- Evolución Homínida - 28 de
Enero del 2004 (Fuente: La Nación)
Los Neanderthal no serían ancestros de
los seres humanos
Los hallazgos confirman la teoría del origen único en
Africa
NUEVA YORK (The New York Times).- Aunque muchos científicos consideran al
Neanderthal una subespecie de los ancestros del ser humano, nuevas
investigaciones parecen confirmar la visión más aceptada que sostiene que las
diferencias con el
Homo sapiens son tan grandes que permiten hablar de especies separadas.
Los hallazgos se basan en medidas detalladas de las variaciones de los cráneos
de los modernos humanos y los Neanderthal, así como también de otras 12 especies
de primates no humanos. La investigación, conducida por la doctora Katerina
Harvati, paleoantropóloga de la Universidad de Nueva York, fue publicada en el
último número de Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
"Lo que afirmamos es que los Neanderthal no han contribuido a los ancestros de
los modernos europeos", dijo la doctora Harvati. Tras comparar 15 rasgos
fundamentales de los cráneos, esta investigadora halló diferencias más amplias
entre los modernos humanos y los Neanderthal que entre las demás subespecies de
primates no humanos analizadas.
El nuevo estudio brinda un firme sustento a la
teoría del origen único de la evolución de los modernos seres humanos, uno
de los modelos que han dividido a la antropología en facciones enfrentadas. Esta
teoría afirma que el Homo sapiens es una especie nueva que apareció en épocas
relativamente recientes en Africa -hace más de 100.000 años- y que se extendió
reemplazando a poblaciones preexistentes. Según este punto de vista, los
Neanderthal formaron uno de estos grupos que no se mezclaron con los Homo
sapiens.
- Incas - 26 de
Enero del 2004 (Fuente: Sekhem)
Un ingeniero italiano podría haber descifrado el misterioso sistema de cálculo
de los Incas
Nicolino De
Pasquale, un ingeniero aeronáutico y profesor universitario, habría descifrado
el misterioso sistema de cálculo que utilizaban los
Incas y que se estudia desde hace 500 años.
El ingeniero
italiano, de 54 años, habría descubierto como funcionaba las 'Yupana', el
sistema contable de los incas, uno de los grandes misterios que los científicos
y matemáticos intentaban resolver desde el descubrimiento de América. Desde hace
siglos se intenta descifrar el sistema con el que contaban los incas, que usaban
unas especies de ábacos llamados 'Yupana' realizados en piedra y en los que se
representaba una serie de filas y columnas donde se colocaban piedrecillas.
La noticia ha surgido en el marco de la exposición dedicada a Perú y a los Incas
donde se expone una 'Yupana'. El delegado de la muestra, el hispanista Antonio
Aimi, que ha realizado algunos libros explicando el cálculo de los, Incas ha
reconocido que hasta ahora los descubrimientos realizados estaban equivocados.
Según De Pasquale, el cálculo de los Incas no estaría basado en un sistema
decimal como se creía hasta ahora, sino un sistema de 40. Los incas contarían a
través de las 'Yupana' de derecha a izquierda y partiendo desde la última fila,
que contaría las unidades. Un complejo calculo matemático habría revelado que
para los Incas no existía la cifra 0 y que un mismo número se podía representar
de varias maneras.
De Pasquale, que reconoce que no sabía nada sobre los Incas, habría descubierto
el sistema de cálculo sólo por casualidad después de que alguien le regalase un
libro sobre enigmas matemáticos en el que se encontraba el diseño de una
'Yupana' realizado por un español hace 500 años.
Las "yupanas" son unas tablillas de barro o piedra de entre 20 y 30 centímetros
de largo formadas por casillas sobre las que se colocaban piedrecitas o granos
de maiz.Según De Pasquale sistema empleado por los incas
no está basado en nuestro sistema decimal, sino en un sistema basado en el
número 40. En las "yupanas" los incas contaban de derecha a izquierda y
partiendo desde la última casilla, que contaría las unidades.
