New Delhi: Scientists have discovered the remains of a paleolithic dinner, which proves that 90,000 years ago, Neanderthals were cooking and eating crabs.
The findings reveal new insights into the lives of Neanderthals and how they lived.
According to the team from Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES-CERCA), Neanderthals regularly harvested large brown crabs in pools in the rocky coast, targeting adult animals with an average carapace width of 16cm. The animals were brought whole to the cave, where they were roasted on coals and then eaten, the team concludes.
While the team found a wide variety of shellfish remains on the site, the deposits are overwhelmingly represented by brown crabs. Their size was estimated by calculating the size of the carapace relative to the crabs’ pincers, which preserve better than other parts of the crab, so are more likely to survive and be found by scientists. The archeologists assessed the breakage on the shells, looked for butchery or percussion marks, and determined whether the crabs had been exposed to high heat.
The team found that the crabs were mostly large adults which would yield about 200g of meat. By studying the patterns of damage on the shells and claws, they ruled out the involvement of other predators: there were no carnivore or rodent marks, and the patterns of breakage didn’t reflect predation by birds. Crabs are evasive, but Neanderthals could have harvested brown crabs of this size from low tide pools in the summer.
The results contradict the obsolete notion that Neanderthals were primitive cave dwellers who lived off big-game carcasses. Read more
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Peak into an ‘invisible’ galaxy from the young universe
Researchers have studied in detail a mysterious and very distant object – in a universe as it was ‘just’ two billion years after the Big Bang – and this could give them new insights into how galaxies evolve.
The object is so dark that it is almost invisible – even to highly sophisticated instruments. Its nature has long been the subject of debate, but by means of surveys made with the ALMA interferometer, researchers from International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Italy were able to gather data.
Compact, and containing large quantities of interstellar dust, it is a young galaxy, forming stars at about 1,000 times the rate of the Milky Way, according to the researchers.
The description of this galaxy, published in The Astrophysical Journal this week, will be useful for revealing more about this very distant object and indicating new approaches for the study of other ‘dark’ celestial bodies.
Such distant galaxies are mines of information about the past and future evolution of the universe. Read more
New layer of partially melted rocks discovered
Researchers at Brown University, the University of Texas at Austin and Cornell University, have discovered a new layer 160 km beneath the Earth’s surface, which appears whenever temperatures exceed 2,640 degrees Fahrenheit in parts of an interior portion of the planet known as the asthenosphere.
The findings mark the first time this partially melted rock layer has been detected at this scale in the asthenosphere, a layer of Earth that is made of mostly solid but malleable rock that the planet’s tectonic plates rest on and glide over as they shift.
The findings also show, rather surprisingly and counterintuitively, that this layer of partly melted rock doesn’t make the asthenosphere any softer or easier for tectonic plates to traverse, suggesting it plays little role in enabling plate tectonics.
The research represents an important step towards resolving the long-held debate among geoscientists on whether the asthenosphere contains extensive patches of molten rock and what role this melt plays in plate motion. Read more
Large filament of solar plasma breaks off from the Sun
A large filament of solar plasma has broken off the Sun’s surface and is circling its north pole. However, scientists are not yet aware of what caused it.
“Talk about polar vortex! Material from a northern prominence just broke away from the main filament & is now circulating in a massive polar vortex around the north pole of our star,” space weather forecaster Tamitha Skov tweeted while sharing a video sequence taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory showing the odd whirlwind. “Implications for understanding the sun’s atmospheric dynamics above 55° here cannot be overstated!”
Scientists have regularly observed filaments tear away from this pole-embracing plasma hedgerow, but they have yet to see it form such a polar whirlwind until now.
They know that the sun’s polar regions play a key role in the generation of the star’s magnetic field, which, in turn, drives its 11-year cycle of activity. They couldn’t, however, observe that region directly.
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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