sasquatch chronicles blog

The BBC reports “The Epic Of Gilgamesh – written by a Middle Eastern scholar 2,500 years before the birth of Christ – commemorated the life of the ruler of the city of Uruk, from which Iraq gets its name.

Now, a German-led expedition has discovered what is thought to be the entire city of Uruk – including, where the Euphrates once flowed, the last resting place of its famous King.

“I don’t want to say definitely it was the grave of King Gilgamesh, but it looks very similar to that described in the epic,” Jorg Fassbinder, of the Bavarian department of Historical Monuments in Munich, told the BBC World Service’s Science in Action programme.”

In the book – actually a set of inscribed clay tablets – Gilgamesh was described as having been buried under the Euphrates, in a tomb apparently constructed when the waters of the ancient river parted following his death.

“We found just outside the city an area in the middle of the former Euphrates river¿ the remains of such a building which could be interpreted as a burial,” Mr Fassbinder said.

He said the amazing discovery of the ancient city under the Iraqi desert had been made possible by modern technology. “By differences in magnetisation in the soil, you can look into the ground,” Mr Fassbinder added.

“The difference between mudbricks and sediments in the Euphrates river gives a very detailed structure.” This creates a magnetogram, which is then digitally mapped, effectively giving a town plan of Uruk.

“The most surprising thing was that we found structures already described by Gilgamesh,” Mr Fassbinder stated. “We covered more than 100 hectares. We have found garden structures and field structures as described in the epic, and we found Babylonian houses.”

But he said the most astonishing find was an incredibly sophisticated system of canals.

“Very clearly, we can see in the canals some structures showing that flooding destroyed some houses, which means it was a highly developed system.

“[It was] like Venice in the desert.”

Link to the video

As I mentioned in the last show I will be taking this weekend off. The show will return next week. I hope you are spending this weekend with loved ones and taking time to relax. I wish everyone a safe and happy holiday weekend!

Kristina Killgrove, with LiveScience writes “Editor’s note: This is part of a special package written for the 50th anniversary of the discovery of a 3.2 million-year-old A. afarensis fossil (AL 288-1), nicknamed “Lucy.”

Our ancestor “Lucy,” a young adult Australopithecus afarensis , became world-famous half a century ago after Donald Johanson and colleagues discovered her remarkably complete skeleton in Ethiopia. Today, Lucy is an important touchstone in human evolution because she lived 3.2 million years ago, evolutionarily halfway between our ape ancestors and us.

But Lucy is just one of many famous hominin fossils. From the “Taung Child” to “the Hobbit,” here are some of the most iconic fossils that have transformed what we know about human evolution and our tangled family tree.

Australopithecines

The very first australopithecine to be recognized as a bipedal hominin was the Taung Child , discovered by Raymond Dart in South Africa in 1924 . He named the fossil Australopithecus africanus , which means “southern ape from Africa.” However, it took nearly 20 years for the scientific community to accept the find, in part because the “missing link” between apes and humans was expected to be found in Asia or Europe, not in Africa. Now, the Taung Child is heralded as one of the most important fossils of the 20th century, as its skeleton helped to prove that bipedalism evolved before a large brain did.

Another complete skull from an adult A. africanus was nicknamed Mrs. Ples after its original genus, Plesianthropus (“near-human”). Mrs. Ples was discovered in 1947, when paleontologist Robert Broom accidentally blasted her skull apart while using dynamite to excavate in the Cradle of Humankind in South Africa. In spite of its inauspicious discovery, after the skull was reassembled, Mrs. Ples became the most complete australopithecine skull ever found, dating back 2.35 million years.

In 1959, an extremely robust australopithecine was discovered by Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania. Leakey originally named the skull Zinjanthropus boisei — “Zinj” is an old name for East Africa — and affectionately called him “Dear Boy.” But his massive jaws, as well as teeth four times the size of humans’, led the press to nickname him ” Nutcracker Man .”

This discovery proved that there were two kinds of australopithecines — one very robust and one more slender — roaming Africa 2.5 million to 1 million years ago. When this new fossil was reported at a conference, Dart reportedly joked, “What would have happened if Mrs. Ples had met Dear Boy one dark night?”

The Homo genus

Although Lucy is a comprehensive specimen, the most complete individual ever found is that of Nariokotome Boy, a Homo erectus who lived about 1.5 million years ago. Also called Turkana Boy , this youngster, who was 11 or 12 years old when he died, was found in 1984 in Kenya by paleontologist Kamoya Kimeu. Turkana Boy’s anatomy revealed a body type surprisingly close to ours — he may have reached 6 feet (1.85 meters) tall and 150 pounds (68 kilograms) if he had reached adulthood; he had a large brain; and he was fully adapted for efficient walking and running.

