each other, it's just that humans don't understand it. It's just not tailord along the line of human languages who have a common human origin. to humans it's just "noise" or chirps or screams etc.
I'll bet he tackles more of that in the book:
... or, when discussing animal communication: “When it comes to most of their signals only the squids know what they mean.”
Same link.
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by roadscholar »

Someone did a huge computer analysis of human speech, and then had the machine make a list of which words were used how many times. Turns out every language they looked at had a similar frequency profile, even when the languages were as different German, Chinese, Welsh, or Inuktitut.

Then they used the same process to analyze dolphin and whale sounds.

They showed the same pattern.

The SETI folks think that if we ever receive a transmission that could be from an intelligent alien civilization, this distribution profile analysis could be used to determine if it is in fact a language, even without being able to translate it. A random or inorganic source would be extremely unlikely to show such a distribution.
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Re: Anthropology

#7

Post by tencats »

“This question — where’s my tail?
How Humans Lost Their Tails
Published Sept. 21, 2021
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/scie ... 3b5349865f
For half a billion years or so, our ancestors sprouted tails. As fish, they used their tails to swim through the Cambrian seas. Much later, when they evolved into primates, their tails helped them stay balanced as they raced from branch to branch through Eocene jungles. But then, roughly 25 million years ago, the tails disappeared.

Charles Darwin first recognized this change in our ancient anatomy. But how and why it happened has remained a mystery.

Now a team of scientists in New York say they have pinpointed the genetic mutation that may have erased our tails. When the scientists made this genetic tweak in mice, the animals didn’t grow tails, according to a new study that was posted online last week.

This dramatic anatomical change had a profound impact on our evolution. Our ancestors’ tail muscles evolved into a hammock-like mesh across the pelvis. When the ancestors of humans stood up and walked on two legs a few million years ago, that muscular hammock was ready to support the weight of upright organs.

Although it’s impossible to definitively prove that this mutation lopped off our ancestors’ tails, “it’s as close to a smoking gun as one could hope for,” said Cedric Feschotte, a geneticist at Cornell who was not involved in the study.

:snippity:

To test the idea that the mutation was involved in the disappearance of our tail, Mr. Xia and his colleagues genetically engineered mice with the TBXT mutation that is carried by humans. When these embryos developed, many of the animals failed to develop a tail. Others only grew a short one.

Mr. Xia and his colleagues propose that this mutation randomly struck an ape some 20 million years ago, causing it to grow just a stump of a tail, or none at all. Yet the tail-less animal survived and even thrived, passing on the mutation to its offspring. Eventually, the mutant form of TBXT became the norm in living apes and humans.

The scientists said that the TBXT mutation is not the sole reason that we grow a coccyx instead of a tail. While the mice in their experiments produced a range of altered tails, our coccyx is almost always identical from person to person. There must be other genes that mutated later, helping to produce a uniform anatomy.

Even if geneticists are beginning to explain how our tail disappeared, the question of why still baffles scientists.

Read more at https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/21/scie ... 3b5349865f


The loss of the tail is one of the main anatomical evolutionary changes to have occurred along the lineage leading to humans and to the “anthropomorphous apes” https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 4.460388v1

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https://www.zmescience.com/science/news ... lost-tail/
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Re: Anthropology

#8

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

https://www.jta.org/2021/10/05/israel/l ... -jerusalem
Lost toilets of the First Temple: 2700-year-old private toilet found in Jerusalem

A 2700-year-old toilet from the days of the First Temple in Jerusalem has been discovered by Israel’s Antiquities Authority. Built as a private toilet stall at a time when few could afford such a luxury, the toilet is set to be unveiled to the public on Wednesday at an archaeology conference, though for viewing only.

Carved from limestone, the toilet appears much like the modern-day fixture with a hole at the center leading to a septic tank. At the time the ancient toilet was in use, private toilets were the exclusive province of the rich.

“A private toilet cubicle was very rare in antiquity, and only a few were found to date, most of them in the City of David. In fact, only the rich could afford toilets. A thousand years later, the Mishnah and the Talmud raised various criteria that defined a rich person, and Rabbi Yossi suggested that to be rich is ‘to have the toilet next to his table,'” said Yaakov Billig, who directed the dig for the Israel Antiquities Authority.

Archaeologists plan to use the septic tank below the toilet to investigate what people living in the First Temple Period might have eaten and to better understand diseases of that time period.
10-5-21-Ancient-toilet-1080x600.jpg
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by RTH10260 »

Mummy’s older than we thought: new find could rewrite history
Discovery of nobleman Khuwy shows that Egyptians were using advanced embalming methods 1,000 years before assumed date

Dalya Alberge
Sun 24 Oct 2021 09.00 BST

The ancient Egyptians were carrying out sophisticated mummifications of their dead 1,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to new evidence which could lead to a rewriting of the history books.

