tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-74038058345795562052024-03-13T14:11:04.342-07:00Emmanuel Goldstein's 24-hour Happy HourI am a man on the run. As far as the Party is concerned, I am the living embodiment of subversion. Of social breakdown. Of chaos. In the meantime, I provide you with penetrating reviews of hopeless bits of geek culture and links to the strangest, most absurd, and just plain interesting corners of the interwebs.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.comBlogger71125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-57546939446577735512011-06-02T13:39:00.001-07:002011-06-02T13:39:50.559-07:00So, if monkeys ever learn to speak......apparently we'll burn them to death.<br />
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http://www.timeslive.co.za/local/article1092039.ece/Monkey-witch-burnt-by-mobEmmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-42729759689893056932011-06-02T06:30:00.000-07:002011-06-02T06:30:47.443-07:00Half-man, half-bat, half-pig...but all stylishhttp://xenophilius.wordpress.com/2011/04/22/shape-shifting-monster-plagues-south-africa-town/<br />
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You know what I like best about ManBatPig? When he changes into human form, he wears a suit. Witnesses didn't say what kind of suit, but I'm thinking Armani, or at least Brooks Brothers. Nobody said shapeshifting horrors from beyond this dimension had to be downscale!Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-56746630982244319052011-06-01T13:44:00.000-07:002011-06-01T13:44:41.844-07:00Sargeant, arrest that goat!http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7846822.stm<br />
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I tell ya, ya just never know when a goat might turn out to be a shapeshifting thief. Just like you can never tell if a random chicken is actually a transmogrified rapist, or if Bessy the milk-cow might actually be a 1987 graduate of the Yale Business School on the run for securities fraud.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-54853443069880718552011-05-31T11:21:00.000-07:002011-05-31T11:27:29.133-07:00Penis snatchers in BeninWell, since it sounded like a good idea at the time, why not a series of posts on African witchcraft panics? Here's one about a magical thief on the loose in the country of Benin who's using his juju to rob you of your...um...hoohoo...ah, ahem. Let's start again. Here's a magical thief who's using his mojo to rob you of your...um...jojo...I'm having a little trouble with the rhymes here...there's an unscrupulous wizard who's jonesing to take away your gizzard...ah crap, no. In Benin there are witches whose power it is to shrink, and lately they've been focused on your...dink. Okay, let's go with that one, shall we?<br />
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http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/04/23/us-witchcraft-idUSN2319603620080423Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-87448654580986028082011-05-26T15:43:00.000-07:002011-05-26T15:43:26.160-07:00Magic penises and wives who turn into snails...<a href="http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Magic-penis-killing-set-for-trial-date-20110525">http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Magic-penis-killing-set-for-trial-date-20110525</a><br />
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Somebody could do a blog on African witchcraft stories alone.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-76918189955413337902011-05-19T19:42:00.001-07:002011-05-20T05:26:43.728-07:00Let's play: whose kid is that?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snK5Fu_H-94/TdXUlx_qCtI/AAAAAAAAAIY/Ugqs31bMEGw/s1600/000000000000000000000000mildred21.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="316" width="305" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-snK5Fu_H-94/TdXUlx_qCtI/AAAAAAAAAIY/Ugqs31bMEGw/s320/000000000000000000000000mildred21.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Look to da choppas! Check out the teeth on that kid. Now, what celeb sports such an appalling orthodontal condition? Hint: it's not Madonna (in this case).Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-89044070021586101292011-05-18T16:19:00.000-07:002011-05-18T16:21:23.166-07:00Strauss-Kahn's real accuser, Nafissatou DialloThe woman below is NOT Dominique Strauss-Kahn's actual accuser. DSK's actual accuser is a 32-year old woman from Guinea, not Ghana, named Nafissatou Diallo:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U_iYlDkxCOs/TdRTO1AVBkI/AAAAAAAAAII/gR1fwWrwVhE/s1600/00000000000000000000000000000000000000000image_Nafissatou_Diallo2_598442146.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="274" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-U_iYlDkxCOs/TdRTO1AVBkI/AAAAAAAAAII/gR1fwWrwVhE/s320/00000000000000000000000000000000000000000image_Nafissatou_Diallo2_598442146.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The internet media got the identity of the accuser wrong, wrong, WRONG!<br />