While Nariokotome Boy was likely one of our collective ancestors, two divergent branches of our family tree also have famous members: the “Hobbits,” found on the island of Flores in Indonesia, and Homo naledi , from the Rising Star Cave in South Africa.

Skeletons found in a cave in Indonesia in 2004 surprised researchers because of their tiny size and their comparatively recent time frame: 700,000 to 50,000 years ago. At just 3 feet, 6 inches tall (1.06 meters), the members of the newly identified species, Homo floresiensis , were nicknamed “Hobbits,” and one female was named “Flo”. These individuals created stone tools and walked upright, but other parts of their anatomy were more australopithecine-like, similar to Lucy. No clear explanation has been given for why the Hobbits were so small , but one guess is island dwarfism, where large animals evolve to be smaller over many generations when food is scarce.

Meanwhile, in South Africa, anthropologists discovered H. naledi deep in the Rising Star Cave system. The most complete individual was nicknamed Neo , which means “gift” in the Sesotho language. Neo was a large adult male, and bones from nearly every part of his body were found. H. naledi had a mix of ancient and modern anatomy — hands that were adapted for climbing and feet that were adapted for walking — that was surprising for a species that lived from 336,000 to 236,000 years ago.

While questions about Flo and Neo abound, some famous fossils are answering long-standing questions about our evolutionary history.

Neanderthals and hybrids

For many years after they were first identified in 1856, scientists thought Neanderthals were unintelligent, cave-dwelling brutes who contributed nothing to modern humans. But the discovery of Denisovans in Russia in 2010 and advances in ancient DNA analysis showed that modern humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans were actually “kissing cousins.”

Bones from a 13-year-old girl nicknamed Denny were found in the Denisova cave and studied in 2018 . Denny’s genome showed that she had a Neanderthal mother and a Denisovan father, making her the first — and, to date, only — first-generation hybrid hominin ever discovered. Over the past 15 years, multiple studies have revealed that Neanderthals, Denisovans and Homo sapiens met and mixed many times, but 90,000-year-old Denny remains the poster child for interbreeding between archaic and modern humans.

Although Neanderthals survived for hundreds of thousands of years, they eventually went extinct . ” Thorin ,” whose skull and teeth were found in France in 2015, may have been one of the last Neanderthals, around 42,000 years ago. Named after a dwarf in J. R. R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit,” Thorin has provided evidence that Neanderthals died out because they were isolated. When researchers sequenced Thorin’s genome, they found that his ancestors went 50,000 years without exchanging genes with other Neanderthals.

Denny and Thorin have revealed that, although archaic and modern humans did interact for thousands of years, eventually the Denisovans and Neanderthals disappeared as separate populations, although some of their genes live on in humans.

Source: LiveScience

LiveScience reports “In a fossil first, researchers have announced the discovery of 1.5 million-year-old footprints that prove two different pre-human species coexisted in Kenya. The tracks hint that the species may have interacted, raising new questions about the behavior of our ancestors.

“I would expect the two species would have been aware of each other’s existence on that landscape, and they probably would have recognized each other as being ‘different,'” Kevin Hatala , a paleoanthropologist at Chatham University in Pennsylvania, told Live Science in an email.

Hatala led a team of researchers who analyzed the footprints, which were found at the site of Koobi Fora on the eastern shore of Lake Turkana in 2021. The scientists published their findings Thursday (Nov. 28) in the journal Science .

A number of fossil footprints have been found in East Africa — such as the famous trackway at Laetoli, Tanzania, made by Lucy’s species Australopithecus afarensis 3.6 million years ago. But researchers noticed something unique about the Koobi Fora trackway: Two bipeds with significantly different feet made the tracks along the lake margin within hours of one another.

Several hominin species made their home at Koobi Fora over the span of about 3 million years, including two types of australopithecines and four members of the Homo genus. But because the fossil record is incomplete and fragmentary, paleoanthropologists could not determine which hominins lived on the same landscape at the same time.

The newly discovered Koobi Fora footprint trail is about 26 feet (8 meters) long and includes one trackway consisting of a dozen footprints made by one individual and three more footprints made by others. A giant extinct marabou stork ( Leptoptilos falconeri ) also tracked through the wet mud, which was rapidly buried and preserved.

Hatala and colleagues used 3D imaging techniques to evaluate the shape and movement of the trackmakers’ feet. They found that two of the isolated footprints had high arches and a heel-to-toe footfall like modern humans. These footprints were likely made by our direct ancestor H. erectus , which had a very human-like body shape and size.

However, the trackway of a dozen footprints revealed a different pattern. These tracks were much flatter, with a deeper forefoot strike compared to the heel strike. The researchers also noticed that the big toe was somewhat spread out and not fully in line with the foot as it is in humans, suggesting that the trackmaker was likely Paranthropus boisei , a heavily built australopithecine with large jaws and a divergent big toe.

