Old Europe (Vinca) language and culture in early layers of Serbian and Irish culture

R1a (R-M420) didn't most likely arise in the Balkans like it's brother R1b it probably arose in central asia on the order of at least 18k years ago.

What is interesting is that R1a haplogroup most likely evolved in the Balkans.

Some think it might have originated in the Balkans or around Pakistan and Northwest India, due to the greater genetic diversity found in these regions.

Answer: because they're all indo European words.

In Slavic folklore, the Firebird (Russian: жар-пти́ца, zhar-ptitsa, Ukrainian: жар-пти́ця, zhar-ptica, Serbian: жар-птица, zhar-ptitsa, Polish: Żar ptak, literally heat bird from птица bird Russian жар heat, Czech: pták Ohnivák, Slovak: Vták Ohnivák) is a magical glowing bird from a faraway land, which is both a blessing and a bringer of doom to its captor.
The Firebird is described as a large bird with majestic plumage that glows brightly emitting red, orange, and yellow light, like a bonfire that is just past the turbulent flame. The feathers do not cease glowing if removed, and one feather can light a large room if not concealed. In later iconography, the form of the Firebird is usually that of a smallish fire-colored peacock, complete with a crest on its head and tail feathers with glowing "eyes".

A typical role of the Firebird in fairy tales is as an object of a difficult quest. The quest is usually initiated by finding a lost tail feather, at which point the hero sets out to find and capture the live bird, sometimes of his own accord, but usually on the bidding of a father or king.

In Greek mythology, a phoenix or phenix (Ancient Greek φοίνιξ phóinīx) is a long-lived bird that is cyclically regenerated or reborn. Associated with the sun, a phoenix obtains new life by arising from the ashes of its predecessor. The phoenix was subsequently adopted as a symbol in Early Christianity....Scholars have observed analogues to the phoenix in a variety of cultures. These analogues include the Persian anka, the Hindu garuda and Gandaberunda, the Russian firebird, the Persian simorgh, the Turkish kerkes, the Tibetan Me byi karmo, the Chinese fenghuang, and the Japanese hō-ō.[6]

The Garden of the Hesperides, Atlas' daughters, was Hera's orchard in the far western corner of the world, where either a single tree or a grove of trees bearing immortality-giving golden apples grew. Hera placed in the garden a never-sleeping, hundred-headed dragon (named Ladon) as an additional safeguard. The 11th Labor of Hercules was to steal the golden apples from the garden. He stole the apples by asking Atlas to steal the apples and in return he would hold up the sky for him. After Atlas picked the apples Hercules asked Atlas to hold up the sky for him while he made a pad of the lion skin. He never took back his job of holding up the sky and ran away.

In the book Skáldskaparmál, Iðunn is mentioned in its first chapter (numbered as 55) as one of eight ásynjur (goddesses) sitting in their thrones at a banquet in Asgard for Ægir.[1] In chapter 56, Bragi tells Ægir about Iðunn's abduction by the jötunn Þjazi. Bragi says that after hitting an eagle (Þjazi in disguise) with a pole, Loki finds himself stuck to the bird, and being pulled further and further into the sky, his feet banging against stones, gravel, and trees, and he felt his arms might be pulled out from his shoulders. Loki shouted and begged the eagle for a truce, and the eagle responds that Loki would only be freed if he made a solemn vow to have Iðunn come outside of Asgard with her apples. Loki accepts and returns to his friends Odin and Hœnir. At the time the Þjazi and Loki agreed on, Loki lures Iðunn out of Asgard into "a certain forest", telling her that he had discovered some apples that she would find worth keeping, and told Iðunn that she ought to bring her apples with her so that she may compare them with the apples Loki discovered. Þjazi arrives in eagle shape, snatches Iðunn, flies away with her, and takes her to his home, Þrymheimr.[2]

In Norse mythology, Þjazi (anglicized as Thiazi, Thjazi, Tjasse or Thiassi) was a giant (jötunn) and he lives in Þrymheimr.

In Norse mythology, Þrymheimr (Old Norse "crash-home,"[1] "Thunder Home,"[2] or "noisy-home"[3]) was the abode of Þjazi, a jötunn, located in Jötunheimr.

The jötnar (anglicized jotunn or jotun, plural jötnar; /ˈjoʊtən/, /ˈjoʊtʊn/, or /ˈjɔːtʊn/; Icelandic: [ˈjœːtʏn]; from Old Norse jǫtunn /ˈjɔtunː/; often glossed as giant or ettin) can be seen throughout Norse mythology. The Jötnar are a mythological race that live in Jötunheimr, one of the nine worlds of Norse cosmology, separated from Midgard, the world of humans. They were banished there by the Æsir who refuse them entry to their world, Asgard. The Jötnar frequently interact with the Æsir, as well as the Vanir. They are usually in opposition to, or in competition with, them but also interact with them in a non-hostile manner. Some Jötnar even intermarry with the Æsir and Vanir. This very complex relationship between these two comparable races develops most notably in the Prose Edda and the Poetic Edda.

In Slavic mythology, Perun (Cyrillic: Перун) is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were fire, mountains, the oak, iris, eagle, firmament (in Indo-European languages, this was joined with the notion of the sky of stone), horses and carts, weapons (the hammer, axe (Axe of Perun), and arrow), and war. He was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal....

In the classification scheme of Georges Dumézil, Perun was the god of the second function (physical and military power), a god of war, and as such, he was armed with several fantastic weapons. Perun's lightning bolts were believed to be stones and stone arrows. According to folk beliefs, fulgurites and belemnites and sometimes even the remains of prehistoric stone tools found in the ground are remains of these weapons. Various Slavic countries also call these deposits "Perun's stones", "thunderbolt stones", "thunderbolt wedges" and "Perun's arrow"; other unrelated names for these include "devil's finger", "God's finger", and "Mother of God finger", and in Lithuania, "Berkun's finger". These thunderbolt stones were sometimes said to be transferred back to the sky by the wind after being under earth for a period of seven years. The weapons of Perun protected against bad luck, evil magic, disease, and – naturally enough – lightning itself.
Perun also had another type of weapon in his arsenal, as destructive as his firestone arrows, but even more unusual: mythical golden apples. While this may not seem to be much of a weapon, in many Slavic folk accounts, the golden apple appears as a talisman of ultimate destruction. An example from a folk song from Montenegro[citation needed] with strong mythical elements relates:


"...He grabbed three golden apples
And threw them high into the sky...
...Three lightning bolts burst from the sky,
One struck at two young grooms,
Another struck at pasha on a horse,
The third one struck six hundred wedding guests,
Not an eyewitness left
Not even to say, how they died."

It is conjectured that the mythical golden apples of Perun were symbols of a rare but notorious form of atmospheric discharge, ball lightning. The same is probably true for the thunder marks of East Slavic folklore.

Gromoviti znaci or thunder marks such as these are ancient symbols of Perun, which are often engraved upon roof beams of village houses, particularly in Eastern Slavic populations, to protect them from lightning bolts. It is conjectured their circular shape symbolises ball lightning.

