PEOPLE OF THE WIND series, Neanderthal murder mysteries published by Untreed Reads
LOOK FOR AUDIO BOOKS OF #2 AND #3 COMING SOON
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The first book, DEATH IN THE TIME OF ICE, was released in June, 2013. Also available for Kindle and in paperback at Amazon. Nook and paperback at Barnes & Noble.
People of the Wind: this is George's Neanderthal mystery series, published by Untreed Reads (all formats of book 1 available here).
This book was nominated for an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel of 2013.
http://www.malicedomestic.org/agathaawards.html#a2013
For a bit about some of the research done for this series, please see Kaye's research page. More research is below.
Link to a tribal family tree
BELOW, SOME BACKGROUND NOTES ON THE FIRST BOOK THAT MAY INTEREST YOU
ENDNOTES
Chapter
1
On current evidence, the Neanderthals lived
between about 230,000 and 30,000 years ago--a huge span of time by any
reckoning.
In Search of the Neanderthals Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble, p. 7
In ancient times women ruled, because they
had the magic masks, or the magic flutes, but men spied on them and stole their
magic away.
Indians William Brandon, p. 20
Chapter 2
The high incidence of degenerative joint disease in
Neanderthals is perhaps not surprising given what we know of the hard lives
they led and the wear and tear this would have produced on their bodies. But
the prevalence of serious injuries is more surprising, and indicates just how
dangerous life was, even for those who did manage to reach ‘old age’ in
Neanderthal societies.
In Search of the Neanderthals Christopher Stringer and Clive p. 95
Chapter 3
A remarkable feature that occurred in the
older part of the shelter1 fill was a man-made rock pavement that
rested on the surface of Zone 32 clay and was overlain by travertine,
clay, and limestone grit (Zone 4). … Several small patches of cobblestone
pavement apparently were found at a level below the main rock floor pavement,
and [Glen] Evans thought these might be evidence of human activity in Zone 3.
Taken from http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/index.html,
a site of the University of Texas at Austin
1Kincaid shelter in Texas Hill country
2Late Pleistocence, 126,000 to 11,500 years ago
Chapter 4
New evidence has emerged that Neanderthals
co-existed with anatomically modern humans for at least 1,000 years in central
France. …Neanderthals lived in the cave between roughly 40,000 and 38,000 years
ago…. Homo sapiens …inhabited caves for about 1,000 to 1,500 years…. At that
point, Homo sapiens moved out and the Neanderthals returned, staying for a
period that went from about 36,5000 years ago to 35,000 years ago.
From
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1450949.htm, ABC news article
September 1, 2005
Chapter 5
Neanderthals seemed to suffer a high frequency of fractures…. These
fractures are often healed and show little or no sign of infection, suggesting
that injured individuals were cared for during times of incapacitation.
T.D. Berger and E. Trinkaus (1995). "Patterns of
trauma among Neadertals". Journal of Archaeological Science 22: 841 - 852.
Retrieved on 2007-06-28.
Found at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_neanderthalensis#_note-26
Chapter 6
La Ferrassie…Placed in the
graves with the man and several of the children were flint tools…. Yet somehow
little attention had bee paid to the broader implications of burials for
Neandertals’ beliefs and behaviors.
The Neandertals
Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman, p. 255
It is an Iraqi cave, Shanidar, that has produced the largest sample of
Neanderthals from the Middle East…. Some of these Neanderthals, at least, seem
to have been deliberately buried, and it has even been suggested that the
Shanidar 4 man was buried with flowers, although this has recently been
seriously questions.
In Search of the Neanderthals Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble, p. 98
Excavations reveal Regourdou as one sacred
site where Neanderthals returned repeatedly to bury brown bear remains, whose
bones show marks from stone tools. Yet only a single human [young man] has thus
far been unearthed. His people put him on a brown bear skin in a stone-lined
pit. They placed ritual offerings of bear meat and stone tools on a slab above
his body, and these in turn were covered by many smaller rocks and a deer
antler. Finally they set wood on top and lit a funeral fire…. The figures in
this scene are based on careful study of many skeletons.