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In addition, I, Emmanuel Goldstein, also posted an incorrect picture of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, for which I apologize. THIS is the correct photo of the man who nearly became President of France:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T1I26Yisn10/TdRT9fHzwMI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/uPZEXWis2Hk/s1600/0000000000000000000000000thorny-devil3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="280" width="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-T1I26Yisn10/TdRT9fHzwMI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/uPZEXWis2Hk/s320/0000000000000000000000000thorny-devil3.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The Gallic charm is unmistakeable.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-88849093488413436562011-05-17T19:31:00.000-07:002011-05-21T17:51:53.315-07:00Ophelia Famotidina: Dominique Strauss-Kahn's accuserThat's her name, and yes, this is merely a traffic-boosting ploy by yours truly. People really do want to know the "other side" of a horrible rape story, if only out of curiosity. Mrs. Famotidina is a 32-year old Muslim immigrant to the USA from Ghana.<br />
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Do you feel some sense of shame in trying to find out the name of the woman Dominique Strauss-Kahn allegedly raped?<br />
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Well, Watergate does not bother me. Does your conscience bother you? Now tell the truth.<br />
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Anyway, somebody immediately bought up the URL:<br />
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http://opheliafamotidina.com/<br />
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This is Mrs. Famotidina:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q9qZUPR4jQ4/TdMtUYhZCgI/AAAAAAAAAHw/j9UUHmK7468/s1600/aaaaaaaaaa195599_100002423981023_165701_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="255" width="180" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q9qZUPR4jQ4/TdMtUYhZCgI/AAAAAAAAAHw/j9UUHmK7468/s320/aaaaaaaaaa195599_100002423981023_165701_n.jpg" /></a></div><br />
This is the very wealthy Frenchman accused of the crime against Mrs. Famotidina. This appears to be his booking photo:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3wbRWmD8FVk/TdMu10W0s5I/AAAAAAAAAIA/hNpGaXRlpUc/s1600/l_01266c347b0b40f6985bd4ed7a6ea2fd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="266" width="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3wbRWmD8FVk/TdMu10W0s5I/AAAAAAAAAIA/hNpGaXRlpUc/s320/l_01266c347b0b40f6985bd4ed7a6ea2fd.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Or maybe that's not him. Maybe that's a wrinkle-faced fruit bat. I have trouble telling those ugly little fruit bats and wizened, flaccid, perverse, elderly, arrogant European sybarites apart a lot of the time.<br />
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I guess by making the comparison I'm deeply insulting the wrinkle-faced fruit bats, who by all accounts are well-behaved little frugivores who never cause any problems for the NYPD.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-50106968593704244402011-05-02T14:38:00.000-07:002011-05-02T14:41:03.987-07:00So...what does Taiwan think about the dead bin Laden?The burning question we've all been wondering...what is Taiwan's reaction to bin Laden's death?<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/UiDyrkU0WAQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Okay, so maybe it's not the reaction of Taiwan as a whole, but it <b>is</b> the reaction of a couple of Taiwanese computer animators on Youtube. And that's good enough for me, damn it!<br />
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Be sure to enjoy bin Laden's gangbang fate in Hell.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-43829002566446227462011-05-02T09:39:00.000-07:002011-05-02T09:39:26.344-07:00The fake bin Laden death pictureManny Goldstein, always here meeting all your fake, dead bin Laden needs:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gxN-W69dy6w/Tb7eOc-YKnI/AAAAAAAAAHo/r0Xc4RZkWro/s1600/000000000000000000000000000004442.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="155" width="270" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gxN-W69dy6w/Tb7eOc-YKnI/AAAAAAAAAHo/r0Xc4RZkWro/s320/000000000000000000000000000004442.png" /></a></div>Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-47094328143750197912011-05-01T10:33:00.000-07:002011-05-01T10:34:13.750-07:00Sikhs have sword fight in Queens, NYI don't know much about the Sikh religion. But they seem pretty pissed, which tells me this isn't a part of their usual practice. Nevertheless, it's the coolest video I've seen from the inside of any temple in ages. Hell, if every Sunday morning turned into something out of "Captain Blood" my ass would be in that pew without fail.<br />
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http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/RAW_VIDEO___Sword_Fight_at_Sikh_Temple_New_York-120738319.htmlEmmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-3230916985800936682011-04-12T06:42:00.000-07:002011-04-12T06:45:08.075-07:00Iranians...burn the Koran?<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ol_AeolsKIU" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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I'm going by the Washington Times translation (that could be a collection of Far Side cartoons they're burning, for all I know), but they're burning what is apparently a Koran because a) it was foisted upon them by Arab invaders; and b) consequently Iran has been backwards for 1400 years. <br />