La casilla de la fila superior valdría 40 y la siguiente 80 y así hasta el
infinito, pudiéndose calcular cifras enormes.Se trata de
una progresión geométrica que curiosamente reproduce el sistema en el que se
basan los procesadores de las computadoras.Los incas no
disponían de la cifra 0 y un mismo número se podía representar de varias
maneras.
- Egiptología - 15 de
Enero del 2004 (Fuente: La Nación)
Hallazgo de
científicos franceses
Confirman que en el antiguo Egipto existía el culto a los leones
PARIS (AFP).- El estudio de un esqueleto de
león descubierto en 2001 en la tumba de Maia, nodriza real de
Tutankhamón,
confirma que los antiguos egipcios rendían culto a ese animal y que su
inhumación ritual era precedida de momificación. Los resultados de ese estudio
se publican hoy en la revista científica británica Nature. La Misión
Arqueológica Francesa de Bubasteion (MAFB), dirigida por el egiptólogo Alain
Zivie, del Centro Nacional francés de Investigaciones Científicas (CNRS),
descubrió un esqueleto de león prácticamente completo en el yacimiento
arqueológico de Saqqara, ubicado 35 kilómetros al sudoeste de El Cairo. Varios
indicios -restos de pigmentos, por ejemplo- permiten deducir que el animal había
sido momificado. El descubrimiento tuvo lugar en catacumbas de gatos
correspondientes a la época helénica relacionadas con el culto de la diosa gata
Bastet, que fueron instaladas en el lugar de una tumba mucho más antigua, de la
dinastía XVIII, que data del siglo XIV antes de nuestra era. Se trata de la
tumba de Maia, dama de la corte que fue nodriza del joven Tutankhamón.
Animales de culto
"El león es una criatura que siempre fue
asociada con el rey de Egipto", dijo a la BBC Alan Lloyd, profesor de historia
antigua de la Universidad de Gales. Algunos autores clásicos de la época
grecorromana e inscripciones faraónicas atestiguan la existencia de leones (
panthera leo ) entre los animales considerados sagrados y que eran objeto de
culto en el antiguo Egipto. Se los asociaba con determinadas divinidades, por lo
que eran alimentados y cuidados en vida y momificados e inhumados en tumbas
individuales o catacumbas al morir. "Pero hasta el presente ninguna confirmación
de ese hecho había podido establecerse, puesto que ningún león fue descubierto
nunca en Egipto, salvo los huesos dispersos de la época arcaica encontrados en
Abydos", señala un comunicado del CNRS. La arqueozoóloga Cécile Callou analizó
los restos del león encontrado y llegó a la conclusión de que se trata de un
macho adulto, sin duda muerto de vejez. Patologías dentales (dientes gastados
hasta la encía y flemones) y restos de costillas rotas demuestran que el animal
no podía vivir en libertad. Hay todavía incógnitas respecto de este león, entre
otras cosas su procedencia y cómo situarlo en la época helénica, es decir, entre
los siglos VI y I antes de nuestra era. Según los científicos del CNRS, podría
tratarse de un animal asociado al dios Mahes,
hijo de la diosa leona Sekhmet. Pero como esta diosa estaba a su vez emparentada
con la diosa Bastet, objeto de culto en Saqqara, se comprende el hecho de que
haya sido encontrado entre los restos de numerosos gatos momificados.
- Patrimonio - 14 de
Enero del 2004 (Fuente: Newsday)
Group Demands U.K.
Return Elgin Marbles
LONDON -- Activists launched a fresh bid Wednesday to persuade the British
Museum to return ancient sculptures from the Parthenon to Greece, saying even a
loan would be a huge step forward. The activists, whose group is called Marbles
Reunited, said Greece had suggested the British Museum retain ownership and
control over the so-called Elgin Marbles but display them on long-term loan at a
museum being built at the Acropolis in Athens. In return, they said, Greece
would agree to lend other valuable antiquities to museums around Britain,
including the British Museum in London. The Department for Culture, Media and
Sport said Britain had not yet received the proposal but was aware that it was
on the way.