Sign accompanying a re-creation of this
burial in the Smithsonian Natural History Museum depicting the young man with
his limbs folded and tied.
Chapter 7
The teeth and jaws of the
Cro-Magnons are larger than in modern Europens, as was average stature and
(probably) lean body weight. Estimates put early Cro-Magnon height at about
1.84 m (6 ft 1 in) in males and 1.67 m (5 ft 6 in) in females, with lean body
weight at perhaps 70 and 55 kg (154 and 121 lb) respectively. So while body
weight was comparable with that of Neanderthals, the weight was distributed
differently, and the body proportions certainly contrasted strongly…
In Search of the Neanderthals Christopher Stringer and Clive Gamble, p.
183
Chapter 8
On
the remote island of Flores, in what is now Indonesia, scientists in 2003 made
a remarkable discovery -- the remains of a pre-human being, only about three
feet tall, who lived and thrived there until about 12,000 years ago.
The
skeleton was different enough from other fossils that scientists said it was a
previously undiscovered species, separate from those that led to modern human
beings. They called it Homo floresiensis, though everyone quickly nicknamed it
the "hobbit."
And
that would have been that, if not for other scientists who weighed in. They
said the newly found "hobbit" wasn't a new species at all, just a
stunted version of other prehistoric humans.
But
now the original team has backed up its original argument. They took the
hobbit's skull, along with 10 others from beings known to have had
"microcephaly" -- a long word for abnormally small brains.
They
did CT scans of the skulls, then used them to make computer-generated
renditions of the brains that would have been inside.
"It's
not showing the shape of microcephaly," says Dean Falk, an anthropologist
at Florida State University who led the research. "So we nailed that, we
think.
"In
addition," she says, "we can say that there are other special features
which are unique and set it apart from anyone else."
In
other words, the "hobbit" of Flores island was not one of us -- not
an early Homo sapiens who simply suffered from stunted growth.
From abcNEWS article, “Prehistoric ‘Hobbit’
Was Definitely New Species” by Ned Potter, Jan. 29, 2007
Chapter 9 – fish weirs
Weir. A small dam in a river or stream. Usually,
made from rocks or a latticework of poles and sticks, a weir serves to channel
fish into an enclosure where they are speared, netted, or grabbed by hand.
From internet site
http://www.oftimeandtheriver.org/misc/glossary/glossary3.htm#weir entitled Of
Time And The River: 12,000 years of Human Use of the Illinois River
ABSTRACT
Fish
weirs, or semi-permanent traps aimed at the exploitation of aquatic resources,
occur throughout the eastern seaboard of North America. Many, perhaps hundreds,
are of prehistoric construction. Their existence is virtually unrecognized in
the archaeological literature for eastern North America, potentially resulting
in inadequate reconstructions of subsistence and settlement patterns in this
region. This thesis is an attempt to synthesize the information for all known
prehistoric weirs in eastern North America, and to analyze that information for
its importance in reconstructing prehistoric subsistence and settlement
patterns.
…
Fishing
and the archaeological record
"Fishweirs," or
simply "weirs," are traps built in coastal, estuarine or riverine
waters to capture large numbers of fish (Schalk 1977:232). Although they are
represented in the archaeological record throughout eastern North America,
there has been an absence of coordinated research on them. Despite destruction
due to age or from urbanization, a number of weirs still survive, as do
numerous references (both early ethnohistoric descriptions of their use and
more contemporary descriptions of their presence) to weirs no longer extant.
In some parts of the world, prehistoric weirs have received considerable study [3]. Only one source, Rostlund's Freshwater Fish and Fishing in Native North America (1952), discusses eastern North American weirs somewhat comprehensively. Despite listing dozens of areas containing weirs, Rostlund presents no map of weir locations nor accurate sketches of weirs. It is clear that Rostlund omitted a number of sources of information which were available to him. Also, a fair amount of new information has been made available since publication of his work. Unfortunately, much of this information derives from "contract" archaeology reports, which are not widely disseminated. This led Johnston and Cassavoy to conclude (1978:708): "An earnest search of the accessible literature on weirs has revealed that it leaves much to be desired and, with one exception, that there is a virtual absence of useful references to archaeological weirs."
