Adventure Ausrama Blog

The long held "belief" that humans came out of Africa 60,000 years ago has now been officially announced as wrong by scientists. Migrations had been regularly been pushed back as far as 120,000 years before the present. It seems migration was constant not in waves. New research methods detect Homo sapiens in Asia very early, particularly in China. Genetic traces of these people are very low in modern humans. This indicates that the initial movement was slow from Africa. Later it became of a flood of Inquisitive searchers of new regions beyond. The early arrivals interbred with Denisovans and Neanderthals. These humans were taller and slender than those who came later. Neaderthals made tools from large flakes while humans technology involved lighter, finer cutting blades and spear heads. This was probably because Neanderthals were more muscular and tended to bash the quarry to death. Humans were more creative, carving antlers and bone. They made ivory flutes. C

Anthropologists say the Hobbit of Flores did exist. The naysayers have had to accept that the Hobbit discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia did exist. They survived until about 15,000 years ago. Anthropologists should have taken notice of local folklore. Stories were handed down to the present about tiny "people" raiding food crops at night. Remains have been closely examined by scientists. It was a tiny version of Australopithecus a human predecessor which lived in Africa from 4.5 million to 2 million years ago. The creature grew to small stature because it was trapped on an island. Short legs made it hard for them to walk but they did nonetheless - large trees do not grow on Flores. Despite having a small brain Homo floresiensis  developed stone tools to a complexity equalled only by humans. Its teeth were closer to human teeth than any other ape-like pre-human. This accounts for its naming as homo rather than Australopithecus . The real mystery

During the Middle-Late Pleistocene, one million to 10,000 years ago, more than 50 species of animal disappeared, the last to do so 46.4 thousand years from the present. The reason for the demise of the giant creatures is hotly debated. Some scientists claim that the spread of Man across the globe was the cause. This is suspect, however, because there were so few of them. Killing the odd animal would not have made a significant impact. Many believe that the end date for megafauna is incorrect. As stated above, the theory that humans killed them off by definition means that people and animals lived side-by-side for a considerable time. Evidence in Australia certainly points to this - 13 species of large animals were here on human arrival. Moreover, the people mainly relied on subsistence strategies for food. Their weapons were not very efficient. A boomerang is highly inaccurate and the range of a spear is limited. Megafauna died out over a long period of time, not all at a s

The mystery of how the Gamburtsev Subglacial Mountains in the Antarctic was formed has been solved. The range is at a high elevation and was only discovered in 1958. It is buried under 3,000 meters of ice. A group of scientists used aircraft with magnetometers, gravity meters and ice penetrating radar. They found that the mountains had been there for a billion years. The range spreads out in a 1,800 long earth fracture reaching from the eastern Antarctic to India. This region of the Earth has been relatively free of tectonic activity. A billion years is short in tectonic terms, so the mountains have sharp edges not greatly worn away by water, wind and snow. The rift system also contains the largest subglacial lakes on the Antarctic continent. Before animals roamed the Earth micro-continents collided to form the thick crustal root on which the mountain range stands. As the mountains eroded the root was preserved, frozen by the bitter cold. When dinosaurs existed 250,000 years ag