The sizes of the feet varied, but the researchers do not have enough information to determine whether the trackmakers were males, females or children, Hatala said. The dozen footprints were made by a P. boisei individual who would have worn a U.S. men’s size 8.5 or women’s size 10 shoe, he said, while the isolated H. erectus footprints were smaller, roughly a women’s size 4 to a men’s size 6.

Zach Throckmorton , a paleoanthropologist at Colorado State University who was not involved in the research, told Live Science in an email that “Hatala and colleagues’ comparisons of foot impressions provide compelling and convincing evidence of the coexistence of Homo erectus and Paranthropus boisei at Koobi Fora in Kenya about 1.5 million years ago.” Stability of the big toe is key to humans’ ability to walk and run without foot problems, Throckmorton said, and “the less modern human-like trackway attributed to P. boisei lacks this critical adaptation.”

In addition to revealing important anatomical differences, the footprints hint at the behavior of our hominin ancestors.

“Footprints are a snapshot of a moment in time,” Jeremy DeSilva , a paleoanthropologist at Dartmouth College who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email. This new research means “we now know with certainty that these two different kinds of hominins not only lived at the same time, but they shared the same landscape and walked with slightly different gaits,” DeSilva said. “I wonder what they thought of each other and how they interacted, if at all.”

Link to the full article

This Documentary from 2022 writes “Travel into the abyss and transform your mind with chilling investigative campouts and tales from real people with real experiences to uncover the Secrets of the Sasquatch.”

Link to the Documentary

Interesting Engineering reports “A new species of hominin or humans has been discovered in Northern China with an unforgettable physical feature— large heads.

Everyone knows the Neanderthals, homo sapiens, and Denisovans are amongst the first human species. The sapiens are considered the modern humans in that grouping that migrated out of Africa. However, according to research out of China, the number of prehistoric human species might be growing.

“The morphological diversity among late Quaternary hominin fossils from eastern Asia is greater than we expected,” the authors of a new study stated.

Furthermore, “a number of new eastern Asian hominin taxa” have appeared on researcher’s radar over the past several decades.

Among them, making headlines, is a new species that has been given an apt name – Homo juluensis – for their strikingly large heads. Ju Lu means “huge head” in Chinese, as the South China Morning Post reports.

The ancient human with an impressive head size is shaking up this area of science that lies at the foundation of us, humans. Study authors propose that the Denisovans are actually Homo juluensis and that this research contributes to the “decolonization” of the field so that Asia can assume its rightful place.

A new species of hominid in China: Homo juluensis

In the late 1970s, fossils belonging to 16 individuals were found in two different locations in China. They appeared to belong to a unique species. Thousands of artifacts, stone tools, and animal bones were also uncovered. Strikingly, as lead researchers explained, they seemed to have stumbled upon a horse kill site.

Homo juluensis seemed to have hunted wild horses as a group which they would use entirely, consuming the meat, marrow, and cartilage, and making clothes with the hides with stone tools to survive the brutal winters.

With such an evocative snapshot of the inner workings of this proposed new human species, it sparks many questions, as to what happened to them.

Researchers believe that they lived in small groups, which might have made them susceptible to snowstorms, but they seemed to disappear about 120,000 years ago as modern humans began to migrate across the world.

A new era for the earliest humans?

But first, study authors strike a clear line between this new species of hominin with others but draw a controversial similarity to the Denisovans. Their teeth are alike, leading them to suggest that the Denisovans aren’t related to the Neanderthals but are, in fact, Homo juluensis.

Chinese researchers argued to South China Morning Post that Denisovan refers to a general population rather than a specific species. But Westerners want Chinese fossils to take on this name, Denisovan , but they are proposing the opposite if a new species has been identified, which they claim has been done.

It’s time to reorganize our understanding of the first humans, according to research heads Christopher Bae and Wu Xiujie. As they told SCMP , “ multiple hominin lineages” are turning up in research dating back between 300,000-50,000 years ago. So we might have more than one human species to add to the prehistoric list.

“The eastern Asian record is prompting us to recognize just how complex human evolution is more generally and really forcing us to revise and rethink our interpretations of various evolutionary models to better match the growing fossil record.”

Source: Interesting Engineering

Bradshaw Ranch is a paranormal hotspot near Sedona, Arizona that has been the subject of many conspiracy theories, investigations, and documentaries. Bradshaw Ranch is located outside of Sedona, Arizona. The ranch is privately owned by the United States Government and access beyond the perimeter is restricted.

