Latest News on Neanderthals – Interbreeding with Homo sapiens and Isolation
A complex picture is emerging of how the Neanderthals died out, and what role modern humans played in their demise. About 37,000 years ago, Neanderthals were still living in small groups in what is now southern Spain. They may have gone about their daily business, making stone tools, eating birds and mushrooms, carving symbols into rocks, and creating feather and shell jewelry. They probably never realized that they were among the last of their kind.
Traces that can change history
Archaeologists have found 115,000-year-old human footprints where they shouldn’t be. Fossilized footprints in Saudi Arabia show evidence of human movement on the cusp of the next ice age. Study of preserved tracks in New Mexico continues to shed light on the first human movements across North America.
Scientists from the Far East and Siberia have extracted Paleolithic viruses from melting permafrost
Scientists are discovering and resurrecting ancient viruses trapped in permafrost and frozen remains. Trapped in frigid Arctic soils and riverbeds, the world is teeming with ancient microbes. Bacteria and viruses that existed thousands of years ago are frozen in time within prehistoric layers of permafrost. Rising temperatures could cause much of the ice to melt, freeing these microbes from their icy prisons. The viruses found are harmless, but other microbes, as yet unknown, could be released and infect humans or other animals.