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Now, allegedly this video comes from IRAN. If true, these two have some serious, <b>serious</b> cahones.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-67834152877292594082011-04-11T16:11:00.001-07:002011-04-11T16:12:33.180-07:00The wondrous flying man of Turkey<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/7ChmyJ9K7T4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Fun fact about the Turkish language: the verb "to fly" also means "to shout and roll across the floor like you're having a grand mal seizure."Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-1099005637903893922011-04-10T20:43:00.000-07:002011-04-11T16:04:57.255-07:00Nina Hagen provides an intrduction to German musicOk, all you confused sorts out there. Watch this. It should help. Or maybe not.<br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/n1Sq5iEJv8o" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-45502590522219657512011-04-10T20:31:00.000-07:002011-04-10T20:33:10.840-07:00An oldie but a...goodie?<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/gma5IUNMTn0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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This is not a recent video (circa 1980 or so), but it is a good intro for all of you Phillistines out there who've never of German treasure Klaus Nomi. Observe Klaus and then consider yourself among the Germanically culturally literate. But not literate enough just yet...at this point your German studies certificate is barely an associate's degree. C'mon, we've got a lot to cover, so let's crank...Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-16571340524463299582011-04-05T19:23:00.000-07:002011-04-05T19:25:38.812-07:00To hell with Bono, this stuff is better<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/ljPFZrRD3J8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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What kind of a shit world do we live on, where U2 is a household name but "Rubberbandits" isn't? But as a certain once-famous Huey told us, "ain't no livin' in a perfect world."Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-59674589380893962052011-03-25T13:31:00.001-07:002011-03-25T15:04:03.385-07:00What ended life on Mars?In a recent address before the people of the world, President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela averred that Mars once had life, but lost it due to <br />
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A) a massive meteor strike that melted the planet's entire surface<br />
B) the inability of the small planet to hold on to its atmosphere<br />
C) the decline of the planet's magnetic field and consequent inability to avoid dangerous radiation<br />
D) Capitalism<br />
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http://www.news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110322/od_nm/us_venezuela_chavez_marsEmmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-54762280504179173962011-03-22T23:20:00.000-07:002011-03-23T09:30:57.588-07:00No, this video is not from Japan (but it is...NSFW. Trust me on that!!)<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/KbW9JqM7vho" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Okay, after spending the past four posts on the teeth and bones of Archaic humans and writing about theories of modern human/archaic human DNA introgression, I've found myself wanting to induldge in some true, creepy, shuddersome weirdness, something I can assure you this South African music video more than contains. In the unlikely event that any of my readers have young children, please don't let them watch this video. It's not safe for kids (Not safe for bosses either--don't watch it at work!)<br />
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So what's happnening here? I'll tell you what's happening--South African Boers, while we were paying them no attention, developed an impressively surreal asthetic in between all those vuvuzeula solos at soccer games. I give you the penis-obsessed Die Antwoord, whose video features the famous South African monster known as the Tokoloshe (the little but well-endowed hairy beast dancing around), a shout-out to the movie District 9, a little albinoid goblinette wearing a coat and hood made from rats (not rat-skins or rat fur...watch the video) and dicks, dicks, dicks, everywhere (but no former VP Cheney in sight)! Even Casper the Ghost's, for God's sake (Casper's been putting those "male enlargement" e-mails to work, I guess).<br />
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There <b>is</b> a serious side to all this penis-madness, related to life experiences of the young Xhosa rapper Wanga featured in the video. The video is at least a partial "up yours" to the ruling social elements of the Xhosa tribe and the practices they hold dear, such as the Xhosa manhood ceremony. This involves having a teenage boy go off into the bush on his own with a kitchen knife, performing his own circumcism, and staunching the blood flow with hot ashes from a campfire. It's easy to see how dangerous this is, and in fact well over 60 boys in 2010 died from ceremony-related shock or infection just around Cape Town alone. Finding the whole thing stupid and dangerous, Wanga decided not to undertake it--a decision that has serious social consequences for a Xhosa youth. In the segment where he raps in Xhosa he says "I don't want to be a man; Evil boy for life." Indeed, without undergoing this rite of passage, he won't be considered a real man by the conservative elements of Xhosa society.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-63718754843770203932011-03-22T17:21:00.000-07:002011-03-22T17:23:59.389-07:00The other humans, and how they relate to you #3: Africa and enigmasSo we've looked at the three human species we know to have been alive when the great migration out of Africa occurred around 50-60,000 B.C. Have we overlooked anyone? Were there other human populations still around? It seems pretty likely.<br />
