Athena Review: Recent Finds in Archaeology: Paleoanthropology and Paleontology

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Athena Review               Paleoanthropology & Paleontology

Primates:

  • Asian Anthropoids: Eosimias (40-45 mya)

  • Kenyapithecus (15 mya), a Miocene ape, reclassed as Equatorius (AR 2,3)

  • Dryopithecus: controversy continues (AR 1,1)

  • Newest New World Monkeys: Two tiny marmosets discovered in Brazil (AR 1,3)

  • Ape communication by singing (AR 3,2)

Evolutionary theories:

New World Migrations:

  • Kennewick Man

    • Facial reconstruction and ongoing controversy (AR 1,4)

    • 1999 testing (AR 2,2)

    • Kennewick Man dates of 9,200 confirmed (AR 2,3)

    • back in court (AR 2,4)

    • tribes, govt. contest ruling (AR 3,3)

  • Spirit Cave: a Nevada burial of 9415 BP (AR 1,2)

  • Lineage "X" for New World populations  (AR 2,1)

  • Canadian Iceman shows mid-15th c. AD radiocarbon dating, and perhaps Northwest Coast ties (AR 2,2)

  • Skull analsis showns early Native Americans had complex Old World origins (AR 2,3)

Early Hominids

  • Sahelanthropus tchadensis

    • New Chad hominid is the earliest yet, at 6 -7 mya (AR 3,3)

  • Orrorin

    • bipedalism at 6 mya? (AR 3,2)

  • Kenyanthropus

    • Mid-Pliocene Hominid from Kenya: Pushing back the time frame of bipedalism (AR 2,2)

    • Kenyanthropus defined (AR 3,2

  • Ardipithecus

    • Tracing  back Australopithecus anamensis and Ardipithecus ramidus (AR 1,1)

    • Ethiopian finds help clarify Ardipithecus (AR 3,2)

  • Australopithecus anamensis

    • A. anamensis from Lake Turkana links first hominids (AR 2,1)

    • A. anamensis update (AR 3,2)

  • Australopithecus bahrel ghazalia

    • A new Australopithecus: mandible of A. bahrel ghazalia found in Chad (AR 1,2)

  • Australopithecus garhi

    • Defining A.garhi: first of the tool-using hominids? (AR 2,2)

    • Ethiopia yields oldest stone tools; but their makers remain unidentified (AR 1-3)

  • Australopithecus boisei

    • Nearly complete Ethiopian skull (AR 1,4)

  • Homo ergaster

    • Homo ergaster in Georgia by 1.8 mya; used Oldowan tools  (AR 2,4)

  • Homo erectus

    • Acheulean-like technology at Bose Basin, China (AR 2,4)

    • Stone Tools in north China over 1 million years old  (AR 3,2)

    • H. erectus sites in Java and China dated to 1.8 mya  (AR 1,1)

    • First Passage from Java; Homo erectus may have sailed the open sea  (AR 2,1)

  • H. heidelbergensis in Iberia

    • Early hominid fragments at Gran Dolina in Atapuerca Spain, 800,000 BP  (AR 1,1)

    • Evidence of Cannibalism at pre-Acheulan sites in Spain, 780,000 BP (AR 1,1)

  • Transitional hominids in Rift Valley

    • Danakil Desert, 2-1 myr  (AR 1,1)

    • One million year-old hominid skull  found in Buia; appears to be transitional Homo erectus and H. sapiens (AR 2,1)

    • Precocious blades at Hayonim Cave, Israel, 200,000 BP (AR 2,1)

Early Homo sapiens and Neanderthals:

  • Origins of Language:  Argument hinges on the hypoglossal canal (AR 2,1)

  • Early Stone Age evidence of termite hunting in South Africa (AR 3,1)

  • Tortoise and Hare: The Story of Paleolithic Population Growth and Small-game hunting (AR 2,2)

  • Hunting and gathering of H. s. Neanderthalensis  vs. H.s. sapiens (AR 1,2)

  • Upper Paleolithic Net Hunting in Czech Republic (AR1,4)

  • Early blades from Kenya, 240,000 BP (AR 1,1)

  • 400,000-Year Old Spears in Germany poke holes in some scavenger theories (AR 1,3)

  • Finding human origins in a small scratched stone (AR 2,4)

  • New Neander Valley skeleton found (AR 2,4)

  • Late Neanderthals in Iberia

    • 32,000 BP, Zafarraya Cave, Spain (AR 1,1)

    • Burial of boy, 24,500 BP, in Portugal (AR 2,2)]

  • Neanderthal technology

    • Late Neanderthal beads at Arcy- sur-Cure (AR 1,2)

    • bitumen for tool hafting at Umm el Tlel in Syria (AR 1,2)

    • Spacing of holes in bone suggests flute (AR 1,3)

  • Middle Paleolithic coastal adaptations (AR 2,4)

  • Neanderthal and Human development (AR 3,2)

  • Slow Human maturation rate shown to be recent (AR 3,2)

  • Arctic Living in the Ice Age (AR 3,2)

Early Humans in Australia:

  • Younger age for Australian Rock Art revealed by OSL dating method (AR 2,1)

  • Mungo Man redated (AR 2,4)

Paleontology; animals and plants

  • Origins of dogs from grey wolves set at 15,000 years ago; and clues to their high ability to read humans (AR 3,3)

  • Man’s Best Friend Goes Way Back; wolves get genetic certification  as closest dog-ancestors (AR 1,3)

  • New Cambrian chordates found in China, from 550 mya (AR 2,3)

  • Discovery of a new “living fossil” coelacanth, a primitive fish (AR 2,2)

  • Fossil plants w/angiosperm traits in Guizhou Province, China, 270 mya (AR 1,1)

  • The first flower: Bevhalstia pebja, magnolia-like , found in British fossil 130 mya (AR 1,1)

  • The plight of the peppered moth theory (AR 3,3)

abbreviations: mya=million years ago;  BP=years before present

 [All articles listed here are contained in the printed issues of Athena Review (AR).]

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