The paucity of references devoted to fishweirs is not an indication of their rarity.
…
Nature
of fishing sites and weirs
…
Known
prehistoric weirs in eastern North America
…
Midwestern
U.S.
Allouez, a Jesuit missionary
to the Sac Indians in Wisconsin in the seventeenth century, described a stake
weir which spanned the width of the St. Francis River, used to catch
"Sturgeon and every other kind of fish" in the spring and summer
(Brumbach 1986:39).
Only one extant weir has been described from the midwest, a stone structure
located on the Chariton River (near its confluence with the Missouri River) in
Missouri (Connaway 1982:156). Shields (1967:490) presents evidence that this was
indeed a prehistoric structure, and that it was originally "V"-shaped
(with a gap in the center), but was reconstructed (and its design altered) by
European Americans sometime after 1837. The structure was repeatedly dynamited
in the early twentieth century (after several sequences of rebuilding) by the
Missouri Fish and Game Commission when weir fishing was outlawed (Shields
1967:491).A postcard in this author's possession depicts a stone weir on the Iowa River (in Iowa) which is reputed to be prehistoric (Figure 1). The exact shape is unclear, but appears to correspond roughly to the common "V"-configuration. Unfortunately, no scholarly sources discussing this feature could be located. The text of the postcard indicates that this structure "can only be seen in times of low water."
From
Prehistoric Fishweirs in Eastern North America
Master's
Thesis by allen lutins
Found at http://www.lutins.org/thesis/
Chapter 10 – dwellings
.png)
Text below from:
The Prehistory of Europe by Patricia Phillips 1980
The Prehistory of Europe by Patricia Phillips 1980
Photo:
Secrets of the Ice Age by Evan Hadingham, 1980
Ground plan of one of the huts at Molodova in the Russian Ukraine, dating to about 42 000 B.C. The objects marked in black represent mammoth skulls. The structure was uncovered at Molodova, near the banks of the Dniester in the Ukraine, and enclosed a living space measuring about eight by five meters. The basic framework of this hut was probably of wood covered with skins, which were weighted down at the edge by over one hundred mammoth tusks, skulls, and bones. Inside the hut, diggers uncovered fifteen hearths, many animal bones, and thousands of flint flakes, which indicate a long period of use. Traces of another structure at Molodova also were located a short distance away along the Dniester.
Ground plan of one of the huts at Molodova in the Russian Ukraine, dating to about 42 000 B.C. The objects marked in black represent mammoth skulls. The structure was uncovered at Molodova, near the banks of the Dniester in the Ukraine, and enclosed a living space measuring about eight by five meters. The basic framework of this hut was probably of wood covered with skins, which were weighted down at the edge by over one hundred mammoth tusks, skulls, and bones. Inside the hut, diggers uncovered fifteen hearths, many animal bones, and thousands of flint flakes, which indicate a long period of use. Traces of another structure at Molodova also were located a short distance away along the Dniester.
Found at http://www.donsmaps.com/mousterianothers.html
Neanderthal Housing
•The
Molodova in southern Russia contains evidence of a dwelling with 15 hearths,
and the use of mammoth bones as construction materials.
•Post molds at other sites such as
CombeGrenalin France (see right) suggest fairly substantial constructions.
From “Who were the Neanderthals?” at
http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/walker/classes/anth121/121neanderthal.pdf
Chapter 11 – aborigine
telepathy
There is little
documented evidence of the ability of the Australian aborigines to convey
messages telepathically, but much anecdotal evidence. The method of
communication is sometimes called ‘bush telegraph’ or ‘mulga wire’. This
passage is taken from
The Bone is Pointed: An Inspector Napolean
Bonaparte Mystery by Arthur W. Upfield
p. 46
"I saw him at ten
o'clock on the evening of the eighteenth, the day Anderson rode Green Swamp. I
went as usual to the stable to see that the horse kept there for duty had been
properly fed and bedded. Abie--that was his name--was then asleep on his
stretcher in the adjoining stall."
"How did he receive
word about the sick lubra?"
"I don't know. Mulga
wire, I suppose."