If a man owning houses or tenements within the city of Gloucester dies intestate, up to very recently his youngest son, and not the eldest, succeeds to the property. This was a remarkable survival, and a similar custom formerly prevailed, in Leeds, Derby, Leicester, Nottingham, Stafford, and Stamford.(5) It prevailed not only in these boroughs, but in many manors in various counties, especially in Sussex, Suffolk, Surrey, Essex, Norfolk, Middlesex, and in a special part of Somerset. It has been shown t have existed, also , to a less extent, on some few manors in Hampshire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Huntingdonshire, Hertfordshire, Northamptonshire, Oxfordshire, Kent, Devon, Cornwall, Rutland, Herefordshire, Berkshire, Shropshire, and Monmouthshire. In Sussex it prevailed on 140 manors, chiefly in the Rape of Lewis, where the custom was almost an exclusive one. This junior right of inheritance of the youngest son, or borough-English, as it has been commonly called, also prevailed in parts of Glamorganshire, where its settlement of the English on the Welsh border. There is no trace of any similar custom under which the youngest son is the sole heir in the ancient laws of Wales.
It is certain that this custom could not have arisen spontaneously in so many places and districts widely separated from each other. It has probably come from some general race custom, and ahs been preserved in the localities where it has survived by the attachment of people to the usage of their ancestors. Nothing is more remarkable in the history of mankind than the attachment of people of all races to the customs which have been handed down to them from their forefathers. That junior right was preserved in the boroughs and manors in which it survived through the period of the Middle Ages, when the tendency was one ever growing stronger in favour of primogeniture, is remarkable testimony to its vitality, and the attachment to it of those who lived under it. If we can thus trace it, as we may, as far back as the Old English period, when people certainly were as tenacious of their ancient customs as their descendants were, it is reasonable to conclude that those who lived under it in the Saxon period also inherited it from some earlier forefathers. The custom of junior right is no more likely to have been invented here and there in certain early boroughs and manors of Saxon England than of Mediaeval England. We must look for its origin in the Continental homes of our oldest English forefathers. Some of the evidence which shows that the Anglo-Saxons had forefathers of many different tribes has already been brought forward, and the survival on our manors of so many different examples of ancient customary inheritance points to the same conclusion. On the Continent we find that junior right existed in various degrees, ranging from the descent of the whole inheritance to merely articles of household furniture, in Picardy, Artois and Hainault, in Ponthieu and Vivier, and in districts round Arras, Douai, Amiens, Lille and Cassel, and in the neighbourhood of St. Omer. It has also been noted at Grimberghe in Brabant.(6)
Similar customs prevailed in a part of Friesland, the most notable of which was the `Jus Theelacticum,` or custom of the Theel lands, doles, or allottable lands in East Friesland, not far from the mouth of the Ems. There are inherited allotment was indivisible ; on the death of the father it passed intact to the youngest son, and on his death without issue it fell into possession of the whole community.(7) This was an exception to the more general Frisian plan by which the inheritance was divided. Similar customs which are not superseded by the civil code existed in Westphalia and parts of the Rhine provinces, and also in the Department of Herford near Minden, where, so strong is the hold of the custom, that until quite recently no elder child ever demanded his legal obligatory share, and the children acquiesced in the succession of the youngest.(8) The same custom also prevailed in Silesia and parts of Bavaria, where the newer laws of inheritance failed to breakdown the time-honoured succession of the youngest , the rights being preserved by a secret settlement or by the force of opinion. Similar customs prevailed in the forest of Odinwald and in the thinly-populated district to the north of Constance. Many examples maybe found in Snabia, in the Grisons, in Elsass, and other Teutonic or partly Teutonic countries, where old customs of this kind still influence the feelings of the peasantry, although they have ceased to be legally binding.(9)
The youngest son has his privilege, also, in the island of Bornholm, and a similar right has been observed in the territory of the old Republic of Lubeck,(10) a district where a Slavonic people formerly lived. Junior right also prevails in Saxe-Altenburg, which has an agricultural population of Slavonic extraction.(11)
It maybe noted from this list of localities that the custom in Germany, North-Eastern France, and Belgium, survives in separated districts rather than in whole territories, and it is not necessarily understood that it survives in all places in the districts named. In Germany also it should be noted that it survives where Slavonic influence has been felt, such as in Oldenburg, Saxe-Altenburg, parts of Bavaria, and in Silesia. The same custom survives in parts of Pomerania, mingled in other places with primogeniture.(12)
Pomerania was Slavonic, Oldenburg had an intrusive Slav settlement, and Axe-Altenburg and parts of Bavaria have in a similar way had Slav immigrants, or preserved a remnant of the older race from which the Slavs probably descended. The custom of junior right is clearly not a Germanic institution. It prevails in parts of Germany indeed, but it can be traced to no old German code of laws or general custom, as far as that has been able to discover. On the contrary, Tacitus tells us that equal division among the sons was the custom of succession among the ancient Germans. Germany was undoubtedly in the early centuries A. D. much influenced by the hordes of Slavs on its eastern borders, and received many intrusive colonies of that race. There is evidence to show that junior right spread through the parts of Germany where it prevailed, owing to the migrations of the Slavs, or people of mixed Slavic and Teutonic descent. No instances of this custom occurs in Scandinavia, and at the same time no instances can be adduced of Slav settlement in that peninsula. The custom of junior right is found in the early Russian code, by which the inheritance of the father appears to have passed to males in preference to females, and the youngest son was always to take the paternal house.
This early Russian code of laws, known as ``The Rousskaia Pravda of Yaroslav,`` which is preserved in the Chronicle of Novgorod, shows that the early Slavs had much the same institutions, such as trial by ordeal and the wager of battle, compensations for injuries, etc., as prevailed among other European nations at the same time.(13) Primogeniture is alien to the spirit of Slavonic institutions.(14) it was first introduced into Russian law by `Peter the Great`, but ,having been found unworkable, was abolished by the Empress Anne. It was so far restored by the Emperor Nicholas in 1830 that a father was then allowed to make his eldest son his heir if he chose to do so.(15) The Slavs are essentially agriculturists, and the tendency of the race is in the direction of co-operation. The primary element of organization in Russia – the village community, or mir,(16) under which the youngest son has a preference – is a survival of the old tenure of village communities that at one time must have been widely prevalent in Europe. When first we meet with the Slavs in history, we find them living in communities. Having all these facts in mind, we may reasonably look eastward of Germany for the origin of the custom by which the youngest son inherits. Nowhere else in Europe, except among the Slavs, can it be traced, so far as is known, in an early code of laws. It can indeed be traced still further eastward among the Mongolsof Asia, but it is unnecessary to follow it so far, for it is possible that it may have been derived by the Slavs from the earlier broad-headed Alpine race, of which they were probably an offshoot.
If we turn now to our country, and consider such a case as that of the manor of Merdon in Hampshire, although the name of the village has for many centuries been changed to Hursley, we find that inheritance by the youngest son is still a living custom among the copyholders,? And this on a manor with a name identical in part with that of the primitive mir, which maybe only an accidental co-incidence. In Sussex, where of all the English counties junior right most largely survives, mer, as part of place names, is also most largely represented. Some of them in their old forms are Keymer, Angermer, Stanmer, Falmer, Jonsmere, Cuckmere, Bormer, Burgemere, Udimer, and Ringmer, and they will be again referred to. These names maybe considered for what they are worth side by side with the existence of junior right in Sussex ; they maybe a coincidence, and no undue stress should be laid on them. That mer or mir is, however, the name of a primitive agricultural community appears from the survival of the name in Russia, and it is certain that such communities came into England from Continental lands during the English settlement. All our available evidence, therefore, points to Eastern Germany, to old Slavic lands, and German territories which were influenced by Slavs, as the source or sources of English junior right. It was apparently a custom that, when once ingrained into the life of a tribe, would remain under more settled conditions of agricultural life, and be passed on from age to age and from country to country.

Agni (Sanskrit: अग्नि) is a Hindu deity, one of the most important of the Vedic gods. He is the god of fire[1] and the acceptor of sacrifices. The sacrifices made to Agni go to the deities because Agni is a messenger[2] from and to the other gods. He is ever-young, because the fire is re-lit every day, and also immortal... Agni has three forms: fire, lightning and the Sun...The word agni is Sanskrit for "fire" (noun)...In some Hindu symbolism, Agni's parents are said to be the two components of the firedrill used to start the fire, and when young he was said to be cared for by ten servants, which represent the fingers of the man who is starting the fire...

The Trimūrti (English: ‘three forms’; Sanskrit: त्रिमूर्तिः trimūrti), Tri Murati or Trimurati, is a concept in Hinduism "in which the cosmic functions of creation, maintenance, and destruction are personified by the forms of Brahma the creator, Vishnu the maintainer or preserver and Shiva the destroyer or transformer."[1][2] These three gods have been called "the Hindu triad"[3] or the "Great Trinity",[4] often addressed as "Brahma-Vishnu-Maheshwara."
One type of depiction for the Trimurti shows three heads on one neck, and often even three faces on one head, each looking in a different direction.[5]

They call Him Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni, and he is the Divine good winged bird (the sun with beautiful rays). The sages describe one and the same Agni in various ways and call it Agni, Yama and Matarisvan. Rigveda 1.164.46

Agni itself is Indra, Vayu, Brahma, Vishnu and Brahmanaspati. Rigveda 2.1.3

Varuna and Mitra are but functional manifestations of Agni. Rigveda 2.1.4

Vishnu, Rudra and Marut are also functional manifestations of Agni. Rigveda 2.1.6

That (Supreme Being) is Agni; that is the Surya; that is the Vayu; that is the Chandrama; that is Jyoti; that is Brahman; and that is Prajapati. (Madhyandina) Yajurveda 32.1

“For indeed Agni is that God. His are the names: as the easterners (prachyaah) call him ‘Sarva’ (all), Bahlikas (call him) ‘Dhava’ (one who shakes), ‘Rudra’ (one who causes weeping), ‘Pasunampatih’ (the Lord or the protector of beasts), ‘Agni’ (the first leader, he who was there at the outset).” Kanva Shatapath Brahmana 2.7.1.7

The perception of the worshipper makes the ONE Deity appear as three, but in their ontological essence, they are ONE. Brhaddevata 2.18

In some of the hymns like the following ones, we see Agni being elevated to the status of a supreme god, " Agni is the Vaivashnara the center of all people ... He is in the sky as well as at the center of the earth." A similar notion can be found in this hymns also. "Commingling, restless, he ascends the sky, unveiling nights and all that stands or moves, as he the sole God is preeminent in greatness among all these other Gods."

