Revised Dates

[poliphilo]

Apparently the universe is 50 million years older than we thought it was.

Also- according to the latest research- the Neanderthals died out 15,000 years earlier than we'd been thinking. A cache of bones found in Spain that we'd been radio-carbon dating to 34,000 BC- and interpreting as the remains of a late-surviving colony- were contaminated with modern carbon- and new tests (which can filter out the contamination) have given us the new- more distant- dates.* Bother! If this finding holds it means the Neanderthals were long gone by the time our ancestors reached Europe- and a lot of once plausible fictions about the two groups meeting have been demoted into unhistorical fantasies- Boneland and Clan of the Cave Bear among them. On a positive note it means we no longer have to feel bad about wiping them out. Whatever killed them it wasn't us.

*This information comes from World Archaeology #58 which is reporting on an article recently published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

It was their bigger eyes that did for them!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Hmmmmm.......

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

That's the theory of the month!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love it when theories of the month go "splat"- as they usually do.

[cluegirl.livejournal.com]

That makes it difficult to account for the genetic presence of Neanderthal in at least 4 per cent of humans alive today though. Jus' sayin...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

This is something the scientists will have to thrash out. It's all good! :)

[veronikos.livejournal.com]

I thought it was that *all* of us had 3-4% neanderthal DNA.