Skhul Remains
The Skhul/Qafzeh hominins or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans are hominin fossils discovered in Es-Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel. They are today classified as ''Homo sapiens'', among the earliest of their species in Eurasia. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel; Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter near Nazareth in Lower Galilee. The remains found at Es Skhul, together with those found at the Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve and Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh, were classified in 1939 by Arthur Keith and Theodore D. McCown as ''Palaeoanthropus palestinensis'', a descendant of ''Homo heidelbergensis''. History The remains exhibit a mix of traits found in archaic and anatomically modern humans. They have been tentatively dated at about 80,000-120,000 years old using electron paramagnetic resonance and thermoluminescence dating techniques. The brain case is similar to modern humans, but they possess brow ridges and a projecting facial profile like Neanderthals. They were initially r ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Skhul 5 Cast, Norma Frontalis
Es-Skhul (es-Skhūl, ar, السخول; meaning ''kid'', ''young goat'') or the Skhul Cave is a prehistoric cave site situated about south of the city of Haifa, Israel, and about from the Mediterranean Sea. Together with the nearby sites of Tabun Cave, Jamal cave, and the cave at El Wad, Skhul is part of the Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. The site was first excavated by Dorothy Garrod during summer of 1929. Several human skeletons were found in the cave, belonging to an ancient species of Homo sapiens. Both Neanderthals – and anatomically modern humans were present in the region from 200,000 to 45,000 years ago – around 100,000 years ago. The remains found at es-Skhul, together with those found at the other caves of Wadi el-Mughara and Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh, were classified in 1939 by Arthur Keith and as ''Palaeoanthropus palestinensis'', a descendant of ''Homo heidelbergensis''. [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Homo Heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of ''H. erectus'' in 1950 as ''H. e. heidelbergensis'', but towards the end of the century, it was more widely classified as its own species. It is debated whether or not to constrain ''H. heidelbergensis'' to only Europe or to also include African and Asian specimens, and this is further confounded by the type specimen (Mauer 1) being a jawbone, because jawbones feature few diagnostic traits and are generally missing among Middle Pleistocene specimens. Thus, it is debated if some of these specimens could be split off into their own species or a subspecies of ''H. erectus''. Because the classification is so disputed, the Middle Pleistocene is often called the "muddle in the middle." ''H. heidelbergensis'' is regarded as a chronospecies, evolving from an Africa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Shea (archaeologist)
John Joseph Shea (born 9 May 1960 in Hamilton, Massachusetts) is an American archaeologist and paleoanthropologist. He has been a professor of anthropology at Stony Brook University in New York since 1992. Background Shea was born in 1960 to Joseph P. and Gloria C. (Cyr) Shea. In 1982 he earned a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Boston University and a Ph.D. from Harvard in Anthropology in 1991. His first doctoral advisor was Glynn Isaac, after whose death, Ofer Bar-Yosef, David Pilbeam, and K.C. Chang oversaw his training. Shea has conducted archaeological fieldwork in Israel, Jordan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Belize, New Mexico, and Massachusetts. He is married to Patricia L. Crawford and resides in Stony Brook, New York and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Work Shea's research focuses on stone tools and how they relate to major issues in human evolution. He has experience in flintknapping and other ancient technologies. He is specialized in Paleoanthropology ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Archaeology Of Israel
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Despite the importance of the country to three major religions, serious archaeological research only began in the 15th century.''Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel'', edited by Raphael Patai, Herzl Press and McGraw-Hill, New York, 1971, vol. I, pp. 66–71 Although he never travelled to the Levant, or even left the Netherlands, the first major work on the antiquities of Israel is considered to be Adriaan Reland's ''Antiquitates Sacrae veterum Hebraeorum,'' published in 1708. Edward Robinson, an American theologian who visited the country in 1838, published its first topographical studies. Lady Hester Stanhope performed the first modern excavation at Ashkelon in 1815. A Frenchman, Louis Felicien de Sau ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Jebel Faya
Jebel Faya ( ar, جَبَل ٱلْفَايَة, Jabal Al-Fāyah; FAY-NE1) is an archaeological site and limestone hill or escarpment near Al Madam in the Emirate of Sharjah, the UAE, located about east of the city of Sharjah, and between the shoreline of the Gulf and Al Hajar Mountains. It contains tool assemblages from the Paleolithic, Neolithic, Iron Age, and Bronze Age. Because its deepest assemblage has been dated to 125,000 years ago, it was thought to be the world's most ancient settlement yet discovered of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa at the time of its discovery in 2011. Finds of a yet earlier date (50,000 years) have since been found at Misliya cave in the Levant. The finds from excavations at Faya and surrounding digs are displayed at the Mleiha Archaeological Centre. Site history Excavations at Jebel Faya were first conducted between 2003 and 2010 by Simon J. Armitage, Sabah A. Jasim, Anthony E. Marks, Adrian G. Parker, Vitaly I. Usik, and Hans-P ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sinai Peninsula