Telluric Currents - Subterranean Electric Currents

Large "telluric currents" have been found circulating through Earth's crust because our magnetic field induces current flow in conductive strata. Thousands of amperes flow beneath the surface, varying according to conductivity. Since the Sun can affect Earth's magnetic field through geomagnetic storms, fluctuations in telluric currents can occur when there is an increase in sunspots or solar flares, because they create oscillations in the ionosphere.

"A telluric current (from Latin tellūs, "earth"), or Earth current, is an electric current which moves underground or through the sea. Telluric currents result from both natural causes and human activity, and the discrete currents interact in a complex pattern. The currents are extremely low frequency and travel over large areas at or near the surface of Earth."
"Telluric currents are phenomena observed in the Earth's crust and mantle. In September 1862, an experiment to specifically address Earth currents was carried out in the Munich Alps (Lamont, 1862). The currents are primarily induced by changes in the outer part of the Earth's magnetic field, which are usually caused by interactions between the solar wind and the magnetosphere or solar radiation effects on theionosphere. Telluric currents flow in the surface layers of the earth. The electric potential on the Earth's surface can be measured at different points, enabling us to calculate the magnitudes and directions of the telluric currents and hence the Earth's conductance"

Powerful Earth Current Enters North America From The Pacific

The world's longest natural electric current has been discovered under Australia. The current passes through sedimentary rocks for more than 6000 kilometres across the Australian outback. Its nearest rival, some 2000 kilometres shorter, is a current running from Wyoming into Canada in North America.

An immense current of terrestrial electricity originating somewhere in the Pacific enters the North American continent along the Strait of Georgia (between Vancouver Island and the British Columbia mainland) and shoots past Tacoma toward Oregon. The discoverers of the current, John R. Booker and Gerard Hensel, at the University of Washington, traced the flow of electricity through a narrow wedge of porous, water-bearing rock that parallels a fault line. Another branch of this terrestrial circuit enters along the Strait of Juan de Fuca. No estimates are given of the magnitude of the current; and there are no speculations as to the origin of the electromagnetic force driving the current.

Over the last two hundred years of reporting, lightning has been seen in the ash clouds spewing from numerous volcanic eruptions. Gigantic branching displays were photographed during the Mt. Chaiten eruption in May of 2008. There were reports of ball lightning bigger than beach balls rolling along the ground when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1981. Eyjafjallajökull produced flashes that lit up the sky for many kilometers.

When volcanoes erupt, they unleash with epic proportions lightning storms of staggering ferocity. Talking of the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD (and the destruction of Pompeii), Pliny the Younger wrote: “behind us were frightening dark clouds, rent by lightning twisted and hurled, opening to reveal huge figures of flame.”

The cause of volcanic lightning is not completely understood. Geologists assume that the cause is similar to the cause of lightning in thunderstorms, which is also not completely understood. [For discussion of lightning, see TPOD Sept 17, 2004, Weather: Fair, Foul and Electric] For years, geologists have talked about charge separation caused by volcanic dust particles colliding and building up static charges. Recently a new theory has been proposed that relies on the water content of magma.

From an electric universe point of view, the Earth is a small charged body moving in a large cell of plasma. Because of this, explanations of all physical phenomena in, on, and near the Earth must take the electrical behavior of plasma into account. The Physics of the Plasma Universe by Anthony Peratt describes magma as a plasma, a medium containing moving charges. So we should expect volcanoes not only to exhibit electrical behavior but to have that behavior connected with the larger plasma environment, that is, to be elements in a larger electrical circuit.

But why do some volcanoes produce lightning while others don't? More curious, why do some volcanoes with large dusty plumes produce little or no lightning and others with small or mediocre plumes produce much lightning? The simple answer could be that all volcanoes are electric but that the lightning displays happen only when the resistance to the volcanic current is high. You have a good example of this in your home. The electric wires that carry the current from the wall socket to your lamp don't produce heat or light. But when that same current encounters the high resistance of a tungsten filament, it does produce heat and light.

Recent observations of volcanic lightning add new support to the claims of electrical theorists, that volcanoes are dynamically related to an electric Earth.
New discoveries have deepened the mysteries of volcanic lightning. A recent news story reports on a study into volcanic electrical phenomena occurring in the eruption of Mt. Augustine in Alaska. The website LiveScience.com writes: "The lightning in a volcanic eruption occurs because the ash and other debris blasting out of the volcano are highly charged.... Though lightning was known to occur in the debris clouds above the volcano, the researchers found an earlier phase of volcanic lightning that had never before been observed and occurred right at the volcano's mouth just as it began erupting."

In other words, the lightning preceded the supposed “charge separation” process from friction that has traditionally been claimed to occur in billowing volcanic clouds. One of the researchers described this phase of the volcanic lightning as "big sparks maybe going just from the mouth of the volcano up into the column that's shooting out of the volcano, and then some lightning that went upward from the top of the volcano up into the cloud that was forming."
The report is ambiguous in speaking of “highly charged” debris rather than of moving ash and dust “separating charge.” “Charged debris” is much closer to the language that would be used by the electrical theorists. They consider the electrical activity to be a consequence of a pre-existing electric field that is short-circuited by a conductive medium.

The observations in this study add direct support to the claims of the electrical theorists, who emphasize that the electric field of the Earth is an indispensable environment for both volcanoes and volcanic lightning. As pointed out by plasma scientist Anthony Peratt, magma is a conductive plasma. A jet of magma will short-circuit the electric field through which it is moving. So of course, it should not surprise us to discover electrical arcing along the column of erupting material. If measurements could be made, we would expect to find the arcs connecting subterranean currents with ionospheric currents.

VOLCANOES have more in common with monster thunderstorms than we thought. Their plumes swirl like cyclones, which could explain why they have been seen spawning tornadoes and sheet lightning.

It is conventionally thought that a volcanic plume rises straight up and spreads out in a rough circle. But when Pinaki Chakraborty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and colleagues studied hourly satellite photos of the 1991 eruption of mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, they noticed that the margins gradually separated into five lobes. They saw similar shapes in photos of five other volcanoes.

The team's calculations show that this is caused by anticlockwise rotation in the plume, which creates a centrifugal force that throws the lobes outwards. The rotation occurs due to interactions between the updraught of the plume and horizontal wind patterns (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature07866).

Such rotation may be the driving force behind small tornadoes and waterspouts seen near plumes, which would form in the same way as dust devils around a thunderstorm. It may also explain the "sheaths" of lightning spotted in the 2008 eruption of mount Chaitén in Chile, because the cyclonic motion throws charged particles to the plume margins.

Sometimes earthquakes can produce flashes of light and other luminous events, as well. Ball lightning has been reported accompanying earthquakes, as have bright, colorful cloud-like formations floating in the sky above the fractured strata. It is not surprising that glow discharges occur before and after earthquakes: compressing quartz creates a flow of electric current. That is one reason why radio noise can be detected coming from areas under extreme stress. Is that stress only due to compression?

An earthquake light is an unusual luminous aerial phenomenon that reportedly appears in the sky at or near areas of tectonic stress, seismic activity, or volcanic eruptions. Once commonly challenged, it was not until photographs were taken during the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in Nagano, Japan (which occurred from 1965 through 1967) that the seismology community acknowledged their occurrence.

The earthquake on February 27 did more than shake people up in the middle of the night. Reports have come in that mysterious lights also appeared around the quake’s epicentre near Market Rasen, Lincolnshire.

One witness described how a grapefruit-sized glowing sphere appeared in her bedroom and then went out like a light. “This thing seemed to be coming across the room straight at me. I was very frightened,” she told the Louth Leader. Another person described flashes like car headlights at her window, and others spoke of lightning flashes after the quake. However, there was no lightning activity at the time of the quake.

In fact, there have been many reports of “earthquake lights” throughout history. Residents of Tangshan in China, for example, were awakened one night in July 1976 by bright flashes in the sky. Two days later an earthquake registering 7.8 on the Richter scale killed 240,000 people and destroyed the city. And a Japanese scientist took photographs of balls of light and red streaks in the sky during a swarm of earthquakes in Matsushiro between 1965 and 1967.

