Red Deer Cave People

As you may have heard in the news, it is thought that a new species prehistoric human has been identified from fossilised skeletal remains in south-west Asia.  A skull dug up in 1979 in Longlin Cave, Guangxi Province has only now been fully analysed, and its anatomy appears to be unique in its form against other skeletal evidence of other human ancestors.

This comes from Darren Curnoe at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.  The skull appears to show a hash of some very 'primitive' features, but also some very modern ones.  Quoting Curnoe,

"They have rounded braincases with prominent brow ridges, thick skull bones, short and flat faces, tucked under the front part of the brain, a broad nose, jutting jaws that lack a human-like chin, brains moderate in size with a modern looking frontal lobe, but primitively short parietal lobes, and they have large molar teeth."
(Source: FAQs on the Red Deer Cave People: http://www.darrencurnoe.net/documents/QA_RedDeerCavePeople.pdf )

Photo by Curnoe

This is extremely exciting, not in the least because evidence of this hominin has apparently appeared also at Mula Cave in Yunnan Province, according to Curnoe and Ji Xueping of Yunnan University.  Curnoe explains that they are hesitant to put this species in with Homo sapiens, mainly because the species H. sapiens is still under question as to what classifies as an example of one! As such, Curnoe says these people could present a 'new evolutionary line' or a 'previously unknown prehistoric population'. (See FAQs page above).

It's also exciting because as Curnoe says:
"...dated to between about 14,500 and 11,500 years ago, the Red Deer Cave people are the youngest population to be found anywhere in the world whose anatomy doesnʼt comfortably fit within the range of modern humans: whether they be modern humans from 150 or 150,000 years ago." (See FAQs page again).

That's very special indeed.  This furthers the view of a very diverse 'human' population at the end of the Ice Age, through which the Red Deer Cave people must have survived.  Christ Stringer, a British anthropologist, suggests that these Red Deer Cave people may have been related to the Denisovian people, whilst one of my lecturers last term Mike Petraglia agrees that a diverse population of 'humans' might have existed at the end of the Ice Age, more broad than we thought.

All in all, this is a very cool discovery, and I can't wait to see if the DNA of the bones from Red Deer Cave can be properly analysed.

For more information and as one of my sources, you can read the simple but meaty article from New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21586-chinese-human-fossils-unlike-any-known-species.html.  Curnoe's FAQ page is also great as a quick summary of his report.  You can read the original PLoS article here: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0031918.

Racing and the Rom

Came back very early this morning from racing the Thames at the Women's Head of the River Race (WeHORR) yesterday - a 7km course of endurance! Both Hertford College teams did well, and our novice team (W2) finished 2 places above our start, and beat the likes of St. Edmund's Hall College 1st crew.  We were also lucky enough to have been coxed by the Captain of Coxes, who was also ace despite his cox box breaking just at the start!

Having recovered (ish), I'm now reading the ethnography 'The Time of Gypsies' by Michael Stewart.  I have to write a critical essay on an ethnography of choice, and prepare a 15-minute oral presentation.  It's a very compelling read,  and because Stewart in unique in having learnt the language of the Rom, a group of Gypsies who live in Hungary, his account seems all the more intimate.

However, analysing it as an ethnography is very tricky.  Some anthropologists say that ethnographic accounts should be analysed as a piece of writing and using literary theory (Clifford 1973); some say that ethnography is as much a way of working as writing (Spencer 1989).  As such, I have my work cut out for me.  Let's hope I'll be as victorious as the rowing team in my essay!