The British Museum boasts a mind-blowing display of the world’s oldest known sculptures, drawings and portraits, crafted by the hands of Homo sapiens as long as 40,000 years ago. Ice Age Art: The Arrival of the Modern Mind ran from 7 February until 26 May 2013, but the photos are to die for.
Researchers have drawn up the first definitive list of genetic changes that make modern humans different from our nearest ancient ancestors, who died out tens of thousands of years ago. “We are quite confident that among these genetic changes lie the basis for the interesting differences between modern humans and Neanderthals,” said Janet Kelso, a geneticist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.
“Minted in Norway, spent in Iceland, gambled in Greenland, traded in Newfoundland, carried to Goddard where it fell through a hole in a brave’s pocket”. Beach brings us the tale of the Maine Penny, a medieval coin found in New England soil. Looks like one of the legit OOP artifacts.
But what if humans are not smarter than animals – we just don’t understand them? I repeat: there’s always the results of the Laser Pointer Test to consider!
Godfather Christmas and the Yuletide Enforcers: Have Yourself a Monstrous Christmas!
Neanderthals may have invented a tool that is still in use today. Bone tool called ‘lissoir’ made by Neanderthals is similar to instruments still used by modern leather workers.
Mark Plotkin’s “Tales of a Shaman’s Apprentice: An Ethnobotanist Searches for New Medicines in the Amazon Rain Forest” sounds like an interesting read.
How much of religious history was influenced by mind-altering substances? I’ve got a small bet in favor of the psychoactives triggering the development of culture, myself. What would a developing culture make of the shamans that continued to explore Nature’s neuroactive toolkit for performance tuning? Were they later called Evil Wizards?
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