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Showing posts from July, 2018

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The quest to revive extinct Aurochs to restore ancient lands

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Rewilding and restoration of land often rely on the reintroduction of species. But what happens when what you want to reintroduce no longer exists? What if the animal in question is not only locally extinct, but gone for good? Yes, this might sound like the plot of Jurassic Park. But in real life this is actually happening in the case of the Aurochs ( Bos primigenius ). This wild ancestor of all modern cattle has not been seen since the last individual died in 1627 , in today’s Poland. Aurochs have been deep within the human psyche for as long as there have been humans, as attested by their prominence in cave art. However, the advent of agriculture and domestication put the magnificent animal on a path to extinction. So why bring the Aurochs back today and how? And what is the likely outcome? What is left of Aurochs, besides their depiction in cave paintings, are some fossil remains and some descriptions in the historical record. “Their strength and speed are extraordinary,” w
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Extinct vegetarian cave bear diet mystery unravelled

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Until now, very little is known about the dietary evolution of the cave bear and how it became a vegetarian, as the fossils of the direct ancestor, the Deninger's bear ( Ursus deningeri ), are extremely scarce. However, a paper published in the journal  Historical Biology , sheds new light on this. A research team from Germany and Spain found that Deninger's bear likely had a similar diet to its descendant -- the classic cave bear -- as new analysis shows a distinct morphology in the cranium, mandible and teeth, which has been related to its dietary specialization of a larger consumption of vegetal matter. To understand the evolution of the cave bear lineage, the researchers micro-CT scanned the rare fossils and digitally removed the sediments so as not to risk damaging the fossils. Using sophisticated statistical methods, called geometric morphometrics, the researchers compared the three-dimensional shape of the mandibles and skull of Deninger's bear with that of
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Ancestral people of Chaco Canyon likely grew their own food

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Researchers think they have a better understanding for how ancient North Americans thrived for centuries in northwestern New Mexico's arid desert. A multidisciplinary team of experts from the University of Cincinnati determined that the sandy soils of Chaco Canyon were not too salty to grow crops such as maize, beans and squash for the more than 1,200 people who occupied this beautiful but harsh landscape during its most prolific years. Researchers have long debated whether the people who lived here between 800 and 1300 AD were self-sufficient or relied partially or entirely on imported food to survive. These ancestral Puebloans built elaborate adobe structures, some of them four stories tall and recessed among cliff faces under the hot New Mexico sun. Some previous research suggested that the desert soils simply were too saline for agriculture. The implication was that Chaco Canyon could not support a large resident population without lots of outside help. Alternatel
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Making thread in Bronze Age Britain

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A new study published this week in the journal  Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences  has identified that the earliest plant fibre technology for making thread in Early Bronze Age Britain and across Europe and the Near East was splicing not spinning. In splicing, strips of plant fibres (flax, nettle, lime tree and other species) are joined in individually, often after being stripped from the plant stalk directly and without or with only minimal retting -- the process of introducing moisture to soften the fibres. According to lead author Dr Margarita Gleba, researcher at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, "Splicing technology is fundamentally different from draft spinning. The identification of splicing in these Early Bronze Age and later textiles marks a major turning point in scholarship. The switch from splicing -- the original plant bast fibre technology -- to draft spinning took place much later than previously assume
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Research on British teeth unlocks potential for new insights into ancient diets

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Goofy, yellow and crooked: British smiles have sometimes had a less-than-flattering international image, but a new study has put tartar from our infamously bad teeth to good use. Researchers analysing the teeth of Britons from the Iron Age to the modern day have unlocked the potential for using proteins in tooth tartar to reveal what our ancestors ate. Dental plaque accumulates on the surface of teeth during life and is mineralised by components of saliva to form tartar or "dental calculus," entombing proteins from the food we eat in the process. Identifying evidence of many foods, particularly plant crops, in diets of the past is a challenge as they often leave no trace in the archaeological record. But proteins are robust molecules that can survive in tartar for thousands of years. Archaeological tooth tartar has previously been shown to preserve milk proteins, but the international study, led by researchers at the University of York and the Max Planck Inst
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