The ranch was owned by the Bradshaw family until 2000, when it was sold to a private investor. The investor then sold it to a nonprofit, which later sold it to the USFS in 2001. Bradshaw Ranch is known for its association with paranormal phenomena and conspiracy theories, including UFO sightings, mysterious lights, and strange occurrences.

Jeep tours of the ranch are available, which offer a chance to learn about the ranch’s conspiracy theories and see the natural beauty of Sedona. Northern Arizona University has used 22 acres of the ranch for climate research since 2016. Bradshaw Ranch has been featured in documentaries and a 2023 episode of the History Channel show Beyond Skinwalker Ranch.

Link to The Mysteries of Bradshaw Ranch

A listener writes “Wes, take a listen when you have a sec. I recorded this last year when I was hiking with my sons, just now getting around to sending it to you. Whatever it was, it screamed four times.

I only got the last one recorded as I was getting out my phone to start recording and lost valuable time. This area is not near where I visit our hairy friends but it does connect with a narrow, wooded, corridor. It scared the hell outta us, and as we arrived at the parking lot at the trailhead, there was a local police officer present talking with a female FWC officer.

That’s Florida Fish and Wildlife. Our game wardens here. Let me know what you think. Only wildlife we have here that screams is the bobcat, or Florida panther. They say there are no Florida panthers where I hike, but I have actually seen one. I listened to recordings of them but they were not similar.”

I could not place the scream with a known animal. Take a listen, what do you think?

Link to the video

A listener writes “Me and my dad love nature I mean the mountains, hiking, camping anything with outdoors. One day me and my dad decided to do “bushcraft” for a day. Not clear about the time but I know it was reaching sunset so somewhere around 8 to 9 since it was summer. We shot up to Ashford WA. After doing our little “bushcraft” we decided to head back.

On our way back my dad parked in this little game made trail off the rode. At this point it was it was still light out but you can see the sun set. My dad suggested I should go with him down the trail to do our bigfoot call. Me being tired wet, sandy, just overall dirty I decided to stay behind.

After a little bit my dad turned the corner of the trail till he was out of site. Keep in mind my dad is wearing blue jeans, orange shit, and a pair of brown shoes. After he turned the corner I thought it would be a good idea to hide in the back of our car to scare him when he comes back. After ten minutes of no return I peaked my head up to see when he was on his way back.

That’s when I saw this thing it was at least 7-8 feet tall. It was jet black with some bark or moss tangled with us fur. My dad is wearing bright colors this thing was jet black. No one was out there besides me and my dad. This thing was carrying a fallen tree or a huge log. He was carrying it like he was playing tug of war. Like both his hands on it while jumping back like something was pulling it back. Sometimes he would stop and pound the stick with his fist. I really couldn’t believe it so I peeked my head out the window to get clearer view.

I saw more detail too much to write down so I prefer to explain it over call. I yelled “NEBRASKA” as that’s me and my dad’s code word for trouble. I went back into the car to grave my phone to see if I can record it but by the time I peeked back out he was gone and the trees were moving like something ran past it and keep in mind… There was no wind. There was so many more details I would like to tell you.”

Here is some dumb news for your holiday weekend. Guy points laser at helicopter, gets tracked by the FBI, and then gets arrested by the cops, all in the span of five minutes. Mess around and find out and this guy found out.

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (WMC) – Tennessee Highway Patrol has arrested and charged a man accused of pointing a laser at a THP-operated helicopter.
On November 1, troopers reported that someone was pointing a laser into the cockpit of the helicopter; the shining of the laser affected all three passengers and could have put their lives at risk.

Upon further investigation, a trooper was able to find the home of the suspect, who was identified as Eric Price, 47.

Price reportedly admitted that was the person who pointed the laser at the THP helicopter. He was taken into custody and is now facing aggravated assault charges. Mathew Descheneaux is a pilot who talked about how dangerous this situation could have been.

“You know, the laser hits the windshield, that is going to sort of magnify it and kind of light up the whole cockpit. And even though it is just a tiny beam, it will magnify and light everything up in the darkness,” Descheneaux said.

The FAA reported over 13,000 laser strikes in 2023, which was a 41% increase from 2022, and this year there have been over 400 just in Tennessee.

Link to the news report and the view from the helicopter

CTV News reports “A black bear soaked in a hot tub as the sun rose over the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee early on March 20. Mason Trebony was holidaying in the area with his wife when he witnessed the wild bear climbing onto the deck of the cabin he was renting.

In this video, filmed by Trebony, the bear is seen moving up a small set of steps before going into the hot tub which is filled with warm water. “There’s a wild black bear in the jacuzzi getting warm, unbelievable,” Trebony says in the video. “(It’s) just having a blast.”

Trebony told Storyful that the bear sat soaking in the hot tub for 15 minutes before it climbed out and returned to the mountain. The US National Parks Service estimated that roughly 1,500 bears live in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.”

