Neandertals-first builders of structures

[Big Bad Voodoo]

Humanity’s extinct cousins constructed a large, ring-shaped enclosure out of 116 mammoth bones and tusks at least 44,000 years ago in West Asia, say archaeologist Laëtitia Demay of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and her colleagues.

Read more...

[Aus Der Box Skeptisch]

This is kinda cool. Albeit I need to read the full article to see what is being implied. I love Neanderthal topics for some reason. Course maybe its ancestral. LOL

Thanks again melo for giving me something to read.

[Big Bad Voodoo]

This is kinda cool. Albeit I need to read the full article to see what is being implied. I love Neanderthal topics for some reason. Course maybe its ancestral. LOL

Thanks again melo for giving me something to read.

It was my pleasure Aus.

Cheers.

[The Puzzler]

Yes, thanks, pretty good info.

Neandertals are stumping for bragging rights as the first builders of mammoth-bone structures, an accomplishment usually attributed to Stone Age people.

Humanity’s extinct cousins constructed a large, ring-shaped enclosure out of 116 mammoth bones and tusks at least 44,000 years ago in West Asia, say archaeologist Laëtitia Demay of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and her colleagues. The bone edifice, which encircles a 40-square-meter area in which mammoths and other animals were butchered, cooked and eaten, served either to keep out cold winds or as a base for a wooden building, the scientists propose in a paper published online November 26 in Quaternary International.

Mammoth-bone huts previously discovered at Homo sapiens sites in West Asia date to between 27,500 and 15,000 years ago. The new discovery comes from Molodova, a Ukrainian site first excavated in the 1950s. There, Neandertals erected a mammoth-bone structure that’s unlike later mammoth-bone huts, suggesting that the two Homo species developed these practices independently, says study coauthor Stéphane Péan, also of France’s National Museum of Natural History.

From your link.

Someone there made a comment how elephants are attracted to elephant graveyards, coulda made the job of catching them (mammoths) much easier too.

Right in the area of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture area of later times...

At its height, the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture would have been one of the most technologically advanced societies on earth, producing woven textiles, exquisitely fine and beautifully decorated ceramics, and a wide variety of tools and weapons, as well as developing large-scale salt production, new house construction methods, and agricultural and animal husbandry techniques.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cucuteni-Trypillian_culture

I have a topic on here, Stan Gooch and the Neanderthal Legacy, Gooch's ideas are usually shot down in flames but you just never know what these Neanderthals were REALLY capable of.

Edited December 6, 2011 by The Puzzler

[Harte]

There is evidence that Homo Erectus built structures as well.

Huts, that is.

H. Erectus predates Neanderthal by over a million years. I'm not sure of the dates of the Erectus hut evidence so maybe the Neanderthals were first. The two species overlapped by a couple hundred thousand years.

Harte

[monkipuzzle]

Adam and Eve built the first structures

[lightly]

There is evidence that Homo Erectus built structures as well.

Huts, that is.

H. Erectus predates Neanderthal by over a million years. I'm not sure of the dates of the Erectus hut evidence so maybe the Neanderthals were first. The two species overlapped by a couple hundred thousand years.

Harte

BBC news story of one claim of 500,000 year old Erectus hut evidence ... not sure how valid...

it also mentions 200,000- 400,000 year old Heidelburg Man (i think) hut evidence in France.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/662794.stm

Wednesday, 1 March, 2000, 19:11 GMT

World's oldest building discovered

Japanese archaeologists have uncovered the remains of what is believed to be the world's oldest artificial structure, on a hillside at Chichibu, north of Tokyo.

The shelter would have been built by an ancient ancestor of humans, Homo erectus, who is known to have used stone tools. The site has been dated to half a million years ago, according to a report in New Scientist.

°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°◊°

"It does sound important," says Chris Stringer, head of the human origins group at London's Natural History Museum. "If this is correctly dated and correctly interpreted, it is the first good evidence from 500,000 years ago of a hut structure made by these people."

Before the discovery, the oldest remains of a structure were those at Terra Amata in France, from around 200,000 to 400,000 years ago.

[Abramelin]

Japan is on the edge of the Asian continent.

You'd think that it could be possible some of these Erectusses went a but further north-east and crossed the Bering Strait, maybe on the backs of mammoths, lol.

[Harte]

BBC news story of one claim of 500,000 year old Erectus hut evidence ... not sure how valid...

it also mentions 200,000- 400,000 year old Heidelburg Man (i think) hut evidence in France.

Heidi. man is one of the subclasses of H. Erectus, IIRC.

Thanks for tracking that down, Lightly.

Harte

[jules99]

Heidi. man is one of the subclasses of H. Erectus, IIRC.

Thanks for tracking that down, Lightly.

Harte

Orangutans build nests to sleep in and even umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain. Maybe building structures/nests is a normal part of primate behaviour. This ability may have existed in hominids since the beginning.

http://home.worldcom.ch/negenter/081NestbApes_E.html

[lightly]

Heidi. man is one of the subclasses of H. Erectus, IIRC.

Thanks for tracking that down, Lightly.

Harte

Ah, thanks.

.... my pleasure Mr. Harte. I nearly posted a couple sites earlier... but the findings are somewhat contested , so i chickened out

Good topic Melo, Interesting to learn, and think, about what our earliest relatives were like.

[Harte]

Orangutans build nests to sleep in and even umbrellas to protect themselves from the rain.

So do birds. I wouldn't be too quick to call it primate behavior.

Harte

[questionmark]

So do birds. I wouldn't be too quick to call it primate behavior.

Harte

In fact, except unwarranted aggression there is hardly any primate specific behavior.

[Night Walker]

In fact, except unwarranted aggression there is hardly any primate specific behavior.

What about social deception? I think it is refered to as "tactical deception" in the literature - Acts from the normal repertoire of the agent, deployed such that another individual is likely to misinterpret what the acts signify, to the advantage of the agent. (Byrne & Whiten 1992)

We humans have turned the behaviour into an art form...

[jules99]

So do birds. I wouldn't be too quick to call it primate behavior.

Harte

With primates structure building is referred to as a tradition, because the behaviour is learned and passed along socially, as opposed to being an innate behaviour.

My point was that structure building could be inferred to have existed from the earliest days of hominid development because we see evidence of it in primates today. We see evidence of tool use going back about 1.8 million yrs at a point where habilis' cranial capacity is still greater than orangutans and chimps, so why shouldnt structures also have been built? Structures provide many survival benefits...

[questionmark]

<br>What about social deception? I think it is refered to as "tactical deception" in the literature - <i>Acts from the normal repertoire of the agent, deployed such that another individual is likely to misinterpret what the acts signify, to the advantage of the agent.</i> (Byrne & Whiten 1992)<br><br>We humans have turned the behaviour into an art form...<br>

<br><br>Typical in all linear society forming animals, including some insects.<br><br>Egotism is a survival strategy.<br><br><br>

[NatureBoff]

There was evidence of mammoth bones being used for shelters in South America if I remember correctly. This new find suggests that they may have made it to the americas around 40,000 years ago and made some footprints now preserved in volcanic ash.

[Harte]

What about social deception? I think it is refered to as "tactical deception" in the literature - Acts from the normal repertoire of the agent, deployed such that another individual is likely to misinterpret what the acts signify, to the advantage of the agent

Birds do that too, believe it or not.

Harte

[Alienated Being]

Adam and Eve built the first structures

Harry Potter built the first structures, actually.

[Rhincewind]

no the first ever structure was built by...

starbucks. They have always been here and like a dormant plague will always remain