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Bones of contention

The discovery of a new species of human astounded the world. But is it what it seems? John Vidal went to remotest Flores to find out.

If you want to understand human evolution, it may be worth starting with Johannes Daak from the remote village of Akel in the heavily forested centre of the Indonesian island of Flores. Johannes, from the Manggarai ethnic group, reckons he is 100 years old and says he owes his longevity and enduring strength to having only ever known one woman. He says he owes his stature to his ancestors.

Johannes is no more than 4ft 1in (1m 25cm) tall, give or take an inch. His grandfather and father were also tiny, and so is his son. All of them had "normal" sized mothers, but for some reason, only the males in his family seem to be small ... Guardian Unlimited

New species may have relatives in next villlage

A growing number of scientists are challenging the sensational discovery last year of a new species of one-metre-tall intelligent humans whose 13,000-year-old bones were said to have been found in an Indonesian cave.

According to some leading anthropologists in Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere, Homo floresiensis is not "one of the most important discoveries of the last 150 years" as was widely reported last October, but a pygmy version of modern Homo sapiens with a not uncommon brain disease.

Now a leading critic of the Homo floresiensis theory is to send researchers to a village near the cave where the bones were excavated to measure an extended family group whose males may be just a few inches taller than the skeleton ... Guardian Unlimited

Oxford research traces early human migration from Africa to Asia

Research by Oxford University and collaborators has shed new light on the last 100,000 years of human migration from Africa into Asia. The new genetic study confirms that some of the earliest migrants travelled into Asia by a southern route, possibly along the coasts of what are now Pakistan and India.

The researchers identified a genetic marker in museum samples of inaccessible populations from the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. This allowed them to re-interpret previous genetic studies from the Indian sub-continent ... Oxford University News

Early Dates, Real Tools?

An archaeologist claims artifacts at South Carolina's Topper Site are at least 50,000 years old.

Could humans really have been in North America 50,000 years ago? A dramatic claim today from University of South Carolina archaeologist Albert Goodyear has made that the question of the hour, as he announced extremely early radiocarbon dates from Topper, a Paleoindian site on the banks of South Carolina's Savannah River.

In 1998, Goodyear put the Topper site on the map with his discovery of artifacts that seemed to predate the early Clovis culture that flourished in North America beginning some 13,000 years ago, long the conventional date for the first human colonization of the New World. Topper joined the growing ranks of other, sometimes controversial, sites that seemed to show some evidence of pre-Clovis peoples, including Monte Verde in Chile, Virgina's Saltville and Cactus Hill sites, and Meadowcroft in Pennsylvania ... Archaeology

New Evidence Puts Man In North America 50,000 Years Ago

Radiocarbon tests of carbonized plant remains where artifacts were unearthed last May along the Savannah River in Allendale County by University of South Carolina archaeologist Dr. Albert Goodyear indicate that the sediments containing these artifacts are at least 50,000 years old, meaning that humans inhabited North American long before the last ice age.

Dr. Al Goodyear examining artifacts in the terrace (Photo courtesy of University of South Carolina).

The findings are significant because they suggest that humans inhabited North America well before the last ice age more than 20,000 years ago, a potentially explosive revelation in American archaeology.

Goodyear, who has garnered international attention for his discoveries of tools that pre-date what is believed to be humans' arrival in North America, announced the test results, which were done by the University of California at Irvine Laboratory, Wednesday (Nov .17) ... Science Daily

Scientists dig up ‘very big news’

Tests on items found in South Carolina put humans here 50,000 years ago.

Tests on evidence unearthed in South Carolina bolster the theory that humans could have arrived in the Americas 50,000 years ago, more than twice as early as previously thought.

A hearth-shaped ledge of burned oak, buckeye and plum wood found about 14 feet below the surface near Allendale has been dated to at least 50,000 years ago. Couple that with the stone tools found at the same level, and the evidence points to people in this area much earlier than previously thought ... The State

Out Of Africa: Scientists Find Earliest Evidence Yet Of Human Presence In Northeast Asia

Early humans lived in northern China about 1.66 million years ago, according to research reported in the journal Nature this week. The finding suggests humans - characterized by their making and use of stone tools - inhabited upper Asia almost 340,000 years before previous estimates placed them there, surviving in a pretty hostile environment.

The research team, including Richard Potts of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, reports the results of excavating four layers of sediments at Majuangou in north China. All the layers contained indisputable stone tools apparently made by early humans, known to researchers as "hominins" ... sciencedaily.com

Auf welchen Wegen wanderte der frühe Mensch?

Der internationaler Workshop "Continental Rifting" an der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften ging der Frage nach, welche Bedeutung Grabenbrüche für die Entwicklung des Menschen hatte.

Die Totes-Meer-Verwerfung und der Rheingraben sind die imposantesten durch Plattentektonik entstandenen Landschaftseinbrüche in Europa und im Mittleren Osten. Diese ungewöhnlichen Grabenstrukturen sind jedoch nicht nur unter geologischen Aspekten für die Forschung interessant. Sie beeinflussen auch in hohem Maße das Klima und damit die Entwicklung von Flora und Fauna in den umliegenden Landschaftsräumen ... archaeologie-online.de

The Baja Connection

Did the first Americans make the crossing from Asia by boat? If so, they may have stopped here.

It isn't an easy drive from Alberta to Baja California, but Ruth Gruhn and Alan Bryan, archaeologists from the University of Alberta (and husband and wife), have been making the journey since 1991. The barren desert peninsula is the spot they chose to test the theory that the earliest settlers of the Americas traveled by boat, not on foot. ... Center for the Study of the First Americans

Signs of an earlier American

Al Goodyear is holding his breath in anticipation. Within days, the affable archaeologist expects to read the results of lab tests indicating that stone tools he recently found in South Carolina are 25,000 years old - or older.

Such results would be explosive. They would imply that humans lived on this continent before the last ice age, far earlier than previously believed. Even if the dates came in younger than 25,000 years old, researchers say, the find would add to the mounting body of evidence that humans trod North and South America at least 2,000 years before the earliest-known inhabitants, known as the Clovis culture ... csmonitor.com