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Just how "fossil" are non-sub-Saharan African humans? The minimum archaic DNA in Europeans and Han Chinese, for instance, seems to be around 1-4%--the equivalent, on the upper end, of a great-great grandparent. Melanesians, who have Neanderthal as well as Denisovan ancestors, range slightly higher: 4-9%. The existence of yet another population of archaic humans might be also be inferred from genetic analysis of sub-Saharan Africans themselves, who average around 13% archaic DNA even when they lack European, Asian, or Melanesian ancestry. In short, while there is evidence that Africans encountered and bred with other human species outside of Africa, they also bred with archaic humans inside of Africa as well.<br />
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But wait...if modern humans came from Africa, what the heck were non-modern humans doing in Africa? The simple answer is that modern humans originated within a certain part of Africa--either in the south or the east. Africa is a big continent, big enough to allow multiple types of humans to coexist for long periods of time without much interaction (remember, this was back in caveman times when you couldn't just hop in a car or plane and suddenly be in a different part of the continent a few hours later). When modern African humans and archaic African humans finally did interact, they apparently interacted like human populations did elsewhere in the world--sex, sex, and more sex. The fact that 13% of their DNA is still hanging around in modern Africans just means that the mixing process probably had a longer time to occur in Africa than elsewhere.<br />
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But who were these archaic guys? Nobody is really sure.<br />
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A guess might be <b>Homo rhodesiensis<i></i></b>:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dNiyOekbiU/TYk81TCWAzI/AAAAAAAAAHg/jVv_Q1rhuX4/s1600/homo_rhodesiensis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="227" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4dNiyOekbiU/TYk81TCWAzI/AAAAAAAAAHg/jVv_Q1rhuX4/s320/homo_rhodesiensis.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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This is a species whose validity as a taxon is somewhat controversial. Based primarily on a fossil known as the Kabwe Skull (discovered in Kabwe, Zambia) and a few other fossils around 125-400,000 years old, <i>H. rhodesiensis</i> has been variously classified as <i>Homo erectus</i>, <i>Homo sapiens</i> (albeit a very old version), <i>Homo heidelbergensis</i>, and as its own species. Whatever his true nature, we can say a few things about these remains with confidence: they looked distinctively different from modern humans--for starters, they had the largest brow ridges known of any member of the human line, and secondarily, they were extremely robust, more so than even Neandethal (now that's robust!). In fact, some researchers have called <i>H. rhodesiensis </i>the "African Neanderthal" because of these features, although he was probably only distantly related to the Neanderthals proper.<br />
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Part of what makes <i>H. rhodesiensis </i>so confusing from a taxonomic standpoint is his apparent close relationship with modern <i>H. sapiens</i>; anthropologist Tim White considers rhodesiensis to have been the immediate ancestor of <i>Homo sapiens idaltu</i>, an East African population that may have given rise to the very people who overtook the great journey out of Africa 50,000+ years ago. So if the anatomically-modern ancestors of today's African interbred with <i>H. rhodesiensis</i>, they were in a sense breeding with grandpa. Before you say <i>ewwww</i>, remember that this really isn't any different than an American WASP having children with someone from England, or a woman from Quebec having children with a Frenchman, but instead of hundreds of years there might be hundreds of thousands of years separating the two populations.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-37648994165043495362011-03-19T18:57:00.000-07:002011-03-19T18:59:54.806-07:00The other humans, and how they relate to you #2: the Denisovans and Hobbits2. <b>The Denisovans:</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3SOMnwnA0E/TYVXq1JGwbI/AAAAAAAAAHI/blIhNipy5k4/s1600/new-hominid-denisovans-tooth_30648_600x450.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="205" width="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3SOMnwnA0E/TYVXq1JGwbI/AAAAAAAAAHI/blIhNipy5k4/s320/new-hominid-denisovans-tooth_30648_600x450.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Other than their remains were found in a cave in southern Siberia and contributed to the genes of modern-day Melanesians, there isn't much known about the mysterious Denisovans. We don't even have much in the way of remains--the above tooth, plus a broken finger bone; and that's it. However, the DNA inside the remains was still in very good shape and could be examined by scientists. While the remains were originally thought to come from Neanderthals, analysis showed that the DNA was far too divergent to belong to that species of humans; in fact, the Denisovans show nearly as much divergence in time as exists between modern humans and Neanderthals! That is to say, both of these groups were descended from a population that left Africa around one million years ago and split into two groups. The ancestors of the Denisovans went east, and the ancestors of the Neanderthals went west, and while they may have met in the middle overall there was little interaction between the two groups. The Denisovans were, then, a third species, one that was neither modern human nor Neanderthal, but something unique.<br />