The sculptures, considered among the most important artworks in the Western
world, were created 2,500 years ago to adorn the Parthenon and depict an
Athenian procession. Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire,
bought the statues in 1803 and shipped them back to London, where they became
part of the British Museum's collection. Britain has repeatedly rejected the
idea of returning the marbles, and British Museum director Neil MacGregor did so
again in a statement. "The British Museum is a truly universal museum of
humanity, accessible to five million visitors from around the world every year,"
he said. "Only here can the worldwide significance of the Parthenon sculptures
be fully grasped."
Ellen De Wachter, a museum spokeswoman, said officials had not received a loan
request from the Greek government and declined to comment on whether they would
consider one. The marbles have been an irritant in relations between the two
countries for years. The British Museum pieces represent about half of the
remaining Parthenon sculptures and Greece wants to see the entire surviving work
reunited, hopefully in time for the Olympics Games Athens is hosting in August.
"This is a win-win deal," former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook said at a news
conference held by Marbles Reunited. "I believe returning the marbles in this
Olympic year would be good for Greece, good for Britain and excellent for our
Olympic bid." Britain is seeking the 2012 Olympics for London and Cook said
agreeing to the Greek plan could help create good will.
He compared the marbles' division between London and Athens to the hypothetical
fragmenting of the statue of British military hero Lord Nelson in Trafalgar
Square. "It's as if someone had hacked off Nelson's head and taken it abroad,
and we were left with the stomach and the legs," he said. "Does anyone imagine
we would rest in these circumstances until the statue was restored?" Peter
Chegwyn, Marbles Reunited's campaign director, said it could take as long as a
year to organize the transfer of the sculptures, making it unlikely they could
be moved in time for the Athens Olympics. But he urged the museum to commit this
year to moving them.
By BETH GARDINER
Associated Press Writer
On the Net:
Marbles Reunited, http://www.marblesreunited.org.uk
- Poblamiento Americano -
2 de Enero del 2004 (Fuente: The Guardian)
Siberian Arctic colonised 30,000 years ago
Humans colonised the Siberian Arctic more than 30,000 years ago, according to
Russian discoveries reported today. Flint tools and spear shafts made from
mammoth ivory and rhinoceros horn have been found near the Yana river inside the
Arctic Circle. The discovery pushes back known human occupation of polar regions
by 16,000 years.
The discoveries
could throw light on the
first peopling of the Americas. Some of the artefacts
seem close in design to those of the
Clovis culture
found 16,000 years later and
2,000 miles away in North America. The Arctic was thought to have been peopled
first about 15,000 years ago, as the ice sheets that covered Europe began to
retreat. The first evidence of humans in Alaska dates back only 14,000 years.
Humans had begun to fashion figurines and paint caves in France and Germany
little more than 30,000 years ago, during an "interglacial" or mild spell during
the ice ages. With human populations at low levels, there seemed no reason to
expect settlers in the Arctic tundra.
But Vladimir
Pitulko of the Russian Academy of Sciences in St Petersburg reports in Science
that he and colleagues had unearthed axes, stone scrapers, worked quartz
crystals, tools made from wolf bone and spear foreshafts made from mammoth ivory
and woolly rhinoceros horn from the frozen sand and loam along the Yana. They
also found the broken, cut and burnt bones of mammoths, musk ox, brown bear,
wolverine, bison, horses and cave lion, and identified the pollen of larch and
birch. The finds confirmed a picture of a cool, dry climate, with abundant game.
"Abundant game means lots of food," Julie Brigham-Grette of the University of
Massachusetts told Science. "It was not stark tundra, as one might imagine."
