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On a regular basis, I sign on to #mastodon and instantly get detoured.
Back on #birdshite, I got detoured all the time - because I was being triggered by the #algorithms. Rarely if ever was I detoured by delight.
This morning, I got detoured by a fascinating article about how science has figured out how to measure Neanderthal lifespans - and even see life events - in the cementum left behind on Neanderthal teeth.
In the old days, I'd be totally enraged by now.
Here in the #fediverse, I'm actually smarter. Well, I know stuff now I didn't know before.
Thank you, Mastodon Community! We're not just social media, we're sociable media!
C.IMRadical Anthropology (@RadicalAnthro@c.im)Great blog from #JohnHawks on new lines of evidence for key stages of #Neanderthal #lifehistory (menarche, births, death)from #Krapina dental cementum samples. Looks like very few individuals survived past 30 years which is quite extraordinary (not really sustainable?) for such a large-brained human.
The cementum is plausibly giving a record of stress that could correspond to #menarche in two individuals at 15.5 yrs and 16.6 yrs, not very different from modern hunter-gatherers. If that were representative (but Krapina is not nec typical, very fragmentary sample, with something odd happening to these people) one implication would be very few surviving maternal grandmothers. That is potentially a critical difference compared with #Homosapiens. It could also explain a Neanderthal tendency for 'patrilocality' or females moving out to join a group where males were related. There is some genetic evidence to support that.
https://johnhawks.net/weblog/krapina-age-at-death-cementum-menarche/