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Could Denisovans once have ranged all over Asia, in the fashion that Neanderthals did over Europe and the Middle East? Given the existence of admixture with Melanesians, it's certainly possible. What did they look like? Given that we've only got a finger bone and a tooth, its impossible to say, although presumably they didn't range any further outside the human form than the Neanderthals did. Maybe Google Image Search knows what they looked like--I got this picture when I searched for "Denisova":<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OaZ4TnBm3_g/TYVaX41zmQI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/idIqyb6rK-k/s1600/00000001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="251" width="201" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OaZ4TnBm3_g/TYVaX41zmQI/AAAAAAAAAHQ/idIqyb6rK-k/s320/00000001.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Great googly-moogly! No wonder modern humans bred with them!<br />
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3. <b>The Hobbits:</b><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Kjz48tpu2EU/TYVaq6KtNyI/AAAAAAAAAHY/wbI407HjHeg/s1600/homo-floresiensis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="235" width="182" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Kjz48tpu2EU/TYVaq6KtNyI/AAAAAAAAAHY/wbI407HjHeg/s320/homo-floresiensis.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<i>Homo floresiensis</i>, aka "Hobbits" are the most exotic of the fossil human species, and incidentally the most recent--some of their remains are no more than 13,000 years old, meaning they lived contemporaneously with modern humans for 11,000 years longer than did the Neanderthals (at minimum). <br />
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Physically <i>H.floresiensis </i>is the most divergent of any known human species. For starters, they're tiny: about one meter tall, an example of an evolutionary phenomenon known as "island dwarfing." Basically, when animals are isolated on island environments (and in the case of the Hobbits this was the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia) they tend to get smaller than their ancestors back on the mother continent. <br />
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Of the three human species that shared the planet with Homo sapiens, <i>H. floresiensis </i> is the most likely to be considered a "species" in the traditional view of the term. The Hobbits were, for instance, very likely to be reproductively isolated from moderns, both due to their size and the peculiar features of their brain development. Hobbits had brains one-quarter the size of modern brains, and yet they appear to have been as intelligent as any other early human, capable of making stone tools and engaging in cooperative hunting. Apparently their tiny-but-smart nature was accomplished by shrinking certain areas of the brain while leaving or enlarging others. Given the very intricate nature of brain development in modern human fetuses, it's hard to imagine human-hobbit interbreeding having any sort of happy ending, but who knows? It's not as if we have any evidence for or against. As for the Hobbits' DNA, we know nothing about it--DNA could not be extracted from their remains.<br />
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Although the most recent Hobbit remains are 13,000 years old, we don't know when the species became extinct. According to modern Flores natives, there were still little hairy folk around when the Portuguese arrived on the island (16th century). A few optimistic folk speculate that H.floresiensis isn't extinct even now, but lurking deep in the Indonesian jungles in the form of the Orang Pendek (Indonesian for "Short Man"), a hairy little humanlike creature from the folklore of Java (think of the Orang Pendek as Bigfoot's "Mini-Me," if you will).Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-17993452242235487552011-03-19T17:01:00.000-07:002011-03-20T05:25:59.384-07:00The other humans--and how they relate to you #1: the NeanderthalsOkay, so in my last post we established that modern humans, emerging from Africa 50-60000 years ago, interbred with archaic "fossil" forms of humans living in other parts of the world. This interbreeding, if drawn in graph form, looks something like this:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5xuMuqmgdD4/TYVDkTp5rmI/AAAAAAAAAG4/NLmE4cqD-h4/s1600/HumanFamilyTree.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="257" width="304" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5xuMuqmgdD4/TYVDkTp5rmI/AAAAAAAAAG4/NLmE4cqD-h4/s320/HumanFamilyTree.gif" /></a></div><br />
So, as we see here, Han Chinese, Melanesians (a big group of people living on islands in the western Pacific, which includes Papuans and Solomon Islanders), and Frenchmen all have a certain degree of Neanderthal ancestry. Melanesians, however, also have ancestry attributed to the mysterious Denisovans.<br />