Chapter 12 – giant beavers
Beavers
Family Castoridae
The biggest of all rodents
during Pleistocene time—or any time, for that matter—were beavers of the family
Castoridae. These semi-aquatic rodents of the Northern Hemisphere existed in
North America as long ago as early Oligocene time, 35 million to 30 million
years ago…
Giant Beaver (Castoroides ohioensis)
The giant beaver was the
size of a large black bear and weighed 330 to 440 pounds (150 to 200
kilograms). It measured t least 9 feet (3 meters) long and stood about 3 feet
(1 meter) tall at the shoulder. In comparison, the modern beaver measures up to
3.5 feet (more than 1 meter) long and weighs from 20 to 86 pounds (9 to 39
kilograms). While resembling a modern beaver, the giant beaver had a longer and
narrower tail. The giant beaver had huge incisors up to 6 inches (15
centimeters) long. Researchers have found no evidence to tell us whether this
heavyweight built dams or felled trees, but base on the giant beaver’s build,
paleontologists believe it behaved much as living beavers do…
The abundance of fossils
suggests the giant beaver’s favorite locales were ponds, lakes, and swamps
south of the Great Lakes, where it ate coarse swamp vegetation.
Ice Age Mammals of North America: A Guide to
the Big, the Hairy, and the Bizarre Ian M. Lange, p. 120
Two American Indian beaver
legends found at http://www.bio.umass.edu/biology/conn.river/nalegend.html:
The Great Beaver, whose pond flowed over the whole
basin of Mt. Tom, made havoc among the fish and when these failed he would come
ashore and devour Indians. A pow-wow was held and Hobomock raised, who came to
their relief. With a great stake in hand, he waded the river until he found the
beaver, and so hotly chased him that he sought to escape by digging into the
ground. Hobomock saw his plan and his whereabouts, and with his great stake
jammed the beaver's head off. The earth over the beaver's head we call
Sugarloaf, his body lies just to the north of it.
Field, P., 1870-79,
Stories, anecdotes, and legends, collected and written down by Deacon Phinehas
Field:
In History and
Proceedings of the Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA, v. 1,
p. 59.
The great beaver preyed upon the fish of the Long
River. And when other food became scarce, he took to eating men out of the
river villages. Hobomuck, a benevolent spirit giant, at last was invoked to
relieve the distressed people. Hobomock came and chased the great beaver far
into the immense lake that then covered the meadows, flinging as ran great
handfuls of dirt and rock at the beaver. Finally he threw a bunch of dirt so
great upon the beaver's head that it sank him in the middle of the lake.
Hobomock, arriving a few minutes later, dispatched the monster by a blow with
his club on the back of the beaver's neck. And there he lies to this day. The
upturned head covered with dirt is the sandstone cliff of Wequamps (Mt. Sugar
Loaf), and the body is the northward range. The hollow between is where Hobomock's
cudgel smote down his neck.
Pressey, E.P., 1910, History of Montague: Montague,
MA, p. 64.
Chapter 13
The author: Neanderthals
roamed Europe and Asia, but there is no evidence they ever made it to the
Americas. I do not believe the full extent of their range has yet been
discovered. In February of 2008, a discovery in Greece led Eleni Panagopoulou,
of the Paleoanthropology-Speleology Department of Southern Greece to say, “Our
findings prove that…their settlement networks were broader and more organized
than we believed.” New discoveries will continue to be made and more will
continue to be learned about the Neanderthals.
For instance, the recent
discovery in a Gibraltar cave point to Neanderthals being there only 24,000
years ago, 2,000 years later than previously believed.
…charcoal samples from the
cave, called Gorham’s Cave in Gibraltar, are about 28,000 years old and maybe
just 24,000 years old.
Associated Press September
14, 2006
The author again: It’s
possible that the body disposal system used for Kung and others would explain
the absence of skeletal remains in the Americas. The earliest artifacts found
in North America were probably deposited long after the areas were in habited.
Chapter 14 – tree ferns
There
are perhaps nearly a thousand treefern species which grow chiefly in the
Southern Hemisphere and the tropics. Many of these are quite cold-tender
and will suffer if the temperature drops below freezing. But a few … are
cold-hardy enough to adapt to a less hospitable climate.
