Episode 276: Hominins and Art
b"It's Nicholas's episode this week, and Nicholas wants to learn more about hominins, the ancestors and cousins of modern humans!\\n\\nHappy birthday to Autumn! I hope you have a great birthday!\\n\\nFurther listening:\\n\\nHumans Part One\\n\\nFurther reading:\\n\\nWere Neanderthals the Earliest Cave Artists?\\n\\nNeanderthals Built Mysterious Stone Circles\\n\\nDNA reveals first look at enigmatic human relative\\n\\nWhat does it mean to have Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA?\\n\\nHand and footprint art dates to mid-Ice Age\\n\\nRisky food-finding strategy could be the key to human success\\n\\nA stone circle in a cave was probably built by Neandertals:\\n\\n\\n\\nA deer bone with carving on it probably made by Neandertals:\\n\\n\\n\\nSome cave paintings probably made by Neandertals:\\n\\n\\n\\nShow transcript:\\nWelcome to Strange Animals Podcast! I\\u2019m your host, Kate Shaw.\\nThis week is Nicholas\\u2019s episode! Nicholas wanted an updated episode about hominins, our ancient ancestors or species closely related to modern humans. The last time we talked about hominins was way back in episodes 25 and 26, so it\\u2019s definitely time to revisit the topic.\\nBut first, a big birthday shout-out to Autumn! Happy birthday, Autumn, and I hope you have the best birthday so far!\\nIf you haven\\u2019t listened to episode 25 in a while, or ever, I recommend you go back and give it a listen if you want background information about how humans evolved and our closest extinct relatives, Neandertals and Denisovans. I\\u2019ve transcribed that episode finally, so you can read the episode instead of listen to it if you prefer. There\\u2019s a link in the show notes.\\nResults of a study published in January 2022 in the journal Nature has finally dated the oldest known Homo sapiens remains found so far. The remains were found in Ethiopia in the 1960s but the volcanic ash found over them was too fine-grained to date with any certainty. Finally, though, the eruption has been determined to come from a volcano almost 250 miles, or 400 km, away from the remains. The Shala eruption was enormous and took place 230,000 years ago, so since the remains were found below the ash, the person had to have lived at least 230,000 years ago too.\\nWe\\u2019re still learning more about humans and our closest relations because new hominin fossils are being found and studied all the time. But the fossil record doesn\\u2019t tell the whole story. Only a small percentage of bones ever fossilize, and of those, only a tiny fraction are ever found by scientists. But technological advances in genetic testing means that scientists can now extract DNA from the soil. All animals shed fragments of DNA all the time, from skin cells and hairs to poop. A study published in 2021 was able to isolate Neandertal DNA from sediments in three different caves. The DNA matched the known fossils found at the sites and gave more information besides. Instead of being restricted to a single individual whose bones were found and tested, genetic testing of sediments gives genetic information about lots of individuals. In the case of a cave in northern Spain, where lots of stone tools have been found but only a single Neandertal toe bone, it turns out that two different populations of Neandertal had lived in the cave over 100,000 years ago.\\nIn episode 25, I mentioned that Neandertals didn\\u2019t seem to make things the way humans do, especially art. Some researchers even suggest that they couldn\\u2019t think symbolically the way humans do. But in the five years or so since that episode, we\\u2019ve learned a lot more about Neandertals--and they seem to have been pretty artistic after all.\\nThe main problem is that historically, whenever scientists found rock art or carvings from prehistoric times, they assumed humans made it. We might be a little biased. Some art originally thought to be made by humans is now thought to have been made by Neandertals. Most of it is found in caves. Remains of animals are often found in caves because the cave protects them from weather and other factors that ..."