prehistoric (Page 5)

We routinely identify animals by the feces they leave behind, but now this is being done with prehistoric man. DNA is being recovered from dried human excrement in order to identify where these prehistoric people came from. The dried excrement in Oregon’s Paisley Caves is the oldest found yet in the New World?dating to 14,300 years ago?and provides apparent genetic ties to Siberia or Asia. The Paisley Caves are located in the Summer Lake basin near Paisley, about 220 miles southeast of Eugene on the eastern side of the Cascade Range. The series of eight caves are westward-facing, wave-cut shelters on the highest shoreline of pluvial Lake Chewaucan, which rose and fell in periods of greater precipitation during the Pleistocene.
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As you walk down a suburban street or take a stroll in the woods, do you ever wonder what the first trees looked like? Scientists now know the answer to that question because they have found some tree trunks that are 380 million years old?in a forest in New York State!
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Three years ago, we reported on evidence that Cro-Magnon man did not interbreed with Neanderthals in order to produce modern humans, as so many scientists have speculated. Now there’s even more proof that the two species went their separate ways, until Neanderthals died out.

The most thorough study to date of Neanderthal DNA, gleaned from ancient bones, points to an early human-Neanderthal split. While the two species have a common ancestry, they do not share much else after evolving their separate ways. This new study also finds no evidence of a genetic mixture between Neanderthals and humans.
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This week on Dreamland, we interview author and adventurer Graham Hancock, whose new book Supernatural takes us back to the wisdom of the prehistoric world. A recent fossil find reminds us of how mysterious that world still is.

Scientists in Ethiopia have discovered the fossilized remains of a child who lived 3.3 million years ago who they have named “Selam,” which means “peace” in the local language. Selam and another fossil found in the same area called “Lucy,” who may be her mother, could be the “missing links” between chimpanzees and humans.

Selam had a lower body that was human-like and she walked upright on two legs, but her upper body was closer to that of a chimpanzee, with long arms that allowed her to swing from trees like a chimp.
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