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When the first modern humans exited Africa, they encountered several other species of living humans. These "fossil" humans can no longer be considered mere extinct side branches of the human family tree; if you are not sub-Saharan African, then they are your ancestors.<br />
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We know based on the dating of remains that there were three non-African human species alive at the time of the great migration from Africa. Up first is:<br />
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1. <b>The Neanderthals</b><br />
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The best-known of the archaic humans, Neanderthal man inhabited Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia (perhaps as far east as the Altai Mountains in southern Siberia) between 350,000 and 30,000 years ago. The Neanderthals, or at least their traits, co-existed with modern humans for at least 25,000 years. The oldest accepted Neanderthal site is found in Croatia (dated between 32-30,000 years ago) with a more controversial site located in Lagar Velho, southern Portugal (estimated at 24,500 years old).<br />
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Neanderthal man was the classic "caveman," with a somewhat flattened, elongated skull, beetling brow, and chinless jaw. These early humans were quite short, with the males maxing out at a height of around five feet, six inches. According to the most recent scientific findings I just made up, Neanderthals were highly insecure about their height, making them very hard to put up with. This created a social distance that allowed the Neanderthals to co-exist with modern humans for 25,000 years. What they lacked in height they made up in might, for Neanderthals were much stronger than modern humans, especially in their arms and hands.<br />
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Neanderthals hunted with spears, could make fire, could speak as well or nearly as well as moderns, buried their dead, and wore clothing. They apparently lacked a couple of inventions we moderns take for granted: missile weapons and needles. Without missile weapons, such as bows, Neanderthals were forced to kill the animals they hunted at close range, the danger of which is obvious; and without needles, the types of clothing they could make was limited to skins held together with small bone awls. While in many ways Neanderthals were very much like modern-day primitive peoples, there is evidence that their mental processes may have been very different from our own: there is no evidence that Neanderthals created representational art, or in fact art of any kind--a trait they actually shared with early modern Homo sapiens. This implications of this are not clear: were Neanderthals (and early modern humans) capable of less abstract thought than we are? Could they grasp metaphors? Did they possess a sense of beauty, of the numinous? In any case, the earliest known representational art is about 35,000 years old, and in all known cases linked to modern human populations. Is the ability to create and appreciate art the result of a genes or genes that arose after Neanderthal-human admixture?<br />
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It's also not known if Neanderthals could appreciate or create music, although there is the famous find of the Divje Babe flute from Slovenia. A hollowed-out bear femur from a Neanderthal site, the object has been variously interpreted as either a musical instrument and the result of another bear chewing on the dead bear's remains. In his book <i>The Singing Neanderthals</i> (2006) Steven Mithen hypothesized that Neanderthal communication was not purely linguistic, but a sort of hybrid language-music, with the separation of the two not occurring until later in human development. It may be that, like art, an appreciation and comprehension of music is an almost exclusive development of later humans--<b>almost</b> exclusive, that is, because at least one group of animals has also been shown to understand music: the Psittaciformes Order of birds (better known as parrots).Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-62629841233309768312011-03-17T20:07:00.000-07:002011-03-17T20:10:37.160-07:00Okay, sapiens--time to meet the rest of the familyIn my previous post on Solomon Island blonds, I brought up the unexpected relationship between New Guineans/Solomon Islanders and a fossil group of humans, the Denisovans. The evidence of Denisovans in the family tree of Oceania was the second such proof of modern human-fossil human mixing during prehistoric times, with the first study showing admixture between Neanderthals and pretty much everybody who isn't sub-Saharan African. Since Oceanians are definitely not sub-Saharan Africans, that means they've got both Denisovan AND Neanderthal ancestors, with the bulk of their genes being from a group that left Africa 50-60,000 years or so ago.<br />
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So, you might be asking, this is all well and good, but what the hell does it <b>mean</b>, exactly? First off...what's the difference between a fossil and a modern human?<br />
