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The appearance of pre-historic humans
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calvo View Drop Down
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: The appearance of pre-historic humans
    Posted: 05-Feb-2009 at 07:56
Up until now, a large number of skulls have been excavated of pre-historic homo-sapiens. These include Mungo man in Australia 50000 years ago, Cro-Magnons in Europe 40000 years ago, human remains in China 20000 years ago, and dozens of neolithic graves in Catalhoyuk and Jerico some 9000 years ago.
Not long ago scientists have also found mass Neolithic graves in the Sahara pertaining to 2 distinct populations who had lived there 8000 years ago and 6000 years ago.
 
Has anyone ever made any reconstructions to represent what these ancient human beings had looked like?
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Posts: 952 		  Quote Paul Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Feb-2009 at 15:07
I think it depends what you mean by look like. They were modern humans like us in everyway, maybe a bit shorter. So are you talking about dress, hair style, tattoo and such. If so knowledge is very limited, clothing and jewely can be found in graves but make up and such is more difficult.
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calvo View Drop Down
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Feb-2009 at 09:58
First of all, facial appearance and body build.
Despite humans beings from 200,000 years ago were already anatomically modern; the human body has evolved substantially over the last dozens of mileniums to adapt to different climate changes and diets.
What we refer to as "racial features" of Mongoloids, Caucasoids, Indians etc. today probably did not have so long a history. For example, the common ancestors of most Europeans and all Siberians and Native Americans who lived in Central Asia 35000 years ago probably looked like neither of these descendant populations today.
 
Even until very recent milenniums there were substantial changes in physionomy. Archaeologists have found a common mass grave in the Sahara desert used by 2 different Neolithic population groups separated by 2000 years (8000 and 6000 years ago); and their physionomies were radically different. One group were about 15cm than the other.
 
Clothing is another issue. When did people start wearing shoes for example?
 
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Posts: 925 		  Quote beorna Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Feb-2009 at 10:30
The mongolisation of the North East Asian population had just started, when they entered the American continent. So we have to think of these process between 35000 and 20.000 years ago. Even in Africa the typical negroid habitus was, because it was very dry during the Ice Age, not existing.
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-Mar-2009 at 08:33
Another interesting thought is that before the invention of metal tools, how did people cut and groom themselves?
How did they cut their hair, shave their beards, and cut their nails if they didn't have scissors?

Despite the common impression that stone-age humans were savage and animal-like in appearance; many archaeological evidence suggest that they were probably rather well-groomed and cared for their physical appearance. Many women even used make-up!
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Posts: 60 		  Quote HungryWolf Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-Mar-2009 at 20:39
what about homo-erectus people? they lived around 2 millions years ago.. 


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Posts: 2394 		  Quote edgewaters Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2009 at 01:13
Originally posted by calvo

Another interesting thought is that before the invention of metal tools, how did people cut and groom themselves?

How did they cut their hair, shave their beards, and cut their nails if they didn't have scissors?

Fingernails can be chewed. As far as cutting hair and beards, I don't expect they did so much, but it is certainly possible: they had obsidian blades which are much sharper than even modern razors.
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Posts: 365 		  Quote Jams Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2009 at 12:52
The two most well known Cromagnon reconstructions:
 
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calvo View Drop Down
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Posts: 846 		  Quote calvo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 20-Mar-2009 at 18:30
The first one looks almost identical to a modern European.
The second one looks like a North American Indian.
 
What I heard was that they had higher foreheads and a very square jawbone.
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