One explanation for his phenomenon is that the electrical properties of rocks may change under severe stress before or during a quake. This may generate changes in the electrical behaviour of the atmosphere, ionising the air and producing glowing lights.


... In this paper we draw attention to other parameters possibly related to earthquakes (EQ) that can be monitored from the ground and from space. Specifically, we propose to initiate a similar activity under TERRASCOPE or under some other future mission concept.

Recent field studies and simultaneous satellite observations add confidence to reported observations of electromagnetic (EM) emissions before large earthquakes. There is likewise mounting evidence that, prior to seismic activity, electric fields are transmitted from the ground into the atmosphere, that thermal anomalies may become observable, that ions may be emitted from the ground, that the atmospheric conductivity is affected, that the ground potential may change locally or regionally, etc. Some authors have considered the possibility of an inverse connection - from the atmosphere to the ground, causing seismic activity. Increased lightning activity, due to growing seismic activity, and the large currents thus induced may have an effect on the fracturing or microfracturing of rocks, focusingthe EQ energy release [Pulinets, 2000]. Several ongoing international satellite missions, COMPASS (Russia, Poland,2001), DEMETER (France, Japan, Russia, 2002) and VARIANT (European Space Agency, Ukraine, 2001), are aimed at retrieving ionospheric plasma anomalies that may be related to EQ activity (M>5).

Brahmā is clad in red clothes. Brahmā is traditionally depicted with four heads, four faces made of gold, and four arms. He also wears a golden crown.

Brahmā (Sanskrit: ब्रह्मा; IAST: Brahmā) is the Hindu god (deva) of creation and one of the Trimūrti, the others being Viṣņu and Śiva. According to the Brahmā Purāņa, he is the father of Manu, and from Manu all human beings are descended. In the Rāmāyaņa and the Mahābhārata, he is often referred to as the progenitor or great grandsire of all human beings.

Brahma has four faces looking at four directions of the world. Brahmā also holds a string of prayer beads called the 'akṣamālā' (literally "garland of eyes").

Brahmā is often identified with Prajāpati, a Vedic deity.

Lord Brahmā, Lord Vishnu, Lord Shiva and Maharaj Manu are considered Prajapaties. Prajapati also means protector & preserver (King).

Chris Stringer's hypothesis of the family tree of genus Homo, published 2012 in Nature:[1] Homo floresiensis originated in an unknown location from unknown ancestors and reached remote parts of Indonesia. Homo erectus spread from Africa to western Asia, then east Asia and Indonesia; its presence in Europe is uncertain, but it gave rise to Homo antecessor, found in Spain. Homo heidelbergensis originated from Homo erectus in an unknown location and dispersed across Africa, southern Asia and southern Europe (other scientists interpret fossils, here named heidelbergensis, as late erectus). Homo sapiens spread from Africa to western Asia and then to Europe and southern Asia, eventually reaching Australia and the Americas. In addition to Neanderthals and Denisovans a third gene flow in Africa is indicated at the right.[2]

Comparison of the DNA of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens suggests that they diverged from a common ancestor between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago. This ancestor is not certain, but was probably Homo heidelbergensis (sometimes called Homo rhodesiensis). Heidelbergensis originated between 800,000 and 1,300,000 years ago, and continued until about 200,000. It ranged over east and South Africa, Europe and west Asia. Between 350,000 and 400,000 years ago the African branch is thought to have started evolving towards modern humans and the European branch towards Neanderthals. Scientists do not agree when Neanderthals can first be recognised in the fossil record, with dates ranging 200,000 and 300,000 years BP.[33][34][35][36]

According to preliminary sequences, 99.7% of the base pairs of the modern human and Neanderthal genomes are identical, compared to humans sharing around 98.8% of base pairs with the chimpanzee.[3] Additionally, in 2010, the announcement of the discovery and analysis of Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from the Denisova hominin in Siberia revealed that this specimen differs from that of modern humans by 385 bases (nucleotides) in the mtDNA strand out of approximately 16,500, whereas the difference between modern humans and Neanderthals is around 202 bases. In contrast, the difference between chimpanzees and modern humans is approximately 1,462 mtDNA base pairs. Analysis of the specimen's nuclear DNA is under way and is expected to clarify whether the find is a distinct species.[9][10] Even though the Denisova hominin's mtDNA lineage predates the divergence of modern humans and Neanderthals, coalescent theory does not preclude a more recent divergence date for her nuclear DNA.

Loss of body hair in Hominini species is assumed to be related to the emergence of bipedalism some 3 to 2 million years ago. Bipedal hominin body hair gradually disappeared to allow better heat dissipation through sweating[62][63]

Reconstruction of a female Homo erectus based on fossils dated c. 1.5 million years ago, the estimated time for the emergence of skin pigmentation in early humans (John Gurche, Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, 2010).
The emergence of skin pigmentation dates to after this, perhaps some 1.5 million years ago (about the time of the emergence of Homo heidelbergensis), when the earth endured a megadrought that drove early humans into arid, open landscapes. This would have resulted in early human skin enduring excess UV-B radiation and xeric stress.[64] This favoured the emergence of skin pigmentation in order to increase the epidermal permeability barrier[64] and protect from folate depletion due to the increased exposure to sunlight.[7]
With the evolution of hairless skin, abundant sweat glands, and skin rich in melanin, early humans could walk, run, and forage for food for long periods of time under the hot sun without overheating brain damage, giving them an evolutionary advantage over other species.[6] By 1.2 million years ago, around the time of Homo ergaster, archaic humans (including the ancestors of Homo sapiens) had exactly the same receptor protein as modern sub-Sahran Africans.[62]
This was the genotype inherited by anatomically modern humans, but retained only by part of the extant populations, thus forming an aspect of human genetic variation. About 100,000–70,000 years ago some anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) began to migrate away from the tropics to the north where they were exposed to less intense sunlight, possibly in part due to the need for greater use of clothing to protect against the colder climate. Under these conditions there was less photodestruction of folate and so the evolutionary pressure stopping lighter-skinned gene variants from surviving was reduced. In addition, lighter skin is able to generate more vitamin D (cholecalciferol) than darker skin so it would have represented a health benefit in reduced sunlight if there were limited sources of vitamin D.[63] Hence the leading hypothesis for the evolution of human skin color proposes that:
From about 1.2 million years ago to less than 100,000 years ago, archaic humans, including archaic Homo sapiens, were dark-skinned.
As Homo sapiens populations began to migrate, the evolutionary constraint keeping skin dark decreased proportionally to the distance north a population migrated, resulting in a range of skin tones within northern populations.
At some point, some northern populations experienced positive selection for lighter skin due to the increased production of vitamin D from sunlight and the genes for darker skin disappeared from these populations.
Subsequent migrations into different UV environments and admixture between populations has resulted in the varied range of skin pigmentations we see today.

The genetic mutations leading to light skin, though different among East Asians and Western Europeans,[15] suggest the two groups experienced a similar selective pressure due to settlement in northern latitudes.[65] At what point these developments took place for sub-populations of Homo sapiens (and whether light skin also occurred independently in Homo neanderthalensis) is under debate. There is a long-standing hypothesis that the selection for lighter skin due to higher vitamin D absorption occurred soon after the Out of Africa migration some time before 40,000 years ago. A number of researchers disagree with this and suggest that the northern latitudes permitted enough synthesis of vitamin D combined with food sources from hunting to keep populations healthy, and only when agriculture was adopted was there a need for lighter skin to maximize the synthesis of vitamin D. The theory suggests that the reduction of game meat, fish, and some plants from the diet resulted in skin turning light many thousands of years after settlement in Eurasia.[66] This theory is supported by a study into the SLC24A5 gene, which found that the allelle associated with light skin in Europe may have originated as recently as 12,000–6,000 years ago,[33] which is in line with the earliest evidence of farming.[67] Research by Nina Jablonski suggests that an estimated time of about 10 000 to 20 000 years is enough for human populations to achieve optimal skin pigmentation in a particular geographic areas but that development of ideal skin coloration may happen faster if the evolutionary pressure is stronger, even in as little as 100 generations.[4] The length of time is also affected by cultural practices such as food intake, clothing, body coverings, and shelter usage which can alter the ways in which the environment affects populations.[6]

