stone age
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Stone Age Megastructure Found at the Bottom of the Baltic Sea
Divers working off the coast of Rostock, Germany, have found the broken-up remains of a wall on the bottom of the Baltic Sea. Researchers believe the Stone Age construction is over 10,000 years old, potentially making it the oldest human megastructure in Europe, and was likely used to herd prey during hunts. The wall dates…
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These Prehistoric Inventions Launched Humanity’s Technological Revolution
For the first few million years of human evolution, technologies changed slowly. Some three million years ago, our ancestors were making chipped stone flakes and crude choppers. Two million years ago, hand-axes. A million years ago, primitive humans sometimes used fire, but with difficulty. Then, 500,000 years ago, technological change accelerated, as spearpoints, firemaking, axes,…
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How Do We Know What Neanderthals Looked Like?
When quarry workers dislodged a skullcap and a bunch of bones from a cave near Düsseldorf in 1856, little did anyone realise the remains would reveal an entirely new branch on the tree of life, that of the genus Homo and its many constituents, including Homo neanderthalensis, to which those bones belonged. The name “Neanderthal”…
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Dozens of Fossilised Neanderthal Footprints Found on a Beach in Spain
Paleoanthropologists have discovered more than 80 fossilised footprints in Southern Spain, on an uneven span of rock that used to be a sandbar. In their analysis, the research team determined the prints were made by 36 individuals, a group of Neanderthal adults and children.