Watch the video below

AZ Animal’s writes “Did you know that there are distinct differences between a Denisovan vs Neanderthal? You may not even know that these two very distinct human ancestors existed millions of years ago, nor how they impact our lives today. If you have always wanted to learn about Denisovans and Neanderthals, you’re in the right place.

In this article, we will discuss everything you need to know in order to tell the difference between Denisovans and Neanderthals. We will address where they lived and in what era, along with their physical descriptions and behavioral differences. Let’s get started and learn all about some of humanity’s first ancestors now!

Comparing Denisovan vs Neanderthal

Key Differences Between Denisovan vs Neanderthal

There are many key differences between the Denisovans and the Neanderthals. We know far more about Neanderthals than Denisovans, but we know enough to qualify Denisovans as separate ancient humans. The eras in which Denisovans and Neanderthals lived differed from one another, though their time on Earth did indeed overlap.

Denisovan vs Neanderthal: Appearance

While little is known about Denisovans, we can glean from fossil records that there are some physical differences in the appearance of these two ancient beings. For example, Denisovans have the widest and flattest skulls out of both Neanderthals and modern humans . The molars of the Denisovan were much larger than the molars of the Neanderthal and modern humans. Additionally, Denisovans had a much larger jaw and tooth set up compared to Neanderthals.

While it may not be something that we can entirely prove at this point in time, there are some studies that suggest Denisovans mature slower compared to Neanderthals. This leads to more physical differences between them, if you consider how these humans matured at different rates.

Denisovan vs Neanderthal: Era Alive

While both Denisovans and Neanderthals existed during the same era, there is very little difference between these two in terms of their time on earth. However, Neanderthals lived during the Middle to Late Pleistocene Era, while Denisovans lived during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic Era. Neanderthals existed for longer than Denisovans overall.

Denisovan vs Neanderthal: Geographical Location

Similarly to the era in which these two ancient humans lived, both Denisovans and Neanderthals resided in similar geographic locations. While Neanderthals lived in Europe and Western Asia , Denisovans lived primarily in Eastern Asia. However, given the number of Denisovan and Neanderthal offsprings, we know that their territories overlapped with each other.

Denisovan vs Neanderthal: Behavior

Very little is known about the lifestyles and behaviors of the Denisovans. However, we know a great deal about the lives and struggles of the Neanderthals. It can be assumed that Denisovans lived similar lives, but we don’t have confirmation of this. Neanderthals developed complex social and industrial systems, and Denisovans likely had these as well for their own survival.

The only thing we do have confirmation of is the fact that Denisovans and Neanderthals bred and created hybrid humans during their time alive on Earth. A particular specimen named Danny has given scientists ample insight into the overlap of Denisovan and Neanderthal social structures and genetics. However, we still don’t have enough specimens to confirm very much about Denisovan behavior.

Denisovan vs Neanderthal: Location and Date Discovered

A final difference between Denisovans and Neanderthals is the locations and dates in which their remains were first discovered. Neanderthal remains were discovered in Belgium in the 19th century, whereas Denisovan remains were first discovered in the Denisova Cave in Russia as late as 2008.

We have only just begun to learn about Denisovans compared to the amount we know about Neanderthals. Perhaps we will learn much more in the coming decades about our other ancestors, the Denisovans!

New York Post reports “What’s old is new again. NASA scientists discovered an underground “city” buried 100 feet beneath the ice of Greenland.

Researchers were shocked when their advanced radar technology picked up signs of human construction deep beneath the ice of the island territory’s tundra, according to the space agency.

Camp Century, an abandoned Cold War-era military installation, was rediscovered 100 feet beneath the ice by a NASA Gulfstream III back in April, according to a news release .

“We were looking for the bed of the ice and out pops Camp Century,” said Alex Gardner, a cryospheric scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory who helped lead the project. “We didn’t know what it was at first.”

“Our goal was to calibrate, validate, and understand the capabilities and limitations of UAVSAR for mapping the ice sheet’s internal layers and the ice-bed interface,” said NASA scientist Chad Greene.

Little did researchers think they would discover an ambitious military project from the previous millennium.

Camp Century was designed to be a “city under the ice” — with plans for over 3,000 miles of tunnels meant to provide a tactical advantage in a nuclear fight against the Soviet Union.

The US Army Corps of Engineers built the massive structure at the behest of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who sought to preserve the use of ground-deployed nuclear missiles as a key part of the nation’s nuclear deterrent policy, according to the Washington Post .

A novel radar image taken during an April NASA flight reveals structural elements of Camp Century, an abandoned US military base buried within the Greenland ice sheet.

