Skulls & Things

 As I type this just now, Lee Berger's Carnegie lecture about Homo naledi ecology has just ended. To be honest, I'm quite fatigued from livetweeting the lecture, so I will skip the preamble and jump straight into the discoveries and my thoughts. Berger begins the lecture by teasing a new Netflix docuseries releasing later this year and recounting his journey and the discovery of Rising Star, which takes up most of the broadcast. Now, we've the goodies. First, he discusses last year's infant skull found deep within remote fissures. This skull, which perhaps was overlooked by me initially so this may not be new information per se, was found isolated on top of a limestone shelf. Then I started getting anxious, he leaves this slightly open to interpretation—but he suggests that it was placed there. He starts to recall his first in-person experience with the cave, detailing his weight loss and struggle up and down the chute. Here's the meat and potatoes. In the chamber

Guide des Animaux Cachés (2009) is an obscure cryptozoology handbook penned and illustrated by Philippe Coudray, notably including a diverse assemblage of cryptozoological phenomena. Of these is the curious "spiny-backed chimpanzee", created for this book ( Coudray 2009 ). Coudray states that an anonymous US Navy unit member—by their own request—recalls the incident. Between 1997 and 2002, a sensitive mission in the Congo came across a band of thirteen chimpanzees with "spines" perched on their back that rose upon agitation and a uniform gray colouration. Allegedly, the unit took a three minute video of the chimpanzees attacking a smaller animal that was seized by the United States government for having been taken during a secretive mission. Coudray describes them as small (1.35-1.5 meters in height, possibly), being partly carnivorous and with porcupine-like quills that react to excitement ( Coudray 2009 ).  Much of this story is quite dubious. Coudray himself adm

 For those who are unaware, the Vietnamese 'rock apes' are a type of cryptohominid reported during and sometimes before the Vietnam war, most times by troops, platoons, and even a battlefield, apparently. Most descriptions give a 5-6 foot range in terms of height, with red hair, a gut and hairlessness on the underside of their hands and feet, face and kneecaps. Some sources claim that their heads are oblong in profile. They are said to travel in troops during dusk or nightfall, presumably living so deep in the jungles that they are relatively unknown. Those eyewitnesses, seemingly in the hundreds as everybody's grandpa has seemingly encountered them.  Most information comes from  here and here . Note that these magazines are very likely not credible sources. I should also note that this article just explains my thoughts on these cryptids, their image, and I don't aim to explain the full story.  To start, although troops supposedly had an "epic battle" with t

 Ternifine (or Tighenif) is an Algerian archeological site dating around 700,000 years old, representing an arid, treeless environment. From this fossil site, a plethora of animal remains and Acheulean tools were discovered, most notably including fossil hominin remains ( Britannica ). In this post, I examine the hominins at Ternifine, specifically the complete jawbone and teeth recovered. Dataset I use the typically H. ergaster specimens KNM-WT 15000, KNM-ER 992, and the Ternifine collection (Ternifine 1-4). Defining dental characters are from Tattersall 2013.  This chart represents the dataset used. The examined traits are highlighted in colour and correlated to their key. 1=the trait is observed in the specimen, 0=the trait is not represented in the specimen, -=the examined area is not preserved. Below is a tally that directly demonstrates similarities and differences.  Results After examining the mandibular dental characters of specimens often assigned to Homo ergaster , I found t