From
http://www.angelfire.com/bc/eucalyptus/treeferns/
Tree
fern frond ("fiddlehead") by the Akatarawa
River, New Zealand. These unopened fronds are edible but must
be roasted first to remove shikimic acid.
Wikipedia
at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_fern
Chapter 15 – speech
Neanderthals, an archaic human species that
dominated Europe until the arrival of modern humans some 45,000 years ago,
possessed a critical gene known to underlie speech, according to DNA evidence
retrieved from two individuals excavated from El Sidron, a cave in northern
Spain.
The new evidence stems from analysis of a
gene called TOXP2 which is associated with language.
The
New York Times, Neanderthals
Had Important Speech Gene, DNA Evidence Shows, by Nicholas Wade, October 19,
2007
Chapter 16 – crossing and the north star
The author: It is believed that prehistoric
people reached the American continents via Beringia.
Bering Strait: Strait connecting Arctic Ocean
and Bering Sea (q.v.), and separating
Asia (Russia) from North America (Alaska); at narrowest point 53 mi. (83 km.)
wide…A drop in sea level during the Ice Age is believed to have exposed a land
bridge (Beringia) connecting Asia and North America. Strait traversed by Danish
navigator Vitus Bering 1728.
Merriam-Webster’s geographical dictionary
The author: The Big Dipper has been
known as a guiding bear for a very long time.
The
Iroquois Native Americans interpreted Alioth,
Mizar, and Alkaid as three hunters pursuing the Great Bear. According to one
version of their myth, the first hunter (Alioth) is carrying a bow and arrow to
strike down the bear. The second hunter (Mizar) carries a large pot — the star
Alcor — on his shoulder in which to cook the bear while the third hunter
(Alkaid) hauls a pile of firewood to light a fire beneath the pot.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursa_Major#History
Today, it is difficult to understand the extent to which our ancestors traveled and relied on the stars to guide them. Sophisticated astronomical systems of the early historic period, the worldwide Neolithic standing stone observatories, and the lunar calendars on stone and bone, dating to the Paleolithic and possibly earlier (from 30,000 years ago to 300,000 years ago), indicate that our foremothers mapped the heavens. Clearly, they relied on their knowledge of the stars, moon and sun for safe passage. For the native peoples of the Indian subcontinent, bordered by two oceans and the daunting Himalayan mountain ranges, and covered with dense wilderness areas, the Pole Star was a constant indicator of true north, and the heavenly bodies in relationship to it, a celestial map. Tara, star and goddess, was the matron deity of travelers.
http://www.goddessmystic.com/CoreCurriculum/Goddesses/Tara/TaraAttributesStar.shtml
Owen Gingerich, in his
article "The origin of the zodiac." (Sky and Telescope, Volume
67, 1984, Pages 218-220) proposed that a bear constellation crossed the Bering
Straits with ancient migrants.
Chapter 17
Question: How do we know what the Neanderthals ate?
Answer: An analysis of the chemicals laid down in
Neanderthals' teeth indicates that they ate lots of meat. In fact they were
more carnivorous than wolves!
http://www.abc.net.au/beasts/evidence/prog6/page5_2.htm
Michael Richards, now at the University
of Bradford in England, and his colleagues
recently examined isotopes of carbon
(13C) and nitrogen (15N) in 29,000-year-old
Neandertal bones from Vindija cave in
Croatia. The relative proportions of these
isotopes in the protein part of human
bone, known as collagen, directly reflect their
proportions in the protein of the
individual’s diet. Thus, by comparing the isotopic
“signatures” of the Neandertal bones to
those of other animals living in the same
environments, the authors were able to
determine whether the Neandertals were
deriving the bulk of their protein from
plants or from animals.
The analyses show that the Vindija Neandertals had 15N levels comparable to
those seen in northern carnivores such
as foxes and wolves, indicating that they
obtained almost all their dietary
protein from animal foods. Earlier work hinted that
inefficient foraging might have been a
factor in the subsequent demise of the
Neandertals. But Richards and his
collaborators argue that in order to consume as
much animal food as they apparently did,
the Neandertals had to have been skilled
hunters.
