Latest news with #huntergatherers
South China Morning Post
15 hours ago
- Science
- South China Morning Post
How artists and scientists brought a prehistoric woman back to life
With her clear blue eyes and slightly nervous gaze, the reconstructed bust of Mos'anne – a woman who lived about 10,500 years ago – is uncannily lifelike. Reborn via a close partnership between science and art, Mos'anne's bust was created at Belgium's Ghent University as part of a project to explore how the region's last hunter-gatherers lived during the Mesolithic era. 'Part of the project is also understanding the genetics of these people, figuring out their kinship and so on, and to be able to really translate the science that we do to a wider audience,' said the project's lead researcher, Isabelle de Groote. Scientists chose the skull of Mos'anne – named by public vote in reference to Belgium's Meuse Valley – for reconstruction, as it was exceptionally well-preserved. The bones held a large amount of preserved DNA, making it possible to reconstruct the woman – aged between 35 and 60 at her death – with remarkable realism. 'We also know that in the Mesolithic times, she is genetically part of the Western hunter-gatherer group,' de Groote said.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Humans used to have straighter teeth—what changed?
Braces, rubber bands, even jaw surgery—millions endure them in pursuit of a straighter smile. But were misaligned smiles always this common? Research suggests that might not be the case. While malocclusions—crowded or misaligned teeth—have been found among our hunter-gatherer ancestors, they appear to be more prevalent in modern populations. So what changed? Experts say the answer isn't simple but point to one possible culprit: our diets. As we traded raw, tough foods for softer, more processed ones, the burden of chewing decreased, allowing our jaws to shrink over time. Now, researchers are exploring how evolutionary biology, diet, and modern lifestyles may have reshaped our faces—and our smiles. Ancient human skulls were strikingly different from our own. Early hunter-gatherers had large, powerful jaws built for the demanding work of chewing tough meats, fibrous vegetables, seeds, and nuts. But around 12,000 years ago, things began to change. As humans around the world traded hunting for farming, their diets changed too, incorporating more grains and cultivated produce into their diet. These foods were softer, more processed, and required far less chewing.' We did not have ice cream or white bread back in the day,' says Sue Herring, professor emeritus in orthodontics at the University of Washington. 'When you get your food straight from the environment, it's probably a little [grittier] than stuff which has been cooked and processed.' (Neanderthal teeth reveal intimate details of daily life.) With softer diets came less mechanical strain on the jaw. Over generations, our mandibles began to shrink— a trend visible in the fossil record. That shrinkage is, at least in part, adaptive and the result of millennia of evolution, says Myra Laird, assistant professor of basic and translational sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. 'If you don't need a huge mandible, it's energetically costly to build that extra bone.' But not all changes in jaw size and shape are evolutionary. Bone is highly responsive to physical stress—even within a single lifetime—and builds up around muscle attachment sites. In other words, less muscle usage results in less robust bones, Laird says, citing studies of craniofacial growth in non-human animals like hyraxes. 'If you switch to a liquid diet, you will not use your muscles as much and see some shape changes in your face.' (Here's how ultra-processed food harms the body and brain.) That's exactly what researchers believe happened to humans as they adopted agriculture. 'Post-agricultural populations had a marked reduction in the size of the chewing muscles,' Laird says. 'What this suggests is that the origins of agriculture brought about less work for the feeding system'—and, ultimately, much less roomy mouths. So, what happens when you try to fit the same number of teeth into a smaller jaw space? Over-crowding and crookedness. 'The way your teeth come through is almost like a zipper,' says Julie Lawrence, assistant professor of biological anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 'Your jaw moves forward and then it makes space for them to come through.' If there isn't enough room for the teeth to erupt, they might become impacted or crowded together. The third molars, or wisdom teeth, are particularly at risk for noneruption in undersized jaws. Research suggests that the mismatch between the size of the mandible and dentition may be to blame for increasingly crooked teeth among post-industrial humans. 'That loss of space is really what precipitates the malocclusions, dental crowding,' says Laird. 'The rate of malocclusion goes way, way up [in modern humans], and that is ubiquitous across all populations.' (Why we add fluoride to water—and how it became so controversial.) But experts caution that the story isn't so simple. Although the frequency of malocclusions seems to have increased among modern humans, dental impaction and crowding have been observed in early hominid skulls. The fossil record is limited and likely not fully representative, Lawrence says. 'Better teeth tend to be better preserved,' she says, adding that anthropological data doesn't take into account confounding factors like missing teeth. While 'there does seem to be a pattern' of increased malocclusions among post-industrialization humans, Lawrence adds, not all changes in teeth alignment can be attributed to diet. Extreme under- or overbite, for example, is the result of population genetics and 'doesn't have to do with industrialization.' Many other factors can cause crooked teeth, including environmental conditions or developmental anomalies. And some populations are more genetically predisposed to malocclusions. Ultimately, the prevalence of crooked teeth may also be due in small part to aesthetic bias. 'Our modern society is a lot more sensitive to cosmetic problems,' Herring says. 'I think we're a lot more aware of malocclusions now than anybody was in the past.'