One of the most recently proposed drivers of the evolution of skin pigmentation in humans is based on research that shows a superior barrier function in darkly pigmented skin. Most protective functions of the skin, including the permeability barrier and the antimicrobial barrier, reside in the stratum corneum (SC) and the researchers surmise that the SC has undergone the most genetic change since the loss of human body hair. Natural selection would have favored mutations that protect this essential barrier; one such protective adaptation is the pigmentation of interfollicular epidermis, because it improves barrier function as compared to non-pigmented skin. In lush rainforests, however, where UV-B radiation and xeric stress were not in excess, light pigmentation would not have been nearly as detrimental. This explains the side-by-side residence of lightly pigmented and darkly pigmented peoples.[69]
Population and admixture studies suggest a three-way model for the evolution of human skin colour, with dark skin evolving in early hominids in Africa and light skin evolving partly separately at least two times after modern humans had expanded out of Africa.[13][14][15][16][17][18]
For the most part, the evolution of light skin has followed different genetic paths in Western and Eastern Eurasian populations. Two genes however, KITLG and ASIP, have mutations associated with lighter skin that have high frequencies in Eurasian populations and have estimated origin dates after humans spread out of Africa but before the divergence of the two lineages.[16] All modern humans share a common ancestor who lived around 200,000 years ago in Africa.[19] Comparisons between known skin pigmentation genes in chimpanzees and modern Africans show that dark skin evolved along with the loss of body hair about 1.2 million years ago and is the ancestral state of all humans.[20] Investigations into dark skinned populations in South Asia and Melanesia indicate that skin pigmentation in these populations is due to the preservation of this ancestral state and not due to new variations on a previously lightened population.[8][21]

Examination of the genome of late Neanderthals suggests that at least some populations may have developed light skin by 40,000 years ago.[68]

Although mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosomal DNA are particularly useful in deciphering human history, data on the genomes of dozens of population groups have also been studied. In June 2009, an analysis of genome-wide SNP data from the International HapMap Project (Phase II) and CEPH Human Genome Diversity Panel samples was published.[51] Those samples were taken from 1138 unrelated individuals.[51] Before this analysis, population geneticists expected to find dramatic differences among ethnic groups, with derived alleles shared among such groups but uncommon or nonexistent in other groups.[52] Instead the study of 53 populations taken from the HapMap and CEPH data revealed that the population groups studied fell into just three genetic groups: Africans, Eurasians (which includes natives of Europe and the Middle East, and Southwest Asians east to present-day Pakistan), and East Asians, which includes natives of Asia, Japan, Southeast Asia, the Americas, and Oceania.[52] The study determined that most ethnic group differences can be attributed to genetic drift, with modern African populations having greater genetic diversity than the other two genetic groups, and modern Eurasians somewhat more than modern East Asians.[52] The study suggested that natural selection may shape the human genome much more slowly than previously thought, with factors such as migration within and among continents more heavily influencing the distribution of genetic variations.[53]

Anatomically modern humans originated in Africa about 250,000 years ago. The trend in cranial expansion and the acheulean elaboration of stone tool technologies which occurred between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene (around 250,000 years ago) provide evidence for a transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens.[33] In the Recent African Origin (RAO) scenario, migration within and out of Africa eventually replaced the earlier dispersed H. erectus.
Homo sapiens idaltu, found at site Middle Awash in Ethiopia, lived about 160,000 years ago.[34] It is the oldest known anatomically modern human and classified as an extinct subspecies.[35] Fossils of early Homo sapiens were found in Qafzeh cave in Israel and have been dated to 80,000 to 100,000 years ago. However these humans seem to have either become extinct or retreated back to Africa 70,000 to 80,000 years ago, possibly replaced by south bound Neanderthals escaping the colder regions of ice age Europe.[36] Hua Liu et al. analyzing autosomal microsatellite markers dates to c. 56,000±5,700 years ago mtDNA evidence. He interprets the paleontological fossil of early modern human from Qafzeh cave as an isolated early offshoot that retracted back to Africa.[37]

Neanderthal anatomy differed from modern humans in that they had a more robust build and distinctive morphological features, especially on the cranium, which gradually accumulated more derived aspects, particularly in certain isolated geographic regions. Evidence suggests they were much stronger than modern humans[1] while they were comparable in height; based on 45 long bones from at most 14 males and 7 females, Neanderthal males averaged 164–168 cm (65–66 in) and females 152–156 cm (60–61 in) tall.[2] Samples of 26 specimens in 2010 found an average weight of 77.6 kg (171 lb) for males and 66.4 kg (146 lb) for females.[3] A 2007 genetic study suggested some Neanderthals may have had red hair and light skin color.[4][5]

Neanderthals made advanced tools,[61] had a language (the nature of which is debated) and lived in complex social groups. The Molodova archaeological site in eastern Ukraine suggests some Neanderthals built dwellings using animal bones. A building was made of mammoth skulls, jaws, tusks and leg bones, and had 25 hearths inside.[62]
While largely carnivorous,[63][64] and apex predators;[65] new studies indicate Neanderthals had cooked vegetables in their diet.[66][67] In 2010, a U.S. researcher reported finding cooked vegetable matter in the teeth of a Neanderthal skull, contradicting the earlier belief they were exclusively (or almost exclusively) carnivorous[63] and apex predators.[65][66]

Genetic testing in the last decade has revealed that several now extinct archaic human species interbred with modern humans. These species left their genetic imprint in different regions across the world: Neanderthals in all humans except Sub-Saharan Africans, Denisova hominin in Australasia (for example, Melanesians, Australian Aborigines and some Negritos) and there was also interbreeding between Sub-Saharan Africans and an as-yet-unknown hominin (possibly remnants of the ancient species Homo heidelbergensis). The rate of interbreeding was found to be relatively low (1-10%).[17][18]

However, modern humans do not share any mitochondrial DNA with the Neanderthals,[12] an observation that puts constraints on the possible types of successful mating patterns,[13] since mitochondrial DNA in primates is exclusively maternally transmitted.

Cro-Magnon (Listeni/kroʊˈmænjən/ or US pronunciation: /kroʊˈmæɡnən/; French: [kʁomaɲɔ̃]) is a name that has been used to describe the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens) of the European Upper Paleolithic.[1] Current scientific literature prefers the term European Early Modern Humans (EEMH), to the term 'Cro-Magnon' which has no formal taxonomic status, as it refers neither to a species or subspecies nor to an archaeological phase or culture.[1] The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiocarbon dated to 43,000 years before present.[2]
Cro-Magnons were robustly built and powerful. The body was generally heavy and solid with a strong musculature. The forehead was fairly straight rather than sloping like in Neanderthals, and with only slight browridges. The face was short and wide. Like other modern humans, Cro-Magnons had a prominent chin. The brain capacity was about 1,600 cubic centimetres (98 cu in), larger than the average for modern humans.[3] However, recent research suggests that the physical dimensions of so-called "Cro-Magnon" are not sufficiently different from modern humans to warrant a separate designation.[4][5]

The Skhul/Qafzeh hominids or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans[1] are human fossils discovered in the Qafzeh and Es Skhul Caves in the former Mandate of Palestine, present-day Israel. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel. Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter in Lower Galilee.

The remains exhibit a mix of archaic and modern traits. They have been tentatively dated at about 80,000-120,000 years old using electron spin resonance and thermoluminescence dating techniques.[2] The brain case is similar to modern humans, but they possess brow ridges and a projecting facial profile, similar to the Neanderthals. They were initially regarded as transitional from Neanderthals to modern humans, or as hybrids between Neanderthals and modern humans. Neanderthal remains have been found nearby at Kebara Cave that date to 61,000-48,000 years ago,[3] but it has been hypothesised that the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids had died out by 80,000 years ago because of drying conditions,[4] suggesting that the two types of hominids never made contact in the region. A more recent hypothesis is that Skhul/Qafzeh hominids represent the first exodus of modern humans from Africa around 125,000 years ago, probably via the Sinai Peninsula, and that the robust features exhibited by the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids represent archaic sapiens features rather than "Neanderthal features".[4] The discovery of modern human made tools from about 125,000 years ago at Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates, in the Arabian Peninsula, may be from an even earlier exit of modern humans from Africa.[5]

"...the robust features exhibited by the Skhul/Qafzeh hominids represent archaic sapiens features rather than "Neanderthal features".

Maasai seem to have some "Neandertal" genes in common with East Asians that are not shared by Europeans.

Admixture of Maasai with East Asians seems unlikely. Thus, there are three possibilities:
A recent back-migration of West Asians who possess these alleles
A really old back-migration of undifferentiated "Neandertal"-admixed West Asians in which these alleles had not yet been lost by drift
Origin of these alleles in the common ancestors of East Africans and Eurasians rather than introgression from Neandertals
I can't exclude the possibility that some recent Caucasoids from West Asia possessed these alleles while CEU do not. I will simply note that HapMap Tuscans (TSI), do not possess them, and neither do 471 Ashkenazi Jews from Bray et al. (2010) who are likely to be of West Asian/European ancestry. Neither do Kurds and Urkarah Dagestanis (from Xing et al. 2010) possess 2 "Neandertal" alleles on SNPs available in that dataset.

