Stone Age Tribes may have fought over Women as well as Resources

Stories of conflicts and wars being fought over women are common place in most cultures and societies.  The story of Helen of Troy is a typical example, but now new research indicates that fights over women may have taken place in Neolithic times.

Neolithic Men

A new study published this week in the journal Antiquity, may indicate that men executed rivals in order to steal women from neighbouring tribes.  In the research into interpersonal violence during the Neolithic of Northwest Europe, the researchers examined the teeth of 34 skeletons found in burial pit in Talheim, southwestern Germany.  The pit was discovered in the 1980s and although the human remains had been studied previously, this research team was interested in uncovering the tribal relationships between the people who had been buried there 7,000 years ago.

The research, led by the Anthropology Department of Durham University, in co-operation with scientists from the University College London, Wisconsin University and a local German organisation, examined the teeth of the 34 skeletons found in the burial pit.  Strontium, carbon and oxygen isotopes extracted from the ancient teeth, provide information on the person’s geological origin and diet.

Genetic Evidence

The genetic evidence gathered indicates that these were the remains of people killed in a fight between two rival tribes.  The 34 people came from three groups – locals, cattle-herders and a “family” of a man, woman and two young children.

Within the group identified as being local to the area, there were only men and children, indicating that the women in this group were spared.  Adult female skeletons were found amongst the “immigrants”, perhaps these are the remains of some of the aggressors, women who took part in the attack.  The scientists have concluded that the absence of local females in the burial pit showed they were captured instead, and that could have been the primary motivation for this violent attack.

Lead author Dr Alex Bentley from Durham University’s Anthropology Department said: “It seems this community was specifically targeted, as could happen in a cycle of revenge between rival groups.”

Dr Bentley commented further: “Although resources and population were undoubtedly factors in central Europe around that time, women appear to be the immediate reason for the attack. Our analysis points to the local women being regarded as somehow special and were therefore kept alive.”

Research Funded by the Leverhulme Trust

The research was funded primarily by the Leverhulme Trust, with support from the National Science Foundation.  This is part of wider research studying the history of interpersonal violence within Neolithic communities of North-western Europe.

Many local police forces are called in when fights break out on a Saturday night, often  the cause of the dispute is an argument over girls, it seems our ancestors may also have fought over women.  The archaeological findings from this study for the first time strongly suggest violence took place over mates as early as prehistoric times.

The skeletons from the mass grave in Talheim, were all buried in a single pit of three metres long. The deliberateness of the prehistoric attack was first realised when German skeletal experts determined that the majority had been killed by a blow to the left side of the head, suggesting the victims were bound and killed, probably with a stone axe. Others may have been killed from arrow-wounds from behind as if the victims had tried to flee.

Further research will be conducted with the aim of shedding more light on the causes and consequences of such violent actions.  The perpetrators of these attacks were not some sort of ape-man but our own species, it seems men have been fighting over women for a very long time.

This article has been compiled using information from Science Daily and Durham University (2008, June 4). Men Fighting Over Women? It’s Nothing New, Suggests Research.

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Ancient Burrows found in Antarctica

A team of American scientists have discovered fossilised burrows in Antarctica, trace fossils of ancient land animals that pre-date the dinosaurs.  This is the first time trace fossils such as burrows have been found on this continent.  The burrows have been dated to the Early Triassic and were dug by land living, vertebrates approximately 245 million years ago.

Fossilised Burrows

Although, no remains of the excavators have been found, Christian Sidor of Washington University, who led the team has stated that these burrows were dug by Tetrapods and are not likely to have been dug out by invertebrates such as crayfish.  Tetrapod is the scientific name given to four-legged vertebrates and those two-legged and limbless vertebrates descended from them.  The term tetrapod, literally means “four feet”.

The limbs of tetrapods have distinct digits, they are believed to have evolved in the Devonian.  The oldest Tetrapod fossils, multi-digit animals such as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega have been found in late Devonian river and lake deposits (dated around 360 million years ago).  These first four-limbed vertebrates were mainly aquatic creatures but their muscular limbs, perhaps evolving first as an aid to clambering through weed clogged water or perhaps digging for shellfish, were a wonderful pre-adaptation for venturing onto land.

No Body Fossils Found

Though no animal remains were found inside the burrow casts, the hardened sediment in each burrow preserved a track made as the animals entered and exited, according to the American palaeontologists.