Yahoo
15-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Humans used to have straighter teeth—what changed?
Braces, rubber bands, even jaw surgery—millions endure them in pursuit of a straighter smile. But were misaligned smiles always this common? Research suggests that might not be the case. While malocclusions—crowded or misaligned teeth—have been found among our hunter-gatherer ancestors, they appear to be more prevalent in modern populations. So what changed? Experts say the answer isn't simple but point to one possible culprit: our diets. As we traded raw, tough foods for softer, more processed ones, the burden of chewing decreased, allowing our jaws to shrink over time. Now, researchers are exploring how evolutionary biology, diet, and modern lifestyles may have reshaped our faces—and our smiles. Ancient human skulls were strikingly different from our own. Early hunter-gatherers had large, powerful jaws built for the demanding work of chewing tough meats, fibrous vegetables, seeds, and nuts. But around 12,000 years ago, things began to change. As humans around the world traded hunting for farming, their diets changed too, incorporating more grains and cultivated produce into their diet. These foods were softer, more processed, and required far less chewing.' We did not have ice cream or white bread back in the day,' says Sue Herring, professor emeritus in orthodontics at the University of Washington. 'When you get your food straight from the environment, it's probably a little [grittier] than stuff which has been cooked and processed.' (Neanderthal teeth reveal intimate details of daily life.) With softer diets came less mechanical strain on the jaw. Over generations, our mandibles began to shrink— a trend visible in the fossil record. That shrinkage is, at least in part, adaptive and the result of millennia of evolution, says Myra Laird, assistant professor of basic and translational sciences at the University of Pennsylvania School of Dental Medicine. 'If you don't need a huge mandible, it's energetically costly to build that extra bone.' But not all changes in jaw size and shape are evolutionary. Bone is highly responsive to physical stress—even within a single lifetime—and builds up around muscle attachment sites. In other words, less muscle usage results in less robust bones, Laird says, citing studies of craniofacial growth in non-human animals like hyraxes. 'If you switch to a liquid diet, you will not use your muscles as much and see some shape changes in your face.' (Here's how ultra-processed food harms the body and brain.) That's exactly what researchers believe happened to humans as they adopted agriculture. 'Post-agricultural populations had a marked reduction in the size of the chewing muscles,' Laird says. 'What this suggests is that the origins of agriculture brought about less work for the feeding system'—and, ultimately, much less roomy mouths. So, what happens when you try to fit the same number of teeth into a smaller jaw space? Over-crowding and crookedness. 'The way your teeth come through is almost like a zipper,' says Julie Lawrence, assistant professor of biological anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. 'Your jaw moves forward and then it makes space for them to come through.' If there isn't enough room for the teeth to erupt, they might become impacted or crowded together. The third molars, or wisdom teeth, are particularly at risk for noneruption in undersized jaws. Research suggests that the mismatch between the size of the mandible and dentition may be to blame for increasingly crooked teeth among post-industrial humans. 'That loss of space is really what precipitates the malocclusions, dental crowding,' says Laird. 'The rate of malocclusion goes way, way up [in modern humans], and that is ubiquitous across all populations.' (Why we add fluoride to water—and how it became so controversial.) But experts caution that the story isn't so simple. Although the frequency of malocclusions seems to have increased among modern humans, dental impaction and crowding have been observed in early hominid skulls. The fossil record is limited and likely not fully representative, Lawrence says. 'Better teeth tend to be better preserved,' she says, adding that anthropological data doesn't take into account confounding factors like missing teeth. While 'there does seem to be a pattern' of increased malocclusions among post-industrialization humans, Lawrence adds, not all changes in teeth alignment can be attributed to diet. Extreme under- or overbite, for example, is the result of population genetics and 'doesn't have to do with industrialization.' Many other factors can cause crooked teeth, including environmental conditions or developmental anomalies. And some populations are more genetically predisposed to malocclusions. Ultimately, the prevalence of crooked teeth may also be due in small part to aesthetic bias. 'Our modern society is a lot more sensitive to cosmetic problems,' Herring says. 'I think we're a lot more aware of malocclusions now than anybody was in the past.'
