Oldest Human Hair Found in Hyena Poop Fossil?

[Adsos Letter]

Source: National Geographic News
Charles Q. Choi
February 6, 2009

The oldest known human hairs could be the strands discovered in fossil hyena poop found in a South African cave, a new study hints.

Researchers discovered the rock-hard hyena dung near the Sterkfontein caves, where many early human ancestor fossils have been found.

Each white, round fossil turd, or coprolite, is roughly 0.8 inch (2 centimeters) across. They were found embedded in sediments 195,000 to 257,000 years old.

Until now, the oldest known human hair was from a 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.

The sizes and shapes of the coprolites and their location suggest they came from brown hyenas, which still live in the region's caves today.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/02/090206-oldest-hair-hyenas.html?source=rss

[Lost4words]

1. one of our cats ate tencle from the xmas tree!

he ran around with a poop ball trailing behind him. we donyt do tincel no mo. So I caqn relate to this story.
gottaq open this moosehead no opener! but screwdriver and needle nose, plyers not my nose.

:toast:

[Starry Messenger]

2. The original Darwin award, perhaps?

:D

[grasswire]

3. does this mean the hyena ate the human? nt

[Vattel]

5. No it doesn't.

It's possible that the human wore a primitive hat made out of hyena dung.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. The world's first

shithead.

[grasswire]

8. hahahahahaha!

Gawd, that made me laugh.

[Vattel]

9. brilliant !

[H2O Man]

10. At that general time period,

human beings were not "hunters and gatherers," as is often thought. They were "scavengers and gatherers." The name should not be thought of in a negative sense. Humans were most likely to find meat where other large "huneters" left remains -- think of the (much) earlier Olduvia Gorge .... people securing meat from "kills" near a lakeside, securing larger sections, and leaving the spot of the kill as quickly as possible. This, of course, indicates that stone "tool-making" had a variety of purposes, none more important than alowing our early ancestors to grab the food and get away from the lakeside as quickly as possible.

Getting away quickly had two purposes, both in the context of safety: first, the large hunters could be near-by, and looking for another meal; and, as this case indicates, there was competition with other scavangers, including packs of hyena, but also including large birds, etc.

[Vattel]

4. I feel bad for the 9,000-year-old Chilean mummy.

To be replaced in the Guinness book of world records by rock-hard hyena dung has got to hurt.

[Joe the Liberal]

7. Was it John McCain's hair? n/t