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Apr. 16, 2021 11:10 PM
A cave in central Israel boasts “living fossils” of species that went extinct millions of years ago, but scientists fear that invasive species and a plan to turn the area into a floodwater reservoir will do in the unique scorpions and crabs that dwell there.
Living fossils are species that resemble extinct species that are only known from fossils. At Ayalon Cave near Ramle, the researchers want to turn the site into a nature reserve as soon as possible.
The 2.7-kilometer-long (1.7-mile) cave sits in the middle of a quarry used by the company Nesher Israel Cement Enterprises. The cave and its species were discovered 15 years ago; since then, only researchers have been allowed in.
The view from Shukbah Cave (Credit: Amos Frumkin)
(CN) Neanderthals used stone-shaping technology once thought to be used exclusively by homo sapiens, in a discovery revealed this week that has scientists rethinking how ancient humans developed.
Researchers discovered stone tools in cave sites in the Levant, a historical region in the present-day Middle East, belonging to Neanderthal communities, distant cousins of modern humans.
In a study published Monday in the journal Scientific Reports, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany detailed their findings of the use of Nubian Levallois technology that helped ancient humans craft stone tools by chipping away at stone to make weapons such as spearheads.
New analysis of a fossil tooth and stone tools from Shukbah Cave reveals Neanderthals used stone tool technologies thought to have been unique to modern.
Neanderthals and humans used the technology, new study shows
Neanderthals were every bit as smart and creative as humans.
In the good old days, when humans and Neanderthals roamed the land together, the Levallois technology was pretty much the best available technology of the time. It was essentially a flint knapping technique that may not seem like much to you nowadays, but offered distinct advantages over what was available before.
Until recently, it was thought that only
Homo sapiens had access to this technology and could use it, but a single tooth seems to challenge that belief. The tooth, long-held in a private collection, was recently re-analyzed. It appears to belong to a 9-year-old Neanderthal child and was linked to an assemblage that used Levallois technology, indicating that Neanderthals were capable of using the technique as well as humans. The study is notable because it challenges the long-held idea that Levallois technology is a trademark of human evolution.
The fossilised tooth of a nine-year-old child found in Shuqba (or Shukbah) Cave is the most southerly evidence of Neanderthals ever discovered. New archaeological evidence from the cave, in the hills to the north of Jerusalem, also suggests for.