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Crown findings4/17/2023 ![]() ![]() The cessation of development occurs in approximately 10-20% of clinically recognized pregnancies, increasing with advancing parental age. She notes that if the casts had been properly taken care of, it may not have been necessary to go back to the site and that we might have been able to draw this important conclusion earlier.Early pregnancy loss (miscarriage) is defined as a nonviable, intrauterine pregnancy with either an empty gestational sac or a gestational sac containing an embryo or fetus without cardiac activity within the first 12 6/7 weeks of gestation. "This was work that was done 50 years ago," Pilaar Birch said, " the casts that had been made from this trackway had actually been lost." However, Pilaar Birch highlighted this story not because of its extraordinary findings, but rather for how it highlights the need for better preservation of our archaeological assets. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce covered these findings earlier this month. The prints, which are an estimated 3.6 million years old, are the oldest evidence of bipedal locomotion of a human ancestor. Researchers returned to the site and upon reexamination determined that the tracks belonged to an early hominin species, not to an animal species like a bear, as was previously thought. She chose to feature a paper published recently in Nature about a renewed analysis of footprints discovered in the 1970s in Tanzania. ![]() Suzanne Pilaar Birch is an associate professor of archaeology and geography at the University of Georgia in Athens. And so maybe we shouldn't rule out the chances with decent, careful lab work and developing techniques." How to not lose track of our tracksĭr. "I think it shows that the things that maybe were previously dismissed as being impossible may not be impossible. Herridge made sure to highlight one of the paper co-authors, Patrícia Pečnerová, whose ingenious lab techniques made sequencing the DNA possible. "It shows that you can get genetic information way, way, way further back in time that we previously thought was possible." She points out that while the cold conditions of the permafrost helped preserve the DNA, the sheer age of the samples is groundbreaking nonetheless. Herridge said this DNA was especially valuable because the last million years were a key period for understanding the course of mammal evolution. "To me, it's just like a proper game changer!" "That's an angle on the Neanderthal life that we don't often get to see," Wragg Sykes said, adding that the discovery helps give a sense of humanity to this not-so-distant human relative. The discovery instead gives support to the theory that hunting and gathering might have been a family affair, involving a collaborative and intergenerational effort.Īdorably, the paper also noted that some of the footprints which belonged to children were "grouped in a chaotic arrangement," as if they were playing. The diversity in age is key here and actually helps to challenge a common assumption that Neanderthals foraged in solitude, with the adults peeling off from the group to find food for the children. They seem to be sort of foraging around on the edge of a lagoon," Wragg Sykes said. "This is especially nice, because it's a group - mixed age, including children, some of which are quite young. While these aren't the first Neanderthal footprints to be discovered, they are very special. Researchers used modern imaging technology to gather data and analyze the 100,000-year-old footprints. Rebecca Wragg Sykes is an archaeologist who specializes in Neanderthals, a relative of modern humans that went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Neanderthals may have been more human than we thinkĭr. They told us what they thought were some of the most important developments in their field in 2021. We spoke to the Trowelblazers, a group of four female archaeologists of different specialties dedicated to highlighting the historic and integral role of women in the "digging sciences." We take a look at some of the biggest advancements in archaeology from this year. So while archaeologists spent less time out digging, 2021 was still a good year in archaeology. Global lockdowns and political strife made it a tough year for archaeologists, at least in terms of getting out there on excavation sites.īut despite what many might think, archaeology isn't just about sifting through soil in search of lost artifacts.Ī lot of the work actually happens far away from the dig site, in labs where scientists are analyzing these found objects, trying to piece together humankind's unrecorded history. The pandemic has made the future uncertain, but archaeologists never stopped working to discover our past. ![]()
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