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Whew...ye gods, how do I brew this down into a few sentences? "Modern humans"--meaning people who look more or less like the sort of people you see wandering around now--originated in Eastern Africa 200,000 years or so ago. At the time of these earliest "modern humans" there were older populations of humans who'd left Africa a million or so years ago to inhabit Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Since there was no little or no mixing between Africans and the people in Europe, Asia, etc. over the intervening 800,000+ years, the people on these continents had developed greater physical differences than Africans, Europeans, Asians, etc. possess now. These physical differences were sufficient enough that these regional human variations are usually considered to be not just different races, but different <b>species</b> altogether. Just as there are different species of parrots or dogs (domestic dogs, coyotes, wolves, etc.), two hundred thousand years ago there were several different species of humans.<br />
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Between the mid-1980s and last year, the majority of scientists considered these various human species unlikely to have successfully interbred. The modern humans who lived in East Africa finally decided to get off their caveman arses around 50-60,000 years ago and go check out the rest of the planet, and when they did they were so superior to the older human forms that they simply wiped them completely out. <br />
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This hypothesis, called "Out of Africa" received a bit of a serious blow in early 2010, however, when it was shown by scientists at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany and UC Santa Cruz that modern human DNA could be shown to have Neanderthal ancestry. The older idea of us moderns tromping out of Africa and hunting down the hapless, stupid, and hairy Neanderthals was out. Our ancestors had made love, not war, and the evidence could still be shown in Europeans, Chinese, and Papuans. <br />
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The picture of human prehistory got even messier in December 2010, when researchers sequenced the DNA from a fossil finger bone and a tooth. They were able to show that the owners of the finger and tooth were not Neanderthals, as they expected, but a second group of humans that had been isolated from the Neanderthals for 500,000 years or more. Since the relics came from a came in southern Siberia known as Denisova Cave, these people have come to be known as the Denisova Hominids--and their DNA was still apparent among the living people of Oceania.<br />
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So, got all that?<br />
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Next up, we'll get to actually meet the fossil humans whose neighbourhoods our thoughtless, boorish ancestors blundered into all those years ago.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-70507757955753349522011-03-17T09:51:00.000-07:002011-03-17T10:12:39.022-07:00More on unexpected human phenotypesThe children below are from the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific. They aren't mixed; despite their dark complexions children are very often born with blond hair:<br />
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Normally as the children age, though, their hair darkens, turning a dark brown or black. In some cases, such as this woman, it remains a sort of dark reddish-brown:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v1x1VGJ75sM/TYI8CZGUw-I/AAAAAAAAAGQ/iRChszd0XP4/s1600/solomon-islands-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="261" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-v1x1VGJ75sM/TYI8CZGUw-I/AAAAAAAAAGQ/iRChszd0XP4/s320/solomon-islands-2.jpg" /></a></div><br />
As far as I know, the genetics of this hasn't been investigated, but this phenomenon is also seen among the Aboriginals of nearby Australia, where blond children and teenagers have been noted, especially among the desert tribes, for a long time.<br />
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Incidentally, the people of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands (or at least Bougainville Island, which is close to the Solomon Islands) were recently found to possess some truly exotic ancestry--they still retain genes that appear to be from a newly-discovered prehistoric species of humans called the Denisovans. Since the only known fossil remains of the Denisovans have been found in Siberia, that either suggests the ancestors of the New Guineans/Bougainvilliers took the scenic route when they left Africa (and weren't adverse to getting they freak on with the nearest cavemen), that the Denisovans were much more widespread throughout than just Siberia, or the ancestors of the Islanders absorbed some group that had already bred with the Denisovans.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-533400326359336022011-03-17T00:36:00.001-07:002011-03-17T05:25:51.079-07:00Oh good grief, Malaysia<object width="400" height="300" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="ep"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://ireport.cnn.com/themes/custom/resources/cvplayer/ireport_embed.swf?player=embed&configPath=http://ireport.cnn.com&playlistId=570978&contentId=570978/0&" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><embed src="http://ireport.cnn.com/themes/custom/resources/cvplayer/ireport_embed.swf?player=embed&configPath=http://ireport.cnn.com&playlistId=570978&contentId=570978/0&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="300"></embed></object><br />
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This appeared in a Malaysian newspaper covering the Japanese tsunami; massive <i>lulz</i> were not had by all.<br />