So, I will tentatively exclude the possibility that recent Caucasoid back-migrations brought these alleles to East Africa.

This leaves open two possibilities: that (i) these aren't Neandertal genes at all and were part of the ancestral gene pool of East Africans and Eurasians, or that (ii) they were brought back to Africa by a major early back-migration of undifferentiated Eurasians.

The fossil was found to be at least 397,000 years old and possibly older than 525,000 years old,” explained Rink. “We used three independent techniques (electron spin resonance, uranium series isotopic analysis and infrared luminescence dating) which had remarkably consistent results reinforcing our conclusion. This established the mandible as the oldest easternmost European fossil of its kind.”

“During this time, humans in Western Europe started to develop Neanderthal traits, which is lacking in this specimen,” explained Roksandic. ”Scientists now think the evolution of Neanderthal traits was strongly influenced by periodic isolation caused by episodic formation of glaciers. On the other hand, humans in southeastern Europe were never geographically isolated from Asia and Africa by glaciers and accordingly, this resulted in different evolutionary forces acting on early human populations in this region. The Balkan Peninsula could have belonged to the postulated core area from which human populations repopulated Europe after the glaciers receded. The status of this specimen as Homo erectus s.l. fits well with this explanation.”

The most vocal proponent of the hybridization hypothesis on anatomical grounds has been Erik Trinkaus of Washington University.[34] Trinkaus claims various fossils as hybrid individuals, including the "child of Lagar Velho", a skeleton found at Lagar Velho in Portugal dated to about 24,000 years ago.[35] In a 2006 publication co-authored by Trinkaus, the fossils found in 1952 in the cave of Peștera Muierii, Romania, are likewise claimed as hybrids. [36]
In his work Neanderthal, Paul Jordan points out that without some interbreeding, certain features on some "modern" skulls of Eastern European Cro-Magnon heritage are hard to explain.[37] In another study, researchers have recently found in Peştera Muierilor, Romania, remains of European humans from 30 thousand years ago who possessed mostly diagnostic "modern" anatomical features, but also had distinct Neanderthal features not present in ancestral modern humans in Africa, including a large bulge at the back of the skull, a more prominent projection around the elbow joint, and a narrow socket at the shoulder joint. Analysis of one skeleton's shoulder showed that these humans, like Neanderthal, did not have the full capability for throwing spears.[38]
The paleontological analysis of modern-human emergence in Europe has been shifting from considerations of the Neanderthals to assessments of the biology and chronology of the earliest modern humans in western Eurasia. This focus, involving morphologically modern humans before 28,000 years ago, shows accumulating evidence that they present a variable mosaic of derived modern human, archaic human, and Neanderthal features.[36][39][40] Studies of fossils from the upper levels of the Sima de las Palomas, Murcia, Spain, dated to 40,000 years ago, establish the late persistence of Neanderthals in Iberia. This reinforces the conclusion that the Neanderthals were not merely swept away by advancing modern humans. In addition, the Palomas Neanderthals variably exhibit a series of modern-human features rare or absent in earlier Neanderthals. Either they were evolving on their own towards the modern-human pattern, or more likely, they had contact with early modern humans around the Pyrenees. If the latter is the case, it implies that the persistence of the Middle Paleolithic in Iberia was a matter of choice, and not cultural retardation.[41]
Modern-human findings in Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal, of 24,500 years ago, allegedly featuring Neanderthal admixtures, have been published.[42] However the interpretation of the Portuguese specimen is disputed.[43]

The Cro-Magnon man was, compared to the other “anatomically modern humans” around him, practically a superman. They were skilled hunters, toolmakers and artists famous for the cave art at places such as Lascaux, Chauvet, and Altamira. They had a high cranium, a broad and upright face, and cranial capacity “about the same as modern humans” (can we say larger?), but less than that of Neanderthals. The males were as tall as 6 feet.

What the archaeological record seems to show is that in Europe, after millennia of almost no progress at all, even in the few areas where modern man has been found, suddenly human culture seems to take off like an explosion with the appearance of Cro-Magnon man.

Not only does culture explode, but also new ways of doing things, new styles and innovations that were utterly unknown in the period immediately preceding them, suddenly appear, only to disappear again like an outdated fad. From Spain to the Urals, sites list the developments of sewing needles, barbed projectiles, fishhooks, ropes, meat drying racks, temperature controlled hearths, and complex dwellings.

Cro-Magnon’s tools are described as the Aurignacian technology, characterized by bone and antler tools, such as spear tips (the first) and harpoons. The earliest known Aurignacian sites are in the Balkans (a cave called Bacho Kiro), and they are dated to around 43,000 years ago. Three thousand years later, the Aurignacian craze is all over Europe. They also used animal traps, and bow and arrow. They invented shafts and handles for their knives, securing their blades with bitumen, a kind of tar, as long as 40 thousand years ago. Other improvements included the invention of the atlatl, a large bone or piece of wood with a hooked groove used for adding distance and speed to spears.

They also invented more sophisticated spear points, such as those that detach after striking and cause greater damage to prey.144 The Cro-Magnon type man was also the “originator” of such abstract concepts as “time”. They marked time by lunar phases, recording them with marks on a piece of bone, antler or stone. Some of these “calendars” contained a record of as many as 24 lunations.145

Cro-Magnon people lived in tents and other man-made shelters in groups of several families. They were nomadic hunter-gatherers and had elaborate rituals for hunting, birth and death. Multiple burials are common in the areas where they were found. What is most interesting is that from 35 to 10 thousand years ago, there was no differentiation by sex or age in burials.

They included special grave goods, as opposed to everyday, utilitarian objects, suggesting a very increased ritualization of death and burial..147

They were the first confirmed to have domesticated animals, starting by about 15 thousand years ago (though ancient sapiens may have domesticated the dog as much as 200 thousand years ago).

It also seems that right from the beginning, Cro-Magnon man was traveling and sharing and exchanging not only goods, but technology.

If there was a better form of stone somewhere else, the word seemed to get around, and everybody had some of it. Distinctive flints from southern Poland are found at Dolni Vestonice, a hundred miles to the south. Slovakian radiolarite of red, yellow and olive is found a hundred miles to the east. Later in the Upper Paleolithic period, the famous “chocolate flint” of southern Poland is found over a radius of two hundred and fifty miles.151

The most amazing part of all of it is the art. Art suddenly springs onto the landscape, fully formed, with no period of gradual development; no signs of childish attempts preceding it. A piece of ivory carved 32,000 years ago is as realistic as anything turned out by the most accomplished carver of the present day.

They were the first to leave extensive works of art, such as cave paintings and carved figures of animals and pregnant women. Huge caves lavishly decorated with murals depicting animals of the time were at first rejected as fake for being too sophisticated. Then they were dismissed as being primitive, categorized as hunting, fertility or other types of sympathetic magic.

They show evidence of motifs, of following their own stylistic tradition, of “impressionist” like style, perspective, and innovative use of the natural relief in the caves. Also possible, considering the new concepts of time reckoning practiced by Cro-Magnon, are abstract representations of the passage of time, such as spring plants in bloom, or pregnant bison that might represent summer.148

Aside from pregnant women and other Goddess worship iconography,149 representations of people, “anthropomorphs,” are very few, and never show the accuracy or detail of the other animals. Humans are represented in simple outlines without features, sometimes with “masks”, often without regard to proportion, being distorted and isolated. At the Grottes des Enfants in France are found four burials with red ocher, and associated with Aurignacian tools.

Prehistoric dots and crimson hand stencils on Spanish cave walls are now the world's oldest known cave art, according to new dating results—perhaps the best evidence yet that Neanderthals were Earth's first cave painters. If that's the case, the discovery narrows the cultural distance between us and Neanderthals—and fuels the argument, at least for one scientist, that the heavy-browed humans were not a separate species but only another race. Of the 11 subterranean sites the team studied along northern Spain's Cantabrian Sea coast, the cave called El Castillo had the oldest paintings—the oldest being a simple red disk. At more than 40,800 years old, "this is currently Europe's oldest dated art by at least 4,000 years," said the study's lead author Alistair Pike, an archaeologist at the University of Bristol in the U.K. If the new dates are correct, they also could make the El Castillo art the oldest known well-dated cave paintings in the world—a title previously held by France's Chauvet cave paintings (pictures), believed to be at least 37,000 years old.

