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Chauvet Pont d’Arc the discovery of 36,000-year-old art
September 12 talk in London
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Countless tales are hidden in our ancestors' oldest caves. National Geographic Explorer & Photographer Stephen Alvarez is hosting a one-day talk and photo exhibit and would like you to join him on a journey back in time to our ancestor’s prehistoric lives.
Ancient Art in the Game of Thrones
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In a scene that could almost have come out of an Ancient Art Archive presentation, Jon and Daenerys view ancient art in a cave. "They  were right here, standing where we are standing..." The art bit starts around 2:40. Now to my eye, those engravings look a little too fresh to be ancient, and Jon Snow's motives might not make him the most objective observer. If I were Daenerys I wouldn't assume that they were genuinely old until the Uranium / Thorium or Carbon 14 dates came back and were peer reviewed.
DNA is reshaping our view of ourselves
DNA is reshaping our view of ourselves
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The story of human migration from Africa into the rest of the world is the original story of exploration. Those first people who walked out of Africa and into the vast unpopulated world told their story of exploration on rock and cave walls as they went. The timeline for that tale has been refined by looking at the DNA our ancestors left behind (more on that in another post). But that same DNA is also showing that the human migration is not as straightforward as we once believed. Prevailing evidence is that modern humans expanded out from Africa between 70,000 and 50,000 BP. Our ancestors encountered and replaced dwindling Neanderthal populations in Europe. However, some Neanderthal lives on in us. With the exception of native Africans, most people have up to 2% Neanderthal DNA. That story got a bit more muddled this month. A study published in Nature Communications -summarized nicely...
Bulls painted in Altamira Cave
Pointillism is 38,000 years old. We have invented nothing
Pointillism is 38,000 years old. We have invented nothing.