The preserved body of a high-ranking nobleman called Khuwy, discovered in 2019, has been found to be far older than assumed and is, in fact, one of the oldest Egyptian mummies ever discovered. It has been dated to the Old Kingdom, proving that mummification techniques some 4,000 years ago were highly advanced.

The sophistication of the body’s mummification process and the materials used – including its exceptionally fine linen dressing and high-quality resin – was not thought to have been achieved until 1,000 years later.

Professor Salima Ikram, head of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo and a leading expert on the history of mummification, told the Observer: “If this is indeed an Old Kingdom mummy, all books about mummification and the history of the Old Kingdom will need to be revised.”

She added: “This would completely turn our understanding of the evolution of mummification on its head. The materials used, their origins, and the trade routes associated with them will dramatically impact our understanding of Old Kingdom Egypt.


https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... tory-books
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by Foggy »

This means the space aliens were here 1,000 years earlier, because they taught the Egyptians how to do all that stuff. :smoking:
Out from under. :thumbsup:
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Re: Anthropology

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... o-is-named
Researchers have announced the naming of a newly discovered species of human ancestor, Homo bodoensis.

The species lived in Africa about 500,000 years ago, during the Middle Pleistocene age, and was the direct ancestor of modern humans, according to scientists. The name bodoensis derives from a skull found in Bodo D’ar in the Awash River valley of Ethiopia.

Scientists said that the epoch is significant because it was when anatomically contemporary humans, Homo sapiens, appeared in Africa and the Neanderthals, known as Homo neanderthalensis, in Europe.

However, some paleoanthropologists have described this period as “the muddle in the middle” because human evolution during this age is poorly understood.
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Re: Anthropology

#12

Post by Sam the Centipede »

Oh dear, one RW news and propaganda channel found its autocorrect overacting, from World Republic News:
Newly named human species could be the direct ancestor of modern humans

gay bodensis can help unravel how human lineages have moved and interacted across the world.

Scientists have named a new species that may have been the direct ancestor of modern humans.

Newly proposed species, gay bodensis – who lived over half a million years ago in Africa – can help unravel how human lineage's moved and interacted across the world.

Although modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only surviving human lineage, other human species once roamed the Earth. For example, scientists recently discovered that the Indonesian island of Flores was once home to the extinct species. Homo floresiensis, often called “the hobbit” for his miniature body.
Even in the RW nutworld change sometimes happens – remember one site some years ago reporting on the exploits of the sprinter Tyson Homosexual?
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Re: Anthropology

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Egyptian pharaoh’s mummified body gives up its secrets after 3,500 years
Amenhotep I ‘unwrapped’ digitally by Cairo scientists, revealing details from his grave jewellery to his teeth

Mark Brown
Tue 28 Dec 2021 05.00 GMT

With his narrow chin, small nose and curly hair he physically resembles his father, said radiologist Sahar Saleem. Perhaps surprisingly for someone who lived about 3,500 years ago, he also has strikingly good teeth.

Saleem is talking about the mummified body of the pharaoh Amenhotep I, a warrior king who has been something of an enigma in that he is one of the few royal mummies not to be unwrapped in modern times.

Until now, that is. Saleem, a professor of radiology at the faculty of medicine at Cairo University, is part of a team which has successfully unwrapped Amenhotep I not physically but digitally.

The results, using 3D computed tomography (CT) scanning technology, are unprecedented and fascinating. They provide details about his appearance and the lavishness of the jewellery he was buried with.

CT scanning showed that Amenhotep I had good teeth, unlike many royal mummies. Photograph: Dr Sahar Saleem/University of Cairo/PA
“We show that Amenhotep I was approximately 35 years old when he died,” Saleem said. “He was approximately 169cm tall [5ft 6in], circumcised, and had good teeth. Within his wrappings, he wore 30 amulets and a unique golden girdle with gold beads.

“Amenhotep I seems to have physically resembled his father … he had a narrow chin, a small narrow nose, curly hair, and mildly protruding upper teeth.”



https://www.theguardian.com/science/202 ... 3500-years
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by Suranis »

Prietess_eye.jpg
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What could go wrong?
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Re: Anthropology

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Post by RTH10260 »

The end of The World is near now any moment or a bit later... ;)
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Anthropology

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/ ... di-burial/
Deep inside a South African cave, researchers say they have discovered graves dug by our ancient, small-brained relatives more than 100,000 years before the oldest known human burials, a claim that would revise the story of our evolution.

The international team of scientists searching the Rising Star cave system northwest of Johannesburg also reported finding limestone walls engraved with triangles, squares and crosshatchings that they attributed to the same relative, Homo naledi, a contemporary of early humans.

But the findings, announced Monday at the Richard Leakey Memorial Conference at Stony Brook University in New York and in three papers posted online, triggered the kind of fierce debate that has followed H. naledi since its discovery made headlines in 2015. Experts not involved in the work are sharply divided over the evidence that H. naledi was burying its dead. Several also said there was no evidence that the engravings were thousands of years old.
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