Many scientists had long doubted whether Neanderthals were capable of producing symbolic art. But that's begun to change in recent years, thanks in part to the discovery of pigments, tiny art objects, and what might be body paint at Neanderthal sites, according to Paul Bahn, a cave art expert and a member of the Archaeological Institute of America. "There remains a rump of blinkered scholars who still consider Neanderthals to be brutish savages, little better than animals, but fortunately they are a dwindling minority," Bahn, who was not involved in the study, said in an email. "I think almost all objective scholars now fully accept Neanderthal art." Study co-author João Zilhão goes a step further, suggesting that, if Neanderthals were responsible for some of the Spanish cave art, then perhaps there's no real distinction between them and modern humans. "It adds to the evidence ... that Neanderthals were a European racial variant of Homo sapiens, not a distinct species," said Zilhão, of the University of Barcelona. At the very least, study leader Pike said, the new findings help narrow the distance between the cultural evolution of Neanderthals and modern humans. "If you look at the [modern human] trajectory towards art, we find shell beads, bits of ochre, and ostrich shells carved with geometric designs from about 70,000 to 100,000 years ago" in Africa, he said. Now, at European sites, "we see that Neanderthals are following the same trajectory. We see shell beads, carved sculptures, and geometric designs on bits of bone. And now we see what might be Neanderthal art."

The Upper Paleolithic signals the most fundamental change in human behavior that the archaeological record may ever reveal.150 The only explanation for this tremendous change is that a new kind of human appeared on the earth stage.

Skull of Homo erectus throws story of human evolution into disarray

A haul of fossils found in Georgia suggests that half a dozen species of early human ancestor were actually all Homo erectus. The spectacular fossilised skull of an ancient human ancestor that died nearly two million years ago has forced scientists to rethink the story of early human evolution. Anthropologists unearthed the skull at a site in Dmanisi, a small town in southern Georgia, where other remains of human ancestors, simple stone tools and long-extinct animals have been dated to 1.8m years old. Experts believe the skull is one of the most important fossil finds to date, but it has proved as controversial as it is stunning. Analysis of the skull and other remains at Dmanisi suggests that scientists have been too ready to name separate species of human ancestors in Africa. Many of those species may now have to be wiped from the textbooks. The latest fossil is the only intact skull ever found of a human ancestor that lived in the early Pleistocene, when our predecessors first walked out of Africa. The skull adds to a haul of bones recovered from Dmanisi that belong to five individuals, most likely an elderly male, two other adult males, a young female and a juvenile of unknown sex. "The significance is difficult to overstate. It is stunning in its completeness. This is going to be one of the real classics in paleoanthropology," said Tim White, an expert on human evolution at the University of California, Berkeley. But while the skull itself is spectacular, it is the implications of the discovery that have caused scientists in the field to draw breath. Over decades excavating sites in Africa, researchers have named half a dozen different species of early human ancestor, but most, if not all, are now on shaky ground. The remains at Dmanisi are thought to be early forms of Homo erectus, the first of our relatives to have body proportions like a modern human. The species arose in Africa around 1.8m years ago and may have been the first to harness fire and cook food. The Dmanisi fossils show that H erectus migrated as far as Asia soon after arising in Africa. The latest skull discovered in Dmanisi belonged to an adult male and was the largest of the haul. It had a long face and big, chunky teeth. But at just under 550 cubic centimetres, it also had the smallest braincase of all the individuals found at the site. The dimensions were so strange that one scientist at the site joked that they should leave it in the ground. The odd dimensions of the fossil prompted the team to look at normal skull variation, both in modern humans and chimps, to see how they compared. They found that while the Dmanisi skulls looked different to one another, the variations were no greater than those seen among modern people and among chimps. The scientists went on to compare the Dmanisi remains with those of supposedly different species of human ancestor that lived in Africa at the time. They concluded that the variation among them was no greater than that seen at Dmanisi. Rather than being separate species, the human ancestors found in Africa from the same period may simply be normal variants of H erectus.
"Everything that lived at the time of the Dmanisi was probably just Homo erectus," said Prof Zollikofer. "We are not saying that palaeoanthropologists did things wrong in Africa, but they didn't have the reference we have. Part of the community will like it, but for another part it will be shocking news."

Haplogroup I is the oldest major haplogroup in Europe and in all probability the only one that originated there (apart from very minor haplogroups like C6 and deep subclades of other haplogroups). It is thought to have arrived from the Middle East as haplogroup IJ sometime between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago, and developed into haplogroup I approximately 25,000 years ago. In other words, Cro-Magnons most probably belonged to IJ and I (alongside older haplogroups like F and C6).

DNA genealogy has shown that non-Africans do not have “African” SNPs on their Y chromosomes (Klyosov & Rozhanskii, 2012; Klyosov et al., 2012). Africans and non-Africans have plenty of SNP-mutations from a common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees; however, non-Africans have apparently, not received them from the Africans (ibid.). As a consequence of this lack of DNA data, it is hard to imagine that African languages could have evolved into PIE languages. Overall, it is highly questionable that “anatomically modern homo” arose in Africa (Klyosov & Rozhankii, 2012; Klyosov et al., 2012; Bednarik, 2012, 2013),

Eighty-four graves at Vlasac produced skeletal material from 117 individuals. Scattered finds of another 65 individuals came from all over the occupied area (Nemeskeri, 1978, pp.97-98). The general character of these remains, representing a tall (females 163.32, and males 170.53 cm), robust, Cro-Magnon-type population, with a tendency toward some gracilization as the, Mesolithic period drew to a close, (Nemeskeri and Szathmary, 1978, pp.178, 179) is consonant with the reports of the 37 individuals recovered from 30 graves at Padina (Zivanovic, S., 1974, p.153), and the 85 skeletons from Lepenski Vir (Nemeskeri, 1972, p.200). Gracilization, particularly of males, is a general trend throughout Europe in the late Upper Paleolithic and Mesolithic (Frayer, 1978).

Among the skeletal remains were found in Lepenski vir (mesolithic culture) 160-170 individuals, which are based on archaeological and stratigraphic elements divided into two groups: A and B. The oldest group A is among the Cro-Magnon type (with its robust and fragile variant).

"The characteristics of men in group A are long or very long skull, with a medium wide or wide maximum width. Height of the skull is very pronounced. ... Cranial material is very massive. The vertikalis norm of the skull are spheroidal, ellipsoidal or wide ovoid shape. The norm lateralis profile is tall and jagged. The profile of the dominant occipital torus okcipitalis, and forms the "wide house" or "bomb ". The face is very wide and medium wide, paralelopiped. Mandible is a large, high and wide. Raums is broad with a very corrugated angulus. Postcranial skeleton is characterized by toughness, with especially distinct muscles and ligaments to the femur and humerus. Robuscity of clavicle and ribs is also expressed. The body's growth is between 175 and 178 cm. ... Cranial volume in men is between 1400 and 1500 mm3 (for female skulls of this group between 1258 cm3). "(Z. Mikic, same, p.27)"

The temporal region and the supramastoid ridge in mesolithic skulls from Padina in the Iron Gate Gorge of the Danube

Studies of the morphological features of the temporal region of mesolithic skulls from Padina in the Iron Gate Gorge of the Danube revealed a very prominent and large supramastoid ridge which is the most striking feature in skulls of both sexes. Mastoid processes were larger in male skulls, but in 25% of the cases there was an overlap between the size of the processes in male and female specimens. The mastoid ridge was prominent in both sexes. The digastric fossa was always well defined in both sexes and in the two thirds of the skull specimens it was deep. The posterior root of the zygoma was prominent in all the skulls, but it was better developed in the male specimens. The parietotemporal suture in both sexes rises above the level of the pterion. There were no morphological or anthropometrical differences between the left and the right side of individual skulls outside the limits of natural asymmetry. All these morphological characteristics of the temporal region may help in racial and sexual diagnosis of the Mesolithic skulls from the Iron Gate Gorge.

Radiocarbon dating of a Cro-Magnon population from Padina, Yugoslavia, with some general recommendations for dating human skeletons

A previously controversial group of human skeletal remains of Cro-Magnon type from Padina in the Iron Gates gorge has been shown by direct radiocarbon dating of collagen to belong to the early Holocene period, c. 8–9000 bp. The more general applicability of the procedures used to establish the age of these skeletons is discussed with particular reference to the desideratum of including only directly dated remains in the human fossil record.