Scientific
American, Special Edition: New Look at Human Evolution, August, 2003, p. 69
Chapter 18 - Music
From the Globe and Mail,
early April:
"A Neanderthal flute
made from a bear's thigh bone (Science, Nov. 2) was used to play sweet music,
reports the Times of London. Canadian musicologist Bob Fink has studied the
four inch artifact and concluded that it is based on the same seven-note scale
used in modern western music. The flute, as it survives, could play four notes
(Mi, Fa, Sol and Lah) in a minor key. In its original form, it would have been
15 inches long and capable of producing the entire scale."
The author: Another source called the notes
Do, Re, Mi, Fa, which would make more sense to me.
Above:
43,ooo-82,ooo-year old Cave Bear femur bone segment with 4 holes.
(2 complete holes,
and 2 confirmed partial holes, one at each broken end of bone.)
…
An ancient bone flute
segment, estimated at about 43,ooo up to 82,ooo years old, was found recently
at a Neanderthal campsite by Dr. Ivan Turk, a paleontologist at the Slovenian
Academy of Sciences in Ljubljana. It's the first flute ever to be associated
with Neanderthals and its confirmed age makes it the oldest known musical
instrument.
From: http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm
The oldest
positively dated musical instrument was discovered in a cave in Slovenia.
It was a flute made by the Neanderthals out of the bone of a cave bear.
It has been dated to 50,000 years ago. In one cave in particular, a stone
structure was found to have been erected by Neanderthals with a cave bear skull
perched upon it and evidence of numerous spears being thrown at it. Cave
drawings and carvings of the cave bear originate with the Neanderthal people
and caves have been discovered where Neanderthal and later, Cro-Magnon peoples
occupied caves after or on alternating periods with cave bears.
From: http://www.paleodirect.com/cavebear1.htm
Chapter 19 – interbreeding between cro-magnon and
neaderthal/coexistence
THE FIRST certain proof that Neanderthal man and modern humans coexisted in
Europe has emerged from a cave in central France. Radiocarbon dates show that modern people camped in the Châtelperron cave, 25 miles northeast of Vichy, about 40,000 years ago, preceded and then followed by two episodes of Neanderthal occupancy.
The differing occupations are demonstrated by their distinctive stone tools: those of the Neanderthals, known as Mousterian after the Dordogne site where they were first recognised, are made mainly from flint flakes. The Aurignacian toolkit of Homo sapiens sapiens uses parallel-sided blades, prised off the flint core in a more complex manufacturing sequence that allows better use of raw materials.
A third set of tools, called the Châtelperronian because they were first recognised there in 19th-century excavations, seem to combine features of both; these tools were found in layers overlying the Mousterian, and clearly developed from it.
TimesOnline, Neanderthals
and modern man shared a cave? By Norman
Hammond, Archaeology Correspondent, September 1, 2005
THE last known refuge of the
Neanderthals before they were driven to extinction by Modern Man and climate
change has been traced to a cave in Gibraltar.
New excavations at Gorham’s Cave, in the British
territory, have suggested that Neanderthal Man was still living there thousands
of years after the species was thought to have died out.
…
A longer co-existence between the two species also makes it possible that
they occasionally interbred, though this must have been infrequent because
genetic evidence shows that Modern Man has no Neanderthal DNA. Even so, the
latest dates for settlement at Gorham’s Cave overlap with those for the Lagar Velho
child, a fossil found in Portugal that has been proposed as a Homo
sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid. As it has been dated to 24,500 years ago, many scientists have cast doubt on this theory as Neanderthals were assumed to have died out by then, but the new evidence makes it possible that it was the offspring of the two human species. Neanderthal settlements have been known in Gibraltar since the 19th century, but the dig at Gorham’s Cave is the first to pin down such a late date for their survival there.
TimesOnline, Ancient man's last stand in a refuge on the Rock,
Chapter 20 – evidence they cooked meat
The researchers propose that Homo
erectus was probably the first
hominid to apply fire to food,
starting perhaps 1.8 million years ago.
…
The earliest unequivocal manifestations
of fire use—stone hearths and
burned animal bones from sites
in Europe—are only some 200,000 years old.