Camp Century was initially drawn up to be three times the size of Denmark (which owns Greenland), sitting at 52,000 square miles (about the size of Louisiana) and outfitted with 2,000 firing positions from which 600 “Iceman missiles” would be launched in the case of nuclear war with the Soviets — a veritable revolver carved out of ice.

The missiles would be launched through “cut-and-cover” tunnels, carved 28 feet beneath the surface, according to an academic article titled “The Iceman that Never Came .”

Those 600 missiles would have been enough to destroy 80% of US targets in the Soviet Union and Eastern European, the Washington Post reported.

These sweeping military plans were kept secret from the Kingdom of Denmark, which owns Greenland. The US told Danish officials that the project was purely for scientific research purposes. The real motivations behind “Project Iceworm” were revealed in 1997, the Washington Post reports.

“Project Iceworm” and Camp Century were both abandoned in 1967.

In all, the project cost upward of $25 billion in today’s dollars and would be decommissioned due to the challenges associated with building beneath an ever-shifting ice sheet.

BondIt Media writes “The four grand old men of “Bigfoot Hunting” and their often humorous yet determined forty-year quest to find the Big Hairy legend of North America.

Starring: Rene Dahinden, Peter Byrne, Grover Krantz, John Green, Toby Lindala, Stan Winston, Henri Franzoni
Directed by: Peter von Puttkamer”

Link to the Full Feature Documentary

I want to wish everyone a safe and happy thanksgiving. I am taking this holiday weekend off (kind of) to spend time with family and friends. With the extra quiet time I am working on a few projects for the show and website. Its a great time to recharge the batteries,  I hope you enjoy the time off as I will. I will see you guys and gals next week. Happy Thanksgiving!

Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak, a researcher at France’s National Centre for Scientific Research and Paul Sabatier University in Toulouse, unearthed evidence of teeth from a rock shelter in France’s Rhône Valley in 2015, which was identified to be that of a Neanderthal, a rare intact finding from that site.

Recently, archaeologists made the revelation of extracting DNA evidence from the teeth that could answer to the extinction of Neanderthals. The ancient ‘human’ in question was named Thorin after a character from The Hobbit . He remained a best-kept secret for the scientists involved because the researchers had yet to uncover what this evidence would entail.

Scientists Just Sequenced the DNA of Thorin The Last Neanderthal Ever And It Rewrites History

Slimak and his colleagues were reportedly caught in a bind regarding the nature of the evidence as the archaeological evidence stood against the scientific one. The genetic proof indicated that the Neanderthal was 105,000 years old. However, the archaeological context proved that it was somewhere between 40,000 to 50,000 years old. “What the DNA was suggesting was not in accordance with what we saw,” he added, as reported by CNN Science.

An ancient Neanderthal named Thorin may be one of the last members of a lost line of Neanderthals.@alisonge says DNA preserved in his teeth has been sequenced, suggesting Thorin may was part of a mysterious group that lived in isolation for 50,000 yearshttps://t.co/BpwUttS6BI pic.twitter.com/Jhn6YOHVcw

— New Scientist (@newscientist) September 14, 2024

Knewz.com noted that the revelation took ten years as researchers only recently identified the puzzle behind the disappearance of the Neanderthals 40,000 years ago. The journal Cell Genomics detailed the findings about Thorin, and it was found that it came from a group of Neanderthals that was isolated and had been separated from other groups for about 50,000 years, which is why Thorin’s DNA seemed to be from an earlier period than it originally was.

Live Science reported that the use of methods such as radiocarbon dating could prove Thorin to be one of the last Neanderthals. This puts into question the assumption that humans brought about the extinction of Neanderthals, but proof suggested that two separate colonies of Neanderthals that had no contact existed simultaneously nearby. The genetic and cultural isolation that was deciphered could bring about several other reasons for its extinction as isolation was considered to be an evolutionary disadvantage.

First and Only Neanderthal Remains Found at Abreda Cave in a World First!

April Nowell, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Victoria in Canada, and a history enthusiast, stated that the evidence “supports the hypothesis that Neandertals living in small, socially isolated groups struggled to keep their numbers viable.” Omer Gokcumen, an evolutionary genomicist at the University at Buffalo also stated that “any hominin DNA from that time frame is interesting and adds to our knowledge.”

Genome of Neanderthal fossil reveals lost tribe cut off for millennia

Less genetic variation in the DNA could adapt to changing climate or disease more difficult, which is why the chemical isotopes in his bones and teeth were analyzed to infer the climate of his habitation based on the water and food consumed. Information from Thorin’s genes and the place of the extraction adds to a better understanding and knowledge among historians of the Neanderthals’ final days on the planet, as noted by the Smithsonian Magazine. Additionally, the DNA analysis also suggested a third unidentified population of Neanderthals that was roaming around Europe at about the same time as Thorin’s group and the study authors have written about this for write for the Conversation.

