Neanderthals and Denisovans Lecture 15 Flashcards
What are Mousterian tools?
Typified by the wide use of the Levallois technique produced using soft hammer percussion e.g. bones, antlers and wood
What are Chatelperronian tools?
More advanced than Mousterian tools.
What is the Levallois technique?
A distinctive type of stone knapping involving the striking of lithic flakes from a prepared lithic core so that when the lithic flake separates from the core it has all of its edges sharpened by the earlier trimming work.
When does hunting technology occur in southern Europe?
About 150,000 ya
What suggests neanderthals were building shelters?
Large amounts of mammoth bones have been found that looked like they had been used as supports.
How do we know that neanderthals took care of the elderly?
There are fossils of people who would not have been able to survive without help.
What evidence is there that neanderthals were cannibals?
Neanderthal remains were found that were butchered in the same way as animals.
In Ardeche six individuals were found. The skulls and bones had been broken apart to remove brain or marrow.
it could have been some sort of ritual or survival.
What evidence is there of art in neanderthals?
It looks like they were taking the feathers off of corvids (maybe for decoration)?
Some perforated teeth and bones in France and Germany have been associated with body ornamentation.
What were neanderthals eating and how do we know this?
They were eating meat, mushrooms, plants and there is evidence of inhaling wood smoke and eating cooked starchy plants.
You can find small remains of food in plaque.
How did neanderthals adapt their diets to their environments?
Neanderthals in the north mostly ate meat but also some vegetables and mushrooms, in the south they ate barely any meat and mostly plants
How do we know neanderthals were using medicinal plants?
In one individual that had an abscess in its teeth there is evidence of poplar bark being used which is where we get aspirin and evidence of mouldy vegetables which is where we get penicillin.
Poplar has a really bad taste so why else would they eat it?
Where is ancient DNA extracted from?
Typically from bones and teeth but also mummified soft tissues, hair and palaeocoprolites
What are corprolites?
fossilised faeces
Why is ancient DNA challenging to work with?
1) It degrades exponentially over time
2) Even when well preserved it degrades to short sequences
3) Much more microbial DNA than target DNA
4) Contamination with modern human DNA during excavation or handling
What makes us think neanderthals had light skin and red hair?
In some neanderthals they found some mutations that had an effect on the end protein resulting in red hair and light skin.
However, skin and hair colour are under the control of many genes so you can’t know for sure.