Scientific
American, Special Edition: New Look at Human Evolution, August, 2003, p. 68
The author: This puts the use of fire well
within the range of the existence of Neanderthals.
Chapter 21
…(An) indicator of strong social ties and social complexity is the
survival of individuals with severe, sometimes crippling injuries; an individual’s
value was not solely based on his or her ability to obtain food or carry out
physical work effectively. This fact again suggests that there was an
elaboration of different roles within Neandertal society; different individuals
did different thing. Those who did not or could not procure food must have been
supported by the rest of the group who valued their other contribution. Just
what those contributions may have been--knowledge? art? music? linguistic
gifts?--remains elusive.
The Neandertals
Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman, p. 418
Chapter 22
On
August 14, 1965, a sharp but
local shock occurred at Tamms, a town of about 600 people. The magnitude 5
shock broke chimneys, cracked walls, knocked groceries from the shelves, and
muddied the water supply. Thunderous earth noises were heard.
From http://earthquake.usgs.gov/regional/states/illinois/history.php
Chapter 23 –
At least two species of muskoxen inhabited
the midwestern U.S. during the last Ice Age: the muskox (Ovibos moschatus)
and the extinct woodland muskox (Bootherium bombifrons).
Ovibos moschatus is the same muskoxen still found in the
artic today.
The second species of muskoxen found in the
midwestern U.S., the extinct woodland muskox (Bootherium bombifrons),
was apparently much more common (horn shown to the left).
For many years paleontologists thought at
least two different types of woodland muskoxen were present in the Midwest
16,000 years ago. The two types were a form with larger, heavier horns with an
oval cross-section (that was named Symbos cavifrons) and a form with
smaller, more slender horns with a rounder cross-section (the original Bootherium
bombifrons ). Now many paleontologists consider these two forms represent
the male and female of a single species (correctly named Bootherium
bombifrons).
From
http://www.museum.state.il.us/exhibits/larson/muskox.html
The woodland musk ox (Symbos cavifrons) was a wide-ranging animal that apparently
preferred warmer and more wooded climates than other musk oxen species did. I
roamed from Alaska south the Mississippi, and from New Jersey and Virginia west
to Washington State. These animals were less bulky and taller than the musk
oxen inhabiting the Arctic today. Their horns were mounted higher on their
skulls, and their skulls were longer than those of living musk oxen.
Paleontologists know little of the woodland musk oxen’s ancestry, not even
whether they evolved in the New World or the Old World. Their oldest remains
date from late in the Irvingtonian Land Mammal Age, about 500,000 years ago;
the youngest are 11,100 years old, plus or minus 400 years.
Ice Age Mammals of North America: A Guide to
the Big, the Hairy,and the Bizarre Ian M. Lange, p. 148-149
Chapter 24
Evidence of a wooden hut found at Terra
Amata, near Nice in France, was dated to the Mindel Glaciation, or between
450,000 and 380,000 BCE. The hut included a hearth, or fireplace and was made
by bracing branches with a circle of large and small stones. Similar stone
circles are found throughout the upper and lower paleolithic. The basic design
of such habitats may have remained unchanged for a million years.
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Another reconstruction of the hut at Terra Amata.
The hut was 8 meters long by 4 meters wide. Hand-axes and other stone tools
and flakes were found in the vicinity.
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These people, apparently Neanderthals, were hunters and the site
contains remains of the bones of a variety of animals, including elephant,
rhinoceros, red deer, ibex, and giant ox.
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From http://aerobiologicalengineering.com/wxk116/StoneAge/Habitats/
Chapter 25 – uses of antlers OR spear points
Some of the world's best preserved prehistoric landscapes survive in
pristine condition at the bottom of the North Sea, archaeologists claimed
yesterday.Academic interest in what are being described as drowned Stone Age hunting grounds is likely to increase dramatically after the discovery of 28 Neanderthal flint axes on the sea bed off the East Anglian coast.
Dating from at least 50,000-60,000 years ago, they were found with other flint artefacts, a large number of mammoth bones, teeth and tusk fragments, and pieces of deer antler. The sea bed location was probably a Neanderthal hunters' kill site or temporary camp site.