The site had
first been identified in 1993 when a Russian geologist picked up a carved rhino
horn foreshaft. Over the summers of 2001 and 2002 Dr Pitulko and his team began
digging along terraces left be hind as the Yana rose and fell through the ice
ages. High above the river, they found flaked slate tools and other foreshafts.
These spearheads provide the link with America: they seemed very like ivory
foreshafts used in America
13,600 years ago.
Daniel Mann of
the University of Alaska told Science that the find made it plausible that the
first Americans had arrived much earlier than 14,000 years ago:
"There were no environmental barriers that would have prevented them migrating
eastward into the Americas".
Tim Radford,
science editor
Friday January 2, 2004 The Guardian
(Nota del Webmaster: Estamos preparando un informe especial acerca de este
hallazgo, dada su importancia en la polémica acerca del poblamiento de América)
- Evolución
- 31 de Diciembre del 2003 (Fuente: Field MMuseum)
Scientist challenges interpretation of
new find, the oldest primate fossil ever discovered
Find opens debate about whether man's earliest ancestors came from Asia and were
diurnal or nocturnal.
CHICAGO--A skull and jawbones recently found in China is the oldest well-preserved
primate fossil ever discovered – as well as the best evidence of the presence of
early primates in Asia. But the fossil raises the tantalizing possibility that
remote human ancestors may have originated in Asia and stirs up debate about the
nature of early primates. In the words of Robert D. Martin, Provost and Vice
President of Academic Affairs at Chicago's Field Museum, "It was once thought
that primates originated in North America because that's where the earliest
fossils were found initially; but we should be more open-minded. We still do not
know the area of origin of the primate lineage that eventually led to humans,
and this new find firmly brings Asia into the picture." Xijun Ni and colleagues
describe the fossil as Teilhardina asiatica, a new species of a genus first
recognized from Belgium, in the Jan. 1, 2004, issue of Nature. At 28 grams, T.
asiatica is smaller than any modern primate, and its size and sharp tooth cusps
indicate that it was an insect-eater.
But a "News & Views" commentary in the same issue of Nature by Dr. Martin
disagrees with part of the authors' interpretation of their new find. Based on
T. asiatica's small eye sockets relative to skull length, Ni and colleagues
maintain that the small predator was diurnal (active during the day). Dr. Martin,
on the other hand, says there is no compelling evidence from the fossil to shake
the traditional belief that the common ancestor of primates, and early
representatives such as members of the genus Teilhardina, were nocturnal (active
at night). "I disagree with the authors on both statistical and biological
grounds," Dr. Martin says. "They excluded significant data in their analysis,
and they did not adequately account for certain biological features, including
the very large opening on the snout for the nerve connecting with the whiskers,
which are best developed in nocturnal mammals."
The earliest
known undoubted primate fossils are about 55-million-years old from sites in
North America, Europe – and now Asia. Scientists had previously classified six
of them in the genus Teilhardina. Ni adds T. asiatica to that group, which might
therefore be thought to have dispersed throughout the northern continents. Dr.
Martin agrees that the new fossil belongs to the genus Teilhardina, but he
argues that only it and T. belgica, found in Europe, belong there because of
their shared traits. "The remaining five species previously identified as
Teilhardina must, in fact, be from a quite separate genus," he said. "And this
means Teilhardina was restricted to Europe and Asia and probably did not
disperse all the way to what is now North America."
Dr. Martin's
views have wider implications for biogeography, as well. Until recently,
scientists believed that direct migration of primates between Asia and Europe
around 55 million years ago would not have been possible due to a
transcontinental marine barrier that ran from north to south down the middle of
Eurasia at the time. Now, the presence of closely related Teilhardina species in
China and Belgium adds to mounting evidence that primates and other mammals were
able to migrate directly between Europe and Asia 55 million years ago. In any
event, Dr. Martin hails the new fossil as a very significant find. "It provides
crucial new information about early primates in Asia that will help us
understand the earliest beginnings of the branch that eventually led to human
evolution," he said.