Radio carbon dating of Danube gorge skeletons

MESOLITHIC AND NEOLITHIC (DIS)CONTINUITIES IN THE DANUBE GORGES

New AMS dates from Padina indicate a significant chronological depth for the use of this site (this also applies to some other sites in the Danube Gorges, such as Vlasac, cf. Fig. 14)as both a burial ground and a seasonal or semi-permanent settlement, at least from c.9500 CalBC. There are significant chronological differences in dating individual human burials, scatteredresidual remains and remains found within architectural features, such as trapezoidal buildings.For the moment, it is difficult to claim unbroken continuity for almost 4000 years, i.e. duringthe Mesolithic–Neolithic development that the available radiometric dates cover at this site, andwe suspect that there were discontinuous phases and (seasonal) episodes of occupation.
However, it seems that populations which visited this site over several millennia of theMesolithic development belonged to the same material culture/regional tradition throughout theperiod, with a good knowledge of the significance of the locale. Furthermore, it seems that thereis no major chronological break in the sequence of radiometric dates at the time when newmaterial paraphernalia, such as pottery, Balkan yellow-spotted flint and polished stone tools,appear in this region as general traits of Early Neolithic material culture tradition. We see noevidence to support a recently suggested scenario of flooding that would have caused theabandonment of this site in the period 6300–5950 Cal BC (Bonsall et al. 2002) since a numberof new AMS dates cover exactly this period.New dates from Hajduka Vodenica suggest the Mesolithic use of the site as a burialground from at least c.7500 Cal BC. There is a possible gap of around 500 years between theearlier use and a later use of the site as a burial ground around 6500 to 6100 Cal BC. However,there might have been a clear recognition of the previous use of the site on the basis of stratigraphic and spatial relations of earlier and later dated burials and architectural features.Material culture associations at the site related to the lower two portions of stone constructions(without pottery and with abundant bone tools) also suggest that the site might have been usedas an occupation settlement/base during the Mesolithic, which should be determined by futuredating of bone tools and animal bones from this area.This revised chronological framework on the basis of new AMS dates from Padina andHajduka Vodenica also significantly helps us understand the nature of the Meso-Neolithictransformations in this region, with abundant indications regarding the chronological overlappingand cultural coexistence of Mesolithic and Neolithic realms (Boriin press a; in press b).Further research and new AMS dates from both sites are necessary to achieve a fine-grained resolution of the chronological sequences and to discern particularities of very long andcomplex occupational histories at these and other locales in the Danube Gorges.

The research presented here aims at disceming possible interactions between Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of the bon Gates Gorge (Serbia-Romania) and the th surrounding farmers. The region has, during the fh and the 6 rnillenniurns BC. witnessed the coexistence of Mesolithic culture of the Lepenski Vir -Schela Cladovei type and the Early and Middle Neolithic of the Balkans. represented in the region by Gura-Baciului and StarCevo. At the end of this coexistence, Neolithic settlements are confïrmed on one of the examined sites (Lepenski Vir), as well as downstream from the Gorge. integrated into the Middle Neolithic Starfevo-Cris-Koros complex. in order to examine the interactions of communities with different modes of subsistence (foraging and farming respectively), the nonmetric anatocnicd variünts of the skull and postcranial skeletons were exiunined on the four sites with the largest number of individuals buried: Padina. Lepenski Vir. Vlasac and Hajdurlka Vodenicü. The analyses were performed according to sites, chronological units, and combination of sites and chronological units. Anaher set of analyses, aimed at disceming environmental (occupation/nutrition) changes that could have affected the population in transition was performed on metric variables of postcranial skeleton. The combination of these two sets of andyses argues for local continuity within the region, with high degree of initial heterogeneity, and temporal ordering as the mosi likely explanation for the pattern of change. A more pronounced difference at the time of availability of contact with Neolithic populations in the region argiles for a limited "seeping in" of a non-local population that did not result in a change of either economic base or ideology. There is no evidence of an incoming population at the tirne of change to Neolithic economy and integration of sites into the cultural circle of the Balkan Neolithic, but rather of a local population accepting the new way of life.

Research at the old graveyard locality in the village Trnjane, near Pozarevac, have left the deepest impression on the professor Srboljub Zivanovic: Moving from the Danube to Pozarevac, we are finding skeletons - from the distant prehistoric times to the present day. Closest to Danube are Cro magnon skeletons. Further away you go, closer to present day you come, but genetically and anthropologically they are the same people the same population. The fact that we have continual use of the same spot for burrial purposes from prehistoric times to today, with the same type of skeletons from prehistoric times to today, forces us to conclude that today's inhabitants of Pozarevac (Eastern Serbia) are the same people who lived in prehistoric times in Lepenski vir - cro magnons. If you want to know if you are a descendant of a cro magnon, check the crown of your head. If you have a bump there, a ridge, you are descendant of a cro magnon. If it is all smooth, you came to Balkan from somewhere else.

R1a1-M17 accounts for about one-seventh to one-sixth of Serbian Y-chromosomes. Its frequency peaks in Poland (56.4%) and Ukraine (54.0%), and its variance peaks in northern Bosnia.[1] It originated around 20,000 ybp likely in southern Siberia, and some of its bearers migrated to the Balkans 10,000 to 13,000 ybp. About 5000 to 6000 ybp, they began to migrate from the Balkans to the west toward the Atlantic, to the north toward the Baltic Sea and Scandinavia, to the east to the Russian plains and steppes, and to the south to Asia Minor.[4] It became the most predominant haplogroup in the general Slavic paternal gene pool. The variance of R1a1 in the Balkans might have been enhanced by infiltrations of Indo-European speaking peoples between 2000 and 1000 BC, and by the Slavic migrations to the region in the early Middle Ages.[1][2] A descendant lineage of R1a1-M17, R1a1a7-M458, which has the highest frequency in central and southern Poland (30%, more than half of total R1a1 there), is also observed among East Slavic and Finno-Ugric peoples, but it is very rare among South Slavs, including Serbs.[5]

Drilling or perforating materials such as bone, shell, ivory, antler, stone or wood is a technological skill that was first invented in the distant past archaeological record. The earliest examples date to a period in time when Neanderthals were still living in Europe and the Near East. The oldest scientifically recognized drilled beads were made of ostrich eggshells. They were discovered in an early Later Stone Age stratum in Border Cave, in South Africa and date to sometime between 45,000 and 33,000 years ago.

FOUR DIFFERENT DRILLING DEVICES

FROM "A STUDY OF THE PRIMITIVE METHODS OF DRILLING", J.D. McGUIRE 1896.

Many different primitive hole drilling devices have been invented by different cultures around the world. These four drawings illustrate four of them, although there are many more. The one on the left is a bow drill, the next one is a pump drill, then a disc drill and the one to the right is an Eskimo strap drill.
There is no way of knowing which, if any, of these techniques were used to drill shell beads at Cahokia. It's only logical to theorize that one of these fairly simple machines might have been used. Only the stone drill bits and some of the drilled shells have survived. Most of the lesser stable materials that would have been used to make a drilling device have decayed long ago. But it wouldn't be impossible to find evidence of one. There has been some wooden objects found at Cahokia. In Mound 72 some of the wooden cedar stretchers were preserved and in feature 227 there was some matting and bark preserved. Also in feature 237 there was a section of twisted knotted cord.

The first drill must have been developed from an awl. An awl is defined as a small pointed tool for piercing holes in leather, wood and other soft materials.

The first drill was probably held in one hand against the material to be drilled and simply turned back and forth until a hole was bored through.

SHELL BEAD AND HAFTED MICRO-DRILL
THE MICRO-DRILL IS GREG PERINO COLLECTION

The stone micro-drill laying in the hole of this large flat disc shell bead is a perfect fit. It's one of the larger drills in the collection and the bead is one of the largest examples from the Cahokia Mounds site area. There have been hafting experiments of micro-drills done by different people over the years. Dan and Phyllis Morse (1983) reports on experiments done by Michael Sierzchula in 1980. He hafted the drills in freshly cut cane that was cut near a joint (growth node) so the joint would stop the drill from pushing in too deep. The spongy pith in the center of the cane is strong enough to hold the drill without any other fixing agent.

Large numbers of drilled objects begin to appear 34 to 28 thousand years ago during the Aurignacian period in Europe. Excavations in caves and open air sites show that an explosion of sudden and innovative cultural changes took place. People begin to use musical instruments which indicates possible ceremony, ritual and dance. Plus all forms of art appears at this time which signifies the full emergence of modern symbolic expression. Personal adornment in the form of pierced objects also becomes evident in abundance at this time. Bead making and the technology to drill holes has been an important part of human development and social structures for a long time.