See Full Article

An interesting documentary on HAARP from 30 years ago. The High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) is a University of Alaska Fairbanks program which researches the ionosphere – the highest, ionized part of Earth’s atmosphere.

The most prominent instrument at HAARP is the Ionospheric Research Instrument (IRI), a high-power radio frequency transmitter facility operating in the high frequency (HF) band. The IRI is used to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere. Other instruments, such as a VHF and a UHF radar, a fluxgate magnetometer, a digisonde (an ionospheric sounding device), and an induction magnetometer, are used to study the physical processes that occur in the excited region. Work on the HAARP facility began in 1993.

Initially HAARP was jointly funded by the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Navy, the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). It was designed and built by BAE Advanced Technologies. Its original purpose was to analyze the ionosphere and investigate the potential for developing ionospheric enhancement technology for radio communications and surveillance. Since 2015 it has been operated by the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The current working IRI was completed in 2007; its prime contractor was BAE Systems Advanced Technologies.[1] As of 2008, HAARP had incurred around $250 million in tax-funded construction and operating costs. In May 2014, it was announced that the HAARP program would be permanently shut down later in the year. After discussions between the parties, ownership of the facility was transferred to the University of Alaska Fairbanks in August 2015.

HAARP is a target of conspiracy theorists, who claim that it is capable of weather manipulation. Commentators and scientists say that advocates of this and other conspiracy theories are wrong, as claims made fall well outside the abilities of the facility, if not the scope of natural science.

Link to the Documentary

The BBC writes “A boy who found a shiny rock while playing at a beach has been told the item is a Neanderthal hand axe that could be 60,000 years old.Ben, from Shoreham, West Sussex, discovered the axe at Shoreham Beach when he was only six years old, and kept it in his room for three years.

It was only when the boy, now aged nine, went to Worthing Museum three weeks ago and saw the Stone Age exhibition that he realised he had a similar looking item at home. The museum, which is now exhibiting the axe, said it was “almost certainly made by a Neanderthal” between 40,000 to 60,000 years ago.

Ben said: “I was looking around and I saw this shiny flint rock. I just thought it looked different to all the other different pebbles and stones.” He said he kept it in his room but was always “losing it and finding it”.

Ben added that the museum said “it looked like an amazing find. “They said it’s their best find in ten years. Now it’s in a case in the museum. I was really excited, my heart was beating really fast,” he said.

“I did want to keep it, but I felt like it would be better there than in my hands.” His mother Emma told BBC Radio Sussex: “Seeing how it lit up the face of the archaeologist at the museum, it’s great that others can enjoy it.”

A spokesperson from Worthing Museum said the hand axe dates back to the Late Middle Palaeolithic era which was between 40,000 to 60,000 years ago.

They said: “Ben found the flint axe in the upper shingle at Shoreham beach, so it is very difficult to say with confidence whether the axe was originally lost there or whether it was dredged up from offshore river deposits during work to strengthen the beach defences.” The Neanderthals are considered to be the long-lost evolutionary cousins of modern humans, who became extinct about 40,000 years ago.”

Link to BBC

Central Oregon’s High Desert Museum’s exhibit, called “Sensing Sasquatch,” is interactive and multidimensional. It includes larger-than-life installations, a soundscape that evokes both the natural world and supernatural elements, and artwork that visitors are encouraged to touch and smell. The exhibit showcases Native American interpretations of the being known as Sasquatch, Bigfoot or “the big guy.” We hear from three of the artists: Charlene Moody, Frank Buffalo Hyde and Philip Cash Cash, who also co-curated the exhibit.

Central Oregon’s High Desert Museum writes “What does Sasquatch — also known as Bigfoot — represent to you? The unknown? Adventure? Mystery?

Native peoples of the Plateau have long known about, encountered, depicted and told stories about Sasquatch.

Sensing Sasquatch explores Sasquatch’s past, present and future in the High Desert region through an Indigenous lens. Works by five Indigenous artists will be on view, including: Phillip Cash Cash, Ph.D. (Nez Perce, Cayuse), HollyAnna CougarTracks DeCoteau Littlebull (Yakama, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Cree), Charlene “Tillie” Moody (Warm Springs), Frank Buffalo Hyde (Nez Perce, Onondaga) and Rocky LaRock (Salish).

“Sasquatch has captivated people in the region and, indeed, throughout the world,” says Executive Director Dana Whitelaw, Ph.D. “However, what many people don’t know is that Native Americans have had deeper relationships with Sasquatch throughout time.”