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Archaeologists Announce Major Neanderthal 'Fat Factory'
A team of archaeologists has announced a major finding relating to the Neanderthals. They announced the finding in the journal Science Advances. The scientists announced that they had discovered a "fat factory" at the edge of a German lake where they believe Neanderthals processed mammals for food 125,000 years ago. "We present archaeological data from the lake landscape of Neumark-Nord (Germany), where Last Interglacial Neanderthals processed at least 172 large mammals at a water's edge site," they wrote. "Their (partial) carcasses were transported to this location for the extraction of within-bone nutrients, particularly bone grease. This 'fat factory' constitutes a well-documented case of grease rendering predating the Upper Paleolithic, with the special task location devoted to extraction of nutritionally important lipids forming an important addition to our knowledge of Neanderthal adaptations," they added. According to the researchers, "These hunter-gatherers, similar to recent foragers, already focused heavily on the exploitation of within-bone nutrients—and particularly on bone grease—125,000 years ago." The time period in question was "an interglacial period when temperatures were similar to those of today," according to a news release on the findings issued by Universiteit Leiden. "At this location, researchers found that Neanderthals not only broke bones to extract marrow but also crushed large mammal bones into tens of thousands of fragments to render calorie-rich bone grease through heating them in water," the release says. "This discovery substantially shifts our understanding of Neanderthal food strategies, pushing the timeline for this kind of complex, labour-intensive resource management back in time tens of thousands of years." The researchers explained the importance of studying diet. "Diet played a key role in human evolution, making the study of past diet and subsistence strategies a crucial research topic within paleoanthropology," they wrote in the July 2 article. "Lipids are a crucial resource for hunter-gatherers, especially for foragers whose diet is based heavily on animal foods. Recent foragers have expended substantial amounts of energy to obtain this resource, including time-consuming production of bone grease, a resource intensification practice thus far only documented for Upper Paleolithic populations," they Announce Major Neanderthal 'Fat Factory' first appeared on Men's Journal on Jul 10, 2025
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Ancient humans could have been in Americas 23,000 years ago: Study
(NewsNation) — Ancient footprints in New Mexico could change the timeline of history, putting humans in North America far earlier than previously thought. A new study has dated the footprints found at White Sands National Park, suggesting they could be as old as 23,000 years. That would mean they were created around the peak of the Last Glacial Maximum, the coldest part of the last ice age. At that time, the area was a vast wetland full of ice age animals. If the date is correct, the footprints are likely from hunter-gatherers who traveled to the Americas over the Bering Land Bridge when sea levels were lower. Hantavirus, rabies exposures confirmed at Grand Canyon National Park To arrive at the date, researchers radiocarbon-dated organic sediment in core samples from the site, which gave dates for the footprints and the entire lake and river system that once existed in the area. It's another piece of data in a scientific debate over when our ancient ancestors reached the Americas. For decades, scientists believed that the earliest humans to live in North America were the Clovis, around 13,000 years ago. But new discoveries suggest that indigenous people could have been in the area much earlier. Ancient footprints are rarely preserved, but about 60 footprints were found at White Sands, with the discovery reported in 2021. That study initially dated the prints between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. But a rebuttal a year later questioned the findings, which were radiocarbon dated using ditch grass seeds, which grow in water. Water plants get carbon from underwater, which may be older than carbon in the atmosphere and can cause samples to appear older than they actually are. Researchers used another technique to redate the site in 2023, which dated the time when quartz or feldspar grains in the tracks were last exposed to sunlight. They also used radiocarbon dating on conifer pollen found in the footprints. Those results also found the footprints were between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Mattel introduces first Barbie with Type 1 diabetes While some scientists accepted the results, others were still skeptical, saying the samples weren't taken from the right layer. Now this third study offers more evidence, after researchers used radiocarbon-dated mud cores, finding the footprints to be between 20,700 and 22,400 years old, which supports the original estimate. Some scientists are still skeptical, suggesting underwater carbon issues could have also skewed sediment dates. There are also major questions that remain unanswered, including a lack of artifacts or settlements belonging to the people who left the tracks. It's possible that hunter-gatherers, who would have had few possessions but valued them, simply didn't leave anything behind when walking through the landscape. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