“In addition, scratch marks from the animals’ initial excavation were apparent in some places. We have got evidence that these burrows were made by land-dwelling animals rather than crayfish,” commented Christian, the expedition leader and assistant professor of biology at the University of Washington.

Possible Procolophonids?

Despite the absence of fossil bones, the burrows’ relatively small size prompted the U.S. team to speculate that their owners might have been small lizard-like reptiles called procolophonids or an early mammal relative called Thrinaxodon.  Thrinaxodon was a cynodont, a small carnivorous synapsid which like other cynodonts and dicynodonts are believed to have lived in burrows and fossils of this little animal, no more than 50 cm long have been found in Antarctica.

The fossils were created when fine sand from an overflowing river poured into the animals’ burrows and hardened into casts of the open spaces. The largest preserved burrow is about 35 cm long (14 inches), 15 cm wide (6 inches) and 8 cm deep (3 inches).

For models and replicas of Triassic prehistoric animals and other extinct creatures: CollectA Prehistoric Life Age of Dinosaurs.

During this time in the Earth’s history Antarctica was joined to landmasses that were to eventually form South America, Africa, India and Australia, although Antarctica may not have been directly over the south pole as it is today, it was certainly a cold, harsh environment and the southerly latitude would have meant that this area would have been in darkness for part of the year.  Perhaps these little vertebrates dug burrows to escape the most extreme of the climatic conditions around at the time.

Young PR Co-ordinator for Museum Discovers Dinosaur

The discovery of an articulated or associated fossilised skeleton of a large dinosaur can often be the culmination of a lifetimes work for a palaeontologist.  A reward for years of fieldwork and painstaking research – or you can simply stumble upon one, by luck.

Recently, a young public relations co-ordinator for the Houston Museum of Natural Science called Steve Cowan, discovered the remains of a duck-billed dinosaur.  The animal has been identified as a Brachylophosaurus (means short-crested lizard), a type of hadrosaur that lived approximately 75 million years ago.  Compared to other hadrosaurine hadrosaurs such as the later Edmontosaurus, this type of duck-billed dinosaur is relatively rare in the fossil record.  It is known from Late Cretaceous deposits (Santonian to Campanian faunal stages) from Alberta and Montana.

Picture credit: Everything Dinosaur

The most complete (a semi-mummified specimen) of Brachylophosaurus was found in the same area in 2000, it is from this fossil that scientists have been able to obtain the most data regarding these relatively rare Hadrosaurs.  These particular dinosaurs are believed to have grown to about 7 metres in length and although regarded as duck-bills this term is a bit of a misnomer when referring to this genus.  Brachylophosaurus, rather than having the typical hadrosaurine broad, duck-like bill had a more flattened bill which was down-turned, perhaps an adaptation to grazing on a particular type of plant, such as cropping vegetation close to the ground.

Steve has nicknamed this new specimen “Marco”, he was only attending the fossil site in preparation for a media tour being organised to discuss earlier hadrosaur finds in the area.  Walking up a ridge he noticed what he thought were bones eroding out of the ridge.

Describing his find as “exciting”, Steve may have to writing a press release in the near future for his own dinosaur discovery.  Palaeontologists who have begun to study this location more closely are confident that more bones from this Brachylophosaurus will be found, perhaps even precious skull material.  The discovery had been made on a particularly cold, wet day.  Sometimes sudden downpours  can reveal new fossils quite quickly and the wet fossils can stand out more clearly against the background sediments.

The discovery, a first for Steve, also surprised Robert T. Bakker, curator of palaeontology at the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences, who was leading the expedition.

“One of the things we always need to watch out for is thinking that we know it all,” commented Robert. “I knew enough never to go to a ridge-top because you don’t find specimens there.

“But I forgot to tell that to Steven, so he did exactly that and proved me wrong.”

This particular article reminds us of an incident that happened a few years ago to one of our Everything Dinosaur colleagues whilst on a trip to the Royal Tyrrell museum at Drumheller, Alberta in Canada.  They had been visiting the museum and were working on an unrelated project when quite by chance they were invited out for the afternoon into the Dinosaur Provincial Park to accompany some field workers who were going back to a dig site to retrieve some equipment.

The weather had been unsettled for a number of days and there had been some heavy rain in the area, quite an unusual event for what is effectively semi-desert.  Jokingly, as the party set off, one of the Canadians remarked to our colleague that with all the heavy rain she might find a new specimen.  This was laughed off, the Everything Dinosaur team member, recounting the story remembered commenting that she would not know a fossil even if she fell over it.