“Rather than the popular, mainstream view of Sasquatch, this exhibition shows Sasquatch as a protective entity for many Indigenous peoples of the High Desert,” says Whitelaw. “The exhibit reflects the reverence that Native peoples have for Sasquatch and will be centered on Indigenous art, voices and storytelling.”

The original word for Sasquatch is “Sasq’ets,” which comes from the Halq’emeylem language of Coast Salish First Nation peoples from southwestern British Columbia. Sasquatch is bipedal and much taller than a human. Sasquatch’s habitat is often associated with the wet rainforests of the coastal Pacific Northwest, but Sasquatch also lives beyond the green, lush climate. In the High Desert region, Sasquatch strides among the dry canyonlands, ponderosa pine forests and shrublands.

Popular depictions of Sasquatch can be found everywhere across America. Sasquatch is emblazoned on everything from t-shirts and road signs to beer cans and traveling mugs. Before entering the exhibition there will be an homage to the pop culture icon that Sasquatch has become, but visitors will be asked to leave these ideas and perceptions behind to consider another side of Sasquatch’s story. Outside the exhibition, a “bring-your-own” sticker interactive encourages visitors to reflect on the popularity and kitsch of mainstream Sasquatch representations. Visitors can place their stickers on the back of a car that’s driving away into the distance — symbolically transporting away their Sasquatch stereotypes and entering into a new realm of experience and insight.

Visitors will be introduced to the Indigenous Plateau of the High Desert and the arid forests and canyonlands where Native peoples have long come into contact with and exchanged stories about Sasquatch. This environment is the opposite of the Pacific Northwest’s rainforest landscape that is more often associated with Sasquatch. Visitors can see representations, stories and artwork about Sasquatch and how they vary between tribes and across regions. A contemporary carved mask by Rocky LaRock (Salish) shows visitors that knowledge of Sasquatch is both ancient and contemporary. A digital language map shows the various names for Sasquatch across the Indigenous Plateau and beyond.

The question of whether or not Sasquatch exists is irrelevant to the exhibit’s theme since in many Indigenous traditions, Sasquatch is a bona fide living, breathing, sentient being. Indeed, for many tribes across North America, Sasquatch is regarded as an elder, a relative and a spiritual guide who appears to deliver important message to humans. So, when Sasquatch suddenly comes into view and interacts with humans, it can be a life-changing experience.

Sasquatch as a conscious being with the agency to communicate with humans is shown in direct opposition to the popular view of Sasquatch as shy and who runs and hides when humans approach. Phillip Cash Cash’s (Nez Perce, Cayuse) commissioned 13 “Bigfoot Rattle,” made of cottonwood, that Sasquatch would use. Cash Cash is an artist, writer, endangered language advocate and linguistic anthropology scholar. As a fluent Nez Perce speaker, he works with communities and professional organizations on projects of cultural advocacy, identity and communication.

Many Indigenous people say that a Sasquatch encounter is a blessing. In turn, many Indigenous peoples have sought to protect Sasquatch’s anonymity and prevent human access to its wilderness habitat. HollyAnna CougarTracks DeCoteau Littlebull’s (Yakama, Nez Perce, Cayuse, Cree) commissioned “Protector” sculpture — depicts Sasquatch as a protective “big sister” — not a predator but one who deserves respect and safeguarding. CougarTracks is an avid hunter and gatherer, grew up on the Yakama Indian Reservation and considers herself “a protector of KwiKwiyai, or Bigfoot. Bigfoot is considered the protector of all living things.” As a contemporary and traditional artist, CougarTracks has many creative pursuits – illustration, animation, saddle making, beadwork, storytelling and writing.

Other art shows visitors that Sasquatch is a being that exists in the past, present and future. Sasquatch has appeared in Indigenous artworks and stories for thousands of years and this continues today. Frank Buffalo Hyde’s (Nez Perce, Onondaga) commissioned large-scale futuristic Sasquatch painting with 3-D relief elements will illustrate the perception of Sasquatch as an interdimensional enigma who lurked in the forest for millennia to a modern being that continues to live among humans in the present. Buffalo Hyde attended the Santa Fe Fine Arts Institute and Institute of American Indians Arts in New Mexico. His artwork, he says on his website, combines modern culture and technology with Indigenous themes and tradition.

Sensing Sasquatch includes a yearlong series of associated public programs at the Museum that will explore and reflect on the past, present and future of Sasquatch as seen through an Indigenous lens.”

Link to the audio

Kentucky Bigfoot Research Organization writes “This witness shares his Bigfoot sighting when he was a young boy playing football with his friends near the Catskill Mountains. The boys noticed a “big-bellied” Bigfoot watching them from the bushes.

Needless to say, the boys scattered immediately when they saw the beast! The encounter took place in the early 80’s in South Fallsburg, NY.”

Link to the video