The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a land bridge between Asia and Africa. Sinai has a land area of about (6 percent of Egypt's total area) and a population of approximately 600,000 people. Administratively, the vast majority of the area of the Sinai Peninsula is divided into two Governorates of Egypt, governorates: the South Sinai Governorate and the North Sinai Governorate. Three other governorates span the Suez Canal, crossing into African Egypt: Suez Governorate on the southern end of the Suez Canal, Ismailia Governorate in the center, and Port Said Governorate in the north. In the classical era the region was known as Arabia Petraea. The peninsula acquired the name Sinai in modern times due to the assumption that a mountain near Saint Catherine's Monastery is the Biblical ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area.Sayre, April Pulley (1999), ''Africa'', Twenty-First Century Books. . With billion people as of , it accounts for about of the world's human population. Africa's population is the youngest amongst all the continents; the median age in 2012 was 19.7, when the worldwide median age was 30.4. Despite a wide range of natural resources, Africa is the least wealthy continent per capita and second-least wealthy by total wealth, behind Oceania. Scholars have attributed this to different factors including geography, climate, tribalism, colonialism, the Cold War, neocolonialism, lack of democracy, and corruption. Despite this low concentration of wealth, recent economic expansion and the large and young population make Afr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kebara Cave
Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above mean sea level, above sea level on the western escarpment of the Mount Carmel, Carmel Range, in the Ramat HaNadiv preserve of Zichron Yaakov. History The cave was inhabited between 60,000 and 48,000 Before Present, BP and is famous for its Excavation (archaeology), excavated finds of hominid remains. Dorothy Garrod and Francis Turville-Petre excavated in the cave in the early 1930s. Excavations have since yielded a large number of human remains associated with a Mousterian archaeological context. The first specimen discovered in 1965, during the excavations of M. Stekelis, was an incomplete infant skeleton (Kebara 1). The most significant discovery made at Kebara Cave was Kebara 2 in 1982, the most complete postcranial Neanderthal skeleton found to date. Nicknamed "Moshe" and dating to ''circa'' 60,000 Before ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neanderthal Admixture
There is evidence for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans during the Middle Paleolithic and early Upper Paleolithic. The interbreeding happened in several independent events that included Neanderthals and Denisovans, as well as several unidentified hominins. In Eurasia, interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans with modern humans took place several times. The introgression events into modern humans are estimated to have happened about 47,000–65,000 years ago with Neanderthals and about 44,000–54,000 years ago with Denisovans. Neanderthal-derived DNA has been found in the genomes of most or possibly all contemporary populations, varying noticeably by region. It accounts for 1–4% of modern genomes for people outside Sub-Saharan Africa, although estimates vary, and either none or possibly up to 0.3% — according to recent research — for those in Africa. It is highest in East Asians, intermediate in Europeans, and lower in Southeast Asians. According to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Neanderthals
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the "causes of Neanderthal disappearance about 40,000 years ago remain highly contested," demographic factors such as small population size, inbreeding and genetic drift, are considered probable factors. Other scholars have proposed competitive replacement, assimilation into the modern human genome (bred into extinction), great climate change, climatic change, disease, or a combination of these factors. It is unclear when the line of Neanderthals split from that of Early modern human, modern humans; studies have produced various intervals ranging from 315,000 to more than 800,000 years ago. The date of divergence of Neanderthals from their ancestor ''Homo heidelbergensis, H. heidelbergensis'' is also unclear. The oldest potential ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Thermoluminescence Dating
Thermoluminescence dating (TL) is the determination, by means of measuring the accumulated radiation dose, of the time elapsed since material containing crystalline minerals was either heated (lava, ceramics) or exposed to sunlight (sediments). As a crystalline material is heated during measurements, the process of thermoluminescence starts. Thermoluminescence emits a weak light signal that is proportional to the radiation dose absorbed by the material. It is a type of luminescence dating. The technique has wide application, and is relatively cheap at some US$300–700 per object; ideally a number of samples are tested. Sediments are more expensive to date. , University of Wollongong, Australia [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Electron Paramagnetic Resonance
Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) or electron spin resonance (ESR) spectroscopy is a method for studying materials that have unpaired electrons. The basic concepts of EPR are analogous to those of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but the spins excited are those of the electrons instead of the atomic nuclei. EPR spectroscopy is particularly useful for studying metal complexes and organic radicals. EPR was first observed in Kazan State University by Soviet physicist Yevgeny Zavoisky in 1944, and was developed independently at the same time by Brebis Bleaney at the University of Oxford. Theory Origin of an EPR signal Every electron has a magnetic moment and spin quantum number s = \tfrac , with magnetic components m_\mathrm = + \tfrac or m_\mathrm = - \tfrac . In the presence of an external magnetic field with strength B_\mathrm , the electron's magnetic moment aligns itself either antiparallel ( m_\mathrm = - \tfrac ) or parallel ( m_\mathrm = + \tfrac ) to the fie ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |