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...

Denisovans were similar to humans . A finger bone has been found that is human-like. Neanderthals had quite different fingers than Homo sapiens. Only five fossils remain of Denisovans a little finger, a mandible and three molars. Despite artistic depictions of the hominid it is not know what they looked like. Denisovans  were much further ahead in their development than Neanderthals. It seems that  Denisovans  and humans followed a similar evolutionary path , while Neanderthals became large animal hunters and developed muscular bodies. Neanderthal could have taken on dangerous animals and survive while humans would succumb. Though  Denisovans  branched off from Neanderthals , just why they became more like humans is not known. Maybe common habitats make for creatures of the same ilk. There is evidence that the three types of apes interbred. This is a mystery in itself because the missing Y Chromosome would make fertile progeny impossible. What ma...

The Announcement that skeletons found in South Africa belong to a new species of Man is premature.  They were found in a cave near Johannesburg. The "new species" was named Australopithecus sediba . It was claimed to be the "rosetta stone" into the past. They were also the most complete skeletons ever discovered. The creatures walked upright, had long arms and powerful hands. Unfortunately, they were small brained. Paleoanthropologists not involved in the find say the name chosen is just a "wastebasket" category. They are not ancestors of Man. Furthermore, some animals in the species could have had larger or smaller brains. It could still be transitional in evolution to Man, but very distant. It may fit into Homo . Perhaps it is a sister species to Homo habilis . The brain size of Australopithecus sediba is the same as Homo floresiensis , the Hobbit, of Indonesia. The features in sediba are similar to those in other Homo species. Paleoanthropologi...