We’ve seen them drive large herds from state to state, fight against Native Americans, defend stagecoaches from bandits, duel, and even battle aliens, but there’s something else cowboys can add to their resume: discovering key lithic tools essential for American paleoanthropology. This happened in 1908, and what makes it even more striking is that the […]
Paleoanthropology
Posted inScience, Stone Age Archaeology
For 300,000 Years, Humans Dressed in Cave Bear Skins and Competed with Them for the Same Caves… Until there were None Left
Humans started using cave bear skins 320,000 years ago, and with the appearance of Homo sapiens in Europe 45,000 years ago, hunting pressure on the animal intensified until Ursus spelaeus became extinct 24,000 years ago. Standing 1.70 meters tall at the shoulder and up to 3.5 meters in length, the cave bear was much larger […]
Posted inScience
The Silurian Hypothesis: Would it be possible to detect an advanced civilization in the geological record?
If an industrialized civilization had existed on Earth millions of years before our era, what traces would it have left, and could they be detectable today? That is the astounding premise that led Adam Frank, an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester, and Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute, to write an article in […]
