Saturday, December 31, 2011

More Stupid Myths Slowly Being Discredited

Neanderthals built homes with mammoth bones

"Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a 44,000 year old Neanderthal building that was constructed using the bones from mammoths.

The circular building, which was up to 26 feet across at its widest point, is believed to be earliest example of domestic dwelling built from bone.

Neanderthals, which died out around 30,000 years ago, were initially thought to have been relatively primitive nomads that lived in natural caves for shelter.

The new findings, however, suggest these ancient human ancestors had settled in areas to the degree that they built structures where they lived for extended periods of time.

Analysis by researchers from the Muséum National d'Histories Naturelle in Paris also found that many of the bones had been decorated with carvings and ochre pigments.

Laëtitia Demay, an archaeologist who led the research, said: "It appears that Neanderthals were the oldest known humans who used mammoth bones to build a dwelling structure.

"This mammoth bone structure could be described as the basement of a wooden cover or as a windscreen.

"Neanderthals purposely chose large bones of the largest available mammal, the woolly mammoth, to build a structure.

"The mammoth bones have been deliberately selected – long and flat bones, tusks and connected vertebrae – and were circularly arranged.

"The use of bones as building elements can be appreciated as anticipation of climatic variations. Under a cold climate in an open environment, the lack of wood led humans to use bones to build protections against the wind."

The bone structure was found near the town of Molodova in eastern Ukraine on a site that was first discovered in 1984. It was constructed of 116 large bones including mammoth skulls, jaws, 14 tusks and leg bones.

Inside at least 25 hearths filled with ash were also discovered, suggesting it had been used for some time.

The researchers believe that the Neanderthals both hunted and killed the mammoths for meat before using their bones but also collected some of the bones from animals that had died of natural causes.

The findings, which are to be published in the scientific journal Quaternary International add to the growing view that Neanderthals were in fact quite advanced humans who had their own culture and may have even used language to communicate."

Not a big shocker here by any stretch of the imagination. It's known that various species of hominids built free standing houses for well over a half million years, not including the various high tech civilizations that rose and fell during that time.

Neanderthals have always been denigrated as proof we're the apex of hominid development. We're constantly told they were dim witted brutes that lived only in caves and dragged their women around by the hair.


But those giant bone homes were no doubt covered with intricately seamed skin or even cloth covers, think Indian teepees. Of course they used language, anybody who believes different is willingly stupid. It shouldn't surprise anybody that it's very possible Neanderthals domesticated animals if they lived for long periods of time in one place, or even rode horses. Genetic evidence concludes they were having plenty of sex with Cro Magnons for millenia, which opens the possibility that they might have been fucked out of existence. You don't thrive for over 300,000 years by being grunting, stupid imbeciles.
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