However, within a few minutes at arriving at the dig site, our colleague climbed a small bluff to retrieve a piece of tarpaulin that had been blown up there and on the way down stumbled, kicking over some debris that that had been laying half-way up the slope.

To the parties amazement, she had tripped over some articulated hadrosaur vertebrae that had begun to erode out of the bluff.  So sometimes, dinosaurs can be found even when you are not actually looking for them, it is really a question of being sharp-eyed and being in the right place at the right time, plus of course relying on the intervention of lady luck.

Everything Dinosaur stocks a large range of duck-billed dinosaur models such as those to be found in the CollectA Prehistoric Life model range: CollectA Age of Dinosaurs Models.

Half Frog and Half Salamander helps shed light on modern Amphibian Ancestry

Attempts to understand the evolution of four-limbed vertebrates (i.e. tetrapods) has been dogged by the lack of fossil evidence to assist scientists in piecing together cladograms to show the relationships between the earliest land dwelling animals and their ancestors with more advanced forms of terrestrial creature.

Amphibian Ancestry

Even before we consider the evolutionary line of the amniotes (creatures that protect their embryos within a sealed structure – reptiles, mammals and birds, plus some early tetrapods), the evolution of Amphibia has been difficult to determine.  Now the discovery of a “Frogmander” a fossil of an animal that shows both Anura (frog) and Caudata (salamanders and newts) characteristics may help resolve some of these issues.

Three Orders of Extant Amphibia

The modern class of Amphibia is made up of three orders.  Firstly, there is the most diverse group around today the Anura consisting of the frogs and toads.  Secondly, there are the salamanders and newts that belong to order Caudata.  A third group, the Gymnophiona, contains the bizarre, segmented, leg-less caecilians.  To help remember the three orders of amphibia, simply remember that those amphibians without tails are in the Anura order, whilst tailed amphibians are in the Caudata.  Everything else, the caecilians are grouped into Gymnophiona.

The discovery and subsequent study of an ancient amphibian may help to resolve the ancestry of modern amphibians.  An ancient “Frogmander” an animal that shows both frog-like and salamander-like characteristics may indicate that these modern amphibians shared a common ancestor.

An Artist’s Impression of Gerobatrachus

Picture credit: Reuters/Michael Skrepnick/University of Calgary

Gerobatrachus hottoni

The 290-million-year-old fossil was discovered in 1995, by a team of scientists from the Smithsonian Institute on an expedition to Texas.  Canadian scientists led by Jason Anderson of the University of Calgary, Alberta, have been carefully removing the specimen from its matrix and making a close study of its morphological and anatomical features.

The fossil has been named Gerobatrachus hottoni or elderly frog, and the conclusions from the Canadian’s work have just been described in the scientific journal “Nature”.

“It’s a missing link that falls right between where the fossil record of the extinct form and the fossil record for the modern form begins,” commented Jason.

He went onto conclude that: “it’s a perfect little frogamander”.

Gerobatrachus has a mixture of frog and salamander features, with fused ankle bones as seen only in salamanders, a wide, frog-like skull, and a flexible backbone that resembles a mix of the two.

The Gerobatrachus Fossil

The “frogmander” fossil, with a ruler placed next to it for scale.

Picture credit: Reuters/University of Calgary

The picture shows the nearly complete fossil of Gerobatrachus, the large, wide, skull can be seen in the lower left of the picture.

The Evolution of Modern Amphibians

The fossil suggests that modern amphibians may have come from two groups, with frogs and salamanders related to an ancient amphibian known as a temnospondyl, and worm-like caecilians more closely related to the lepospondyls, another group of ancient amphibians.

“Frogs and salamanders share a common ancestor that is fairly removed from the origin of caecilians,” Anderson said.

Prior to this Canadian led study it had been thought that both frogs and salamanders may have been descended from the lepospondyls, but now this theory has been put forward that only the caecilians are descended from this group.  This may have implications for the classification of Lissamphibians the collective name given to all three orders of modern amphibia

“The fossil itself is almost perfectly complete,” Anderson said.

“It died on its back. Its legs and arms were curled up on its belly and it’s that part that weathered away.”

Amphibians are represented very poorly in the fossil record.  This is partly because they have relatively delicate skeletons and light bones.  However, every now and then a truly amazing amphibian fossil is found, such as the partial remains of a huge frog, one that was capable of eating dinosaur hatch-lings.

To read more about this giant frog: The Frog from Hell, one that could jump continents