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In case you don't get it, that's Japanese superhero Ultraman running from the wave...Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7403805834579556205.post-8970938383441389212011-03-15T18:44:00.000-07:002011-03-15T22:07:54.517-07:00Unexpected human phenotypesA "phenotype" is what you look like--the physical expression of your genes, and here are three people whose phenotypes aren't what you'd necessarily expect:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jChDXGdFFzQ/TYAViaBlEhI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/hIFTt9mkYTs/s1600/AsianBlueEyes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="160" width="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jChDXGdFFzQ/TYAViaBlEhI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/hIFTt9mkYTs/s320/AsianBlueEyes.jpg" /></a></div><br />
I haven't been able to locate the ultimate origin of these images, so I can only speculate on the parts of the world where these people originate and on their ancestry. The two Asians could easily be from Hong Kong, and thus their appearance could be the result of having very recent British ancestors. But there's at least one other option: they could come from western China or western Mongolia.<br />
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There is a large "belt" of mixed-race people stretching across what used to be called "Turania" and is now called "Turkestan"; the easternmost part of Turkestan is the land of the Uighur people. They call it either Uighurstan or East Turkestan; the Chinese call it "Xinjiang," meaning "eastern frontier." Here are a few pictures of Uighurs:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qQZYX2gjwzI/TYAZKrRhltI/AAAAAAAAAFg/h-zVMWuqG-E/s1600/uighur.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qQZYX2gjwzI/TYAZKrRhltI/AAAAAAAAAFg/h-zVMWuqG-E/s320/uighur.jpg" /></a></div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1bLl0OTgnls/TYAZafyKkrI/AAAAAAAAAFo/hsJi8AAMCrw/s1600/uighur_people4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="320" width="226" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1bLl0OTgnls/TYAZafyKkrI/AAAAAAAAAFo/hsJi8AAMCrw/s320/uighur_people4.jpg" /></a></div><br />
While not all Uighurs look like this, these individuals clearly have Caucasian ancestry, as do most people from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and so forth. But while the Turkmen and Uzbek primarily get their Caucasian genes from Iranian peoples, the Uighurs appear to be at least partially European in their makeup...which might explain the occasional blue eyes and red hair found in Uighurstan. Four thousand years ago, Uighurstan was inhabited by a people known today as the Tocharians, whose mummies are well-known to anyone versed in the history of China:<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FcMUmZofbmE/TYAc1fbXfYI/AAAAAAAAAF4/1BaZfYYWeLA/s1600/AAAAAmummy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="223" width="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-FcMUmZofbmE/TYAc1fbXfYI/AAAAAAAAAF4/1BaZfYYWeLA/s320/AAAAAmummy.jpg" /></a></div><br />
The above is probably the best known of the Tarim Basin mummies: a 5'9" blond man with the partial remnants of a moustache. Below we have the brown-haired "Beauty of Xiaohe," sometimes called the "Witch of Xiaohe" because of the pointy hat she was buried in:<br />
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And here is the auburn-haired "Beauty of Loulan," a hyper-petite (4'9" tall), 4000-year old female who is considered by many Uighurs to be "the Mother of the Uighur Nation":<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I0vbSiy3OuM/TYAdvxujlnI/AAAAAAAAAGA/vuCnq2vJm1c/s1600/loulan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left:1em; margin-right:1em"><img border="0" height="186" width="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-I0vbSiy3OuM/TYAdvxujlnI/AAAAAAAAAGA/vuCnq2vJm1c/s320/loulan.jpg" /></a></div><br />
Where did the Tocharians come from? With modern DNA testing, we've managed to narrow down their origins in the approximate area of the Ukraine, and textile and other archaeological remains suggest the same thing.<br />
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Where did they go? Well, judging from the living individuals above, it wouldn't be wrong to say "the Tocharians didn't go anywhere!" Except that it <b>would</b> be wrong. There's strong evidence to suggest the Tocharians were pushed out of the lands they'd occupied for 3000 or more years by the invading Xiongnu--a people who'd gain infamy a century or so later when they invaded Europe: those implacable foes of Rome, the Huns. The Tocharians initially settled in Afghanistan, but further westward invasions forced subsequent migrations. There is some evidence that they were pushed all the way back into the land they'd left 5000 years or so before--the Ukraine!<br />
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Regardless of where they wound up, the genetic legacy of the Tocharians still lives on among the Uighurs.<br />
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As for that blond dude up there in the first three pics...um, I'm not sure what's up with that. I'm going to do some digging around the 'net to see if I can determine where he might have come from.Emmanuel Goldsteinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10055910837943787896noreply@blogger.com2