The Independent, Neanderthal treasure trove 'at
bottom of sea' By David Keys Archaeology Correspondent, March 10, 2008
Chapter 26 – spear points
…Mousterian tools, the signature of
Neandertals.
The Neandertals
Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman, p. 335
On display at the Smithsonian Natural History
Museum, Washington, DC
Chapter 27 -
Antlers, Stitcher
Neanderthals
probably froze to death in the last ice age because rapid climate change caught
them by surprise without the tools needed to make warm clothes, says an
Australian researcher.
Ian Gilligan, a postgraduate researcher from the Australian National University
argues his case in the current issue of the journal World
Archaeology.By the time some Neanderthals developed sewing tools it was too little too late, says Gilligan.
…The important tools developed by modern humans included stone blades, bone points, and later needles, which could cut and pierce hides to sew them together into multi-layered clothes including underwear, says Gilligan.
"They're not related to hunting, they're related to clothing," he says. "These tools are related to tailored, fitted clothing, what I call complex clothing."
He says modern humans were more vulnerable to the cold than Neanderthals and developed these tools as far back as 90,000 years ago to cope with cooler parts of Africa, before the peak of the ice age.
"This made them pre-adapted to the glacial maximum," says Gilligan.
But Neanderthals were physically more resistant to the cold, he says.
Because of this they were quite happy before the ice age to get around in similar temperatures wearing little less than single-layered loosely-draped animal hides.
This gave Neanderthals no pressing need to develop complex clothing, says Gilligan.
But when the peak of the ice age came, it was a shock.
ABC Science Online at http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/12/21/2123174.htm
Chapter 28
“Given the data we now have, it would be
highly improbable to argue there is no Neanderthal contribution to the early
European population that dame out of Africa,” said Trinkaus, of Washington
University in St. Louis.
The Washington Post “Scientist: Humans,
Neanderthalss mated” by Marc Kaufman, May 1, 2007
Clearly, the
European Neandertals were not completely replaced by Africans or by people from
any other region.
Instead
the evience suggests that Neanderdertals either evolved into later humans or
interbred with them, or both. David W. Frayer of the University of Kansas and
Fred H. Smith, now at Loyola University of Chicago, have discovered that many
allegedly unique Neandertal features are found in the Europeans who followed
the Neandertals—the Upper Paleolithic, Mesolithic and later peoples. In fact,
only a few Neandertal features completely disappear from the later Europena
skeletal record.
Features
that persist range from highly visible structures, such as the prominenet shape
and size of the nose of Neandertals and later Europeans, to much more minute
traits, such as the form of the back of the skull and the details of its
surface.
Scientific
American, Special Edition: New Look at Human Evolution, August, 2003, p. 50
Also:
JAW MORPHOLOGY distinguishes many Neandertal
skeletons. In most living people and in fossils, the rim around the mandibular
nerve canal opening is grooved (left), but in a number of Neandertals,
it was surrounded by a bony bridge (right). Some later Europeans also
had this Neandertal feature, although it was less common.
Scientific
American, Special Edition: New Look at Human Evolution, August, 2003, p. 51
Chapter 29
We came from
beneath the ground, the legends say, we came from the sunrise of the east, or
the sunset of the west. We climbed up to the light from the bowels of our holy
mountain, we climbed down from the sky by a ladder of arrows.
Indians William Brandon, p. 20
…the Sun Dance was
common to nearly all the people of the plains.
Indians William Brandon, p. 329
Chapter 30
[Neandertals] are
known to have spread over a huge region, the northwestern Old World, the
stretches across Europe from the Strait of Gibraltar and the Mediterranean
north to Belgium, across the Neat East from the Levant to the Zagros Mountains,
and around the Black and Caspian Seas east to Uzbekistan.
The Neandertals
Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman, p. 412
…the new dates from eastern Asia show that human-population mobility
dates right back to the origins of effectively modern bodily form….We can only
hope that an improving fossil record will flesh out the details of what was
evidently a rich intricate process of hominid speciation and population
movement over the past two million years.
Scientific
American, Special Edition: New Look at Human Evolution, August, 2003, p. 45
