Early modern humans had a taste for seafood


	Early modern humans had a taste for seafood

MomLes

10-17-2007 11:25 PM

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early humans, settlements, africa, shellfish, tools

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<div style="margin: 12px 0px; font-family: arial; color: #333333; background: #ffffff; border: solid 4px #e5e5e5; width: 100%; clear: left;"><div class="CM_CTB_Content_Wrap" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px;background-color: #ffffff;"><div style="border-bottom: solid 1px #dcdcdc; white-space: nowrap; margin-bottom: 8px; background-color: #eeeeee ;background-image: url(http://www.clipmarks.com/images/source-bg.gif); background-repeat: repeat-x; height: 24px; line-height: 24px; vertical-align: middle; padding-bottom: 4px; color: #666666; font-size: 10px;" ><a href="http://clipmarks.com/clip-to-blog/" title="see clips that are hot right now"><img src="http://content.clipmarks.com/blog_embed/aacafeb9-a30b-46ea-80c5-6a25a06c03cc/A6E4C6E7-ACB4-48E4-BD9C-FFB56F55AA22/" alt="" width="19" height="19" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle; margin: 0px 4px; display: inline; border: none; float:none;" /></a>clipped from <a title="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626265.200&feedId=online-news_rss20" href="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626265.200&feedId=online-news_rss20" style="font-size: 11px;">www.newscientist.com</a></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626265.200&feedId=online-news_rss20"><P>OUR ancestors dined on seafood, painted their bodies and made delicate stone blades 164,000 years ago, much earlier than previously realised. The discovery means that these cultural features must have developed soon after modern humans evolved.</p> <P>The evidence comes from a cave in South Africa overlooking the Indian Ocean. Researchers led by Curtis Marean, an anthropologist at Arizona State University in Tempe, excavated a collection of shellfish remains, ochre pigments and stone blades, some of which were just a centimetre wide. The team dated the earliest material to 164,000 years ago, give or take 12,000 years (<A target="nsarticle" href="http://www.nature.com/nature/index.html"><I>Nature</I></A>, DOI: 10.1038/nature06204). This fits with estimates of sea level during that period, which indicate that the cave was only within easy walking distance of the shore about 167,000 years ago.</P></blockquote><div style="height: 2px; font-size: 2px; background: #dcdcdc; border-bottom: solid 1px #f5f5f5; margin: 2px 4px;"></div><blockquote style="text-align: left; padding: 0px 8px; margin: 4px 0px 8px 0px; background: transparent; border: none;" cite="http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19626265.200&feedId=online-news_rss20">Abundant shellfish may have encouraged groups to settle in one place instead of wandering nomadically and provided them with leisure time for activities such as body adornment.</blockquote></div><div style="margin: 0px 6px 6px 4px;"><table style="font-size: 11px;border-spacing: 0px;padding: 0px;" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"><tr><td style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;">&nbsp;</td><td align="right" style="background:transparent;border-width:0px;padding:0px;width:107px" width="107"><a href="http://clipmarks.com/share/A6E4C6E7-ACB4-48E4-BD9C-FFB56F55AA22/blog/" title="blog or email this clip"><img src="http://content9.clipmarks.com/images/c2b-foot.png" border="0" alt="blog it" width="107" height="17" style="border-width:0px;padding:0px;margin:0px;